Submarines and their Weapons - Aircraft of World War II

Her scientists made an enormous and outstanding
contribution, not just to the German war effort, but to
modern civilisation. However, there were areas where
German science and technology were deficient, most
importantly - arguably - in the field of electronic
computing machines, which were not weapons themselves
but something without which the bounds of
technological development would soon be reached.
However, all too often these deficiencies arose as a
result of demand chasing insufficient resource, and
time simply ran out for the scientists of the Third
Reich before a satisfactory result could be produced.
TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE
Time and again in the course of this work we will
come upon development programmes which were
either cancelled before they came to fruition or which
were still in progress at the war's end. Many of them,
of course, did not get under way until 1944, when the
spectre of defeat was already looming large in Berlin
and many essential items were in increasingly short
supply. We can only speculate upon the possible outcome
of an earlier start on the course of the conflict.
Others were cancelled simply because they did not
appear to offer the likelihood of spectacular results,
and in those cases we can, all too often, detect the
hand of Adolf Hitler. In general, we can note what can
only be described as a wrong-headed insistence on his
part that big (and powerful) was always beautiful (and
irresistible). This major flaw led him to push for the
development of weapons such as the fearsome - but
only marginally effective and very expensive -
PzKpfw VI Tiger and King Tiger tanks, which would
have been far better consigned to the wastebin from
Above: A borderline secret weapon: the 'Goliath' was an
explosives-filled wire-guided tank and a typically
innovative approach to dealing with bunkers and armour.
the very outset, and the resources squandered upon
producing them - and then keeping them in service -
redirected into more appropriate channels such as the
more practical PzKpfw V Panther.
In a very real sense, Hitler himself motivated and
ran the German secret weapons programme. There
seems to be a direct and very tangible link between
this programme and his psyche, and we are perhaps
left wondering whether the Wunderwaffen would have
existed without him. On balance, it seems certain that
they would have done, given the creative imagination
of so many German scientists and the readiness of
many of her military men to accept innovation, but it
is equally certain that without Hitler's insistence,
many weapons systems which made a very real
impact upon the course of the war would either not
have been developed at all, or would, at best, have
been less prominent.
Nonetheless, without the genius of many German
scientists and the brilliance of German technologists
and engineers, the entire programme would have been
stillborn. Many of the weapons produced for the first
time in Germany and employed in World War II went
on to become accepted and very important parts of the
broader armoury, and several have made an enormous
impact on life as a whole outside the military arena.
The more spectacular failures have a certain grandeur,
despite their shortcomings, and even the outright
myths - and there were many, some remarkably persistent
- frequently had an underpinning of fact.