Hitler's Secret Weapon Unveiled

[cookie]

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=832599

 

[Shangas]

"Hey Abbott! I just heard over the radio that Hitler's invented a fantastic new weapon that could end the war in five minutes!"
"End the war in five minutes!? Well what is it!?"
"A pole, with a white flag on the end of it!"

- The Abbott and Costello Program.

Seriously though...that's pretty cool. A stealth-plane in the 1940s. Neat!

 

[Davep]

The Germans had also experimented with "smart bombs"

http://www.ausairpower.net/WW2-PGMs.html

 

[Diamondback]

Actually, the original stealth-bird was in WWI: a German Rumpler Taube that was built with sheer fabric for its skinning. (Less shadows to warn the inpending targets below...)

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Now playing: John Williams - Imperial Starfleet Deployed - City in the Clouds
via FoxyTunes

 

[BellyTank]

See some photos here:
(the "Horten" files)
http://vtdl.net/share/UFOFILES/


and here:
http://www.danielsww2.com/page13.html

http://www.khs.at/nasm/nasm.htm


B
T

 

[Diamondback]

Yeah, an old college buddy wants to build a flyable Horten in his garage someday... I'm inclined to agree, except for needing some redesign to create a 2-seater version with a luggage-compartment.

Actually, there was a concept for a bigger strategic bomber, the Ho 18. Part of me, when I look at these birds, thinks about what technologies could have been, but another part says "Thank God they weren't!"

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Now playing: Jesper Kyd - Sicily Slow
via FoxyTunes

 

[Creeping Past]

Yes, this is quite well known.

The British V-bombers and the 1940s Northrop flying wing were all v-shaped, too. Guess where they got that from?

And the Lockheed U-2 -- 1950s' tech -- was painted with radar-absorbing paint.

The US's German scientists, the Russian's German scientists -- and presumably those retained by the British and French -- produced space rockets and goodness knows what else from 1945 onwards

It's gratifying that this historical scientific development is accepted as common knowledge now, rather than as some weird off-shoot of the 'main event' of US-led high-tech progress in aviation, because even in the late 1970s and early 80s, which I was getting interested in planes, these connections, when they were commented on by people in the know, were often pooh-poohed, with the accompanying suggestion that anyone making such connections was either a UFO nut or a Nazi-obsessed nut.

It was the circulation of this information about 'lost' technology in the UFO community that led to its being sidelined. Maybe some thought that the public wouldn't be too happy about widespread knowledge of the Allies' commandeering of the bulk of the Axis talent, which was developed on the back of slave labour and totalitarianism. So, for whatever reason, real tech became labelled 'lost tech' and lingered in the domain of the marginalised and ridiculed, and flourished invisibly in the hands of the victors, who profited massively, albeit at one remove, from the miserable legacy Nazi war machine.

I guess this is mainly in response to Diamonback, to say that those technologies were developed and taken further by more or less the same scientists, but not under the auspices of Nazi Germany.

Well, that's my 10p's worth.

 

[thunderw21]

Check out some of the aircraft the Germans were trying to build:

http://www.luft46.com/

 

[dhermann1]

I always thought that flying wings had yaw problems that were never really fixed till fly by wire technology was developed.
There was a good documentary on one the the tech oriented channels (Military Channel?) that explained a lot more than the article. The designer had lost his brother to Spitfires during the Battle of Britain, and was strongly motivated to pay the Brits back. The aircraft was almost completely plywood.
All these super weapons seem great at first blush, but like all advanced aircraft, getting it deployed on a large scale would have taken much more time and resources than the Germans had available to them. Their jet engines were extremely unreliable, which also would have limited their effectiveness.
There were even more bizarre and innovative German concepts on the drawing boards.
But the Brits were not exactly sitting on their hands. Their jet engines were more reliable, and even tho their aircraft designs were not as advanced, 1946 would have seen plenty of jet vs jet combat. Given the superior training of allied pilots by then, the playing field might have been fairly even.
So many possibilities. I often wonder if there is a parallel universe where all possible alternate endings to WW II are played out.

 

[Slim Portly]

I often wonder if there is a parallel universe where all possible alternate endings to WW II are played out.

Yes, and the author's name is Harry Turtledove.

 

[DutchIndo]

I always thought that flying wings had yaw problems that were never really fixed till fly by wire technology was developed.
There was a good documentary on one the the tech oriented channels (Military Channel?) that explained a lot more than the article. The designer had lost his brother to Spitfires during the Battle of Britain, and was strongly motivated to pay the Brits back. The aircraft was almost completely plywood.
All these super weapons seem great at first blush, but like all advanced aircraft, getting it deployed on a large scale would have taken much more time and resources than the Germans had available to them. Their jet engines were extremely unreliable, which also would have limited their effectiveness.
There were even more bizarre and innovative German concepts on the drawing boards.
But the Brits were not exactly sitting on their hands. Their jet engines were more reliable, and even tho their aircraft designs were not as advanced, 1946 would have seen plenty of jet vs jet combat. Given the superior training of allied pilots by then, the playing field might have been fairly even.
So many possibilities. I often wonder if there is a parallel universe where all possible alternate endings to WW II are played out.

I worked with a guy who's Father help rebuild the Flying Wing at the Chino Air Museum. These were recovered from a Nuke Test out in the Desert. I was there at the first public test flight. My friend explained to me that since the "Wing" had no rudder it used a "Split Flap". This Flap would open like a flower causing drag on that side. A Homely looking thing but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The Japanese had more low tech weapons like Balloon Bombs. The Americans once thought of putting incendiaries on Bats and dumping them on Japan. The theory would be that the Bats would fly and hang themselves on the Paper / wooden houses.

 

[Lone_Ranger]

The Germans had also experimented with "smart bombs"

http://www.ausairpower.net/WW2-PGMs.html

The Germans had a lot of ideas, had they been implemented, would have been serious trouble. It's good that the war came to a end as quickly as it did.

The Japanese had "smart bombs," too. Though, unlike the Germans, they had a rather low tech, guidance system.

 

[Chas]

Highly doubtful that it would have worked. It was more a fantasy weapon than a wonder weapon.

The B2 is acknowledged by it's pilots to be a freak of aerodynamics; the only reason it can fly at all is that it is controlled by an unprecedented number of on-board avionic computer systems, and as such it is the most expensive item by weight in any military inventory, anywhere in the world. The USAF could only afford 20 of them. An important factor in the B2's stealth capacity is the anti-radar coating, which didn't exist in 1945

The Germans didn't have the resources or capacity to field the weapon, even if they had the time to produce it.

 

[Story]

For more projects and ideas along this flight-of-fancy path, check out http://www.luft46.com/

 

[RHY]

History channel show

http://shop.history.com/detail.php?p=68251&v=history_show_history-undercover

 

[Story]

Check out the Flying Wing at 0.11

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[kampkatz]

Thanks Story for the views of aviation history. Just love the nostalgia!

 

[DutchIndo]

The Germans had also experimented with "smart bombs"

http://www.ausairpower.net/WW2-PGMs.html

So did the Americans that's how Joe Kennedy was killed.

 

[Aristaeus]

I have always enjoyd the Luft46 site. This is a screenshot from CFS3 of my Horten 229 breaking the speed of sound in a dive.
I didn't know the game had the abillity to create the sonic boom effect, I did allot of diving that day lol.