Just sitting here wondering what one piece of equipment (vehicle, aircraft, weapon... excluding nuclear weapons) that if Germany could have put into action could have changed the course of the war?

My take: A long range bomber put into mass production like a B-17 or B-24 that could (from forward bases) strike the U.S.

Well, I doubt that B-17s or B-24s could have made the round trip to the US east coast, even if based in France or the UK. And even if they could have, the Luftwaffe had no escort fighter with that range.

Something like an FW200 Condor mass produced as a bomber could have made the difference in both the battles of Britain and the North Atlantic, and also in Russia.

Some ear-plugs for the general staff to wear the day Hitler said 'I have this brilliant plan to invade Russia'.

Interesting question...
I often wonder what would have been the outcome if Germany's jet aircraft technology would have been more successful than it was...in reality, light years ahead of us, but just couldn't seem to perfect the process...could've been a MUCH different world if so, don't you think?

~Gunny

I'd say not so much put it into action, but put it into action sooner. That would be the high tech submarines that they started coming out with late in the war. If those had been patroling the Atlantic in 1940 or 1941, instead of 1944 and 1945, the Battle of the Atlantic might have totally different.

Many people think the proper use of the Me 262 as an interceptor, instead following Hitler's ideas to use it as an attack bomber, would have been devastating. The 8th AIr Force was suffering staggering losses and this was stemmed by the P-47 and P-51 "Little Brothers." Both these aircraft were surpassed in the air by the Me 262, in speed and firepower. Continued, or renewed, 10-15% losses per raid (probably greater with the jets involved) would have forced rethinking of that strategy. The result could have been more production of war material. That could have resulted in a stalemate in the west and a concentration by Germany in the east. That could have led to a greater territorial grab by the USSR and perhaps even ground conflict between the USSR and the other allies after the fall of Germany as Stalin looked at France and the low countries.

I don't pretend to know anything about this aircraft but a friend of mine, who has forgotten more about aircraft than I'll ever know, wrote tis is repsonse to a question about this plane on another forum.

"This was a six-engined derivative of the Ju 290A, and two prototypes were built and flown. The aircraft had a theoretical maximum range (as a reconnaissance aircraft), of 6,030 miles. For many years, there was a rumor that one of the protoypes made a flight in 1944 from France to within 12 miles of the coast of New York, but recent research has proven that the flight would have been impossible to make under the circumstances."

I think the key phrase in that statement is "as a reconnaissance aircraft." Even assuming this aircraft could make the flight, it could never have done so carrying a bomb the size of those dropped on Japan.

I can think of a couple of things :-)

I would still agree with the long range strategic bomber concept , Hitler saw the role of the Luftwaffe as a support arm to the Whermacht and didnt see the need for long range strategic bombing but take for examples the Battle of Britain the heaviest bomber available was the HE111 with limited range and bomb load that could only hit the east and southeast of the UK and of course the Soviets moved whole armament factories to the east of the Soviet Union knowing the Luftwaffe could not reach that far.
Had he the ability to destroy the huge Soviet tank production facilities things may have been different in the same way as the allies were able hit at the Rhur industrial areas and effect German war production.

Secondly ,I dont think anyone would disagree that the Tiger and Panther where superb tanks but were overly complex to build and difficult to maintain.
Hilters obsession with developing bigger and more heavily armed tanks when at the time the existing Tigers and Panthers where more of a match for anything the Allies had seemed a waste of valuable resources , look at the Maus as an extreme example.
Should he have concentrated developing his well proven designs with modifications to improve ease of construction and reliability ?

Ian

Any theoretical technological breakthrough beyond July 0f 1943 would of been inconsequential. I'm basing this on the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk. Stalingrad robbed the Germans of a victory in the east, and Kursk assured their defeat. Therefore the only change that could of altered the outcome, prior to this time frame has to be on the western front, or in the first year of Barbarossa.

With this in mind, here is my list of potential breakthrough weapons,

1. Alternate fighter program to the Bf109 (1935 to 1936), one with a longer range, allowing the bomber force some sense of fighter cover for the Battle of Britain.

2. Priority given to productivity of heavy landing craft, allowing more than just infantry and airbourne units to land for the invasion of England.

3. Recognition of difficulty of the Russian winter, and the implimentation of needed steps to combat the extreme winter. Basics such as winter grade oil, dependency on diesel, lower ground pressure tanks (wider tracks and running gear) winter gear for infantry units.

A piece of equipment means nothing without the correct doctrine to employ it successfully. The Germans not only had a pretty tactical, maybe opertational, mindset but they also suffered from undue meddling in military affairs and crony-ism.

A long-range bomber by itself, without long-range escorts, cannot do the job -- the Allies proved that.

Even a very long range bomber with (or without) a nuke wouldn't help -- the US is too far and too big to blanket successfully -- the Germans could not have developed sufficient aircraft or weapons to pound the US into submission before the US pounded them into submission. If you could reach the east coast, you've got a couple-three thousand miles more to get to the other side & if you can't do that, you can't win -- our industry, our training base, etc was pretty well spread out.

Now if they had nuked England (at least 2, maybe 3 hits), that might be another story, although we had bases in the Med that could have continued the long-range fight. However, England was such a hub for all troop movements, logistics, etc, etc, that her loss would have been catastrophic.

IMHO, there was nothing they could have done, once WW2 started -- it had to be something in progress/place before that -- and my vote would be not a weapon, but a strategic air force - bombers with escorts capable of covering Great Britain and deep into Russia. If nothing else, it would have made GB somewhat untenable for the buildup to a cross-channel attack. With that goes the proper doctrine and command decisions that know when to switch back and forth bewteen strategic, operational, and tactical employment.

BREAK:
Actually, I'm wrong -- what the Germans needed most was decent doctrine and SOP for use of their code devices. The Allies gained a tremendous advantage by code-breaking and radio intercepts ... It would be interesting to contemplate what it would have been like if we could not read their transmissions, even in just one area, say the U-Boat war ...

John

After 1943, I think the only thing that could have prevented defeat for Germany would have been nukes. Anything else would have just prolonged the war a couple of years until the Allies came up with a counter-weapon. Any decisive victories were to be had in the early years (battle of Britain, Barbarossa, the Atlantic, North Africa and the Med).




Actually, the atomic bomb wasn't what made the B-29 a 'war-stopper'. It was its conventional load capacity and its multi-gun defence against a by-then obsolete Japanese air force, the latter enabling it to fly (largely) unescorted. It is highly unlikely that a JU-390, even if it had been able to carry a heavy bomb load across the Atlantic and back, could have survived unescorted against the USAAF. I don't see damaged aircraft making it back all that way in the same manner as the RAF and USAAF did in the ETO and PTO. And even then, the US would simply have moved its important facilities out of range.

The FW200 would have been far more practicable if available in large numbers in 1940 and 1941, and as I said before, made the difference over Britain and Russia. An earlier deployment of more capable subs, along with better control of them, would also have been decisive, and again, would have made resupply of Britain and Russia via the Atlantic impossible.