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Hitler's Stealth Fighter
DesScorp writes "Aviation Week reports on a television special from the National Geographic Channel on what may have been the world's first true stealth fighter, the Horten Ho 229, a wooden design that was to include a layer of carbon material sandwiched in the leading edge to defeat radar. Northrop Grumman, experts at stealth technology from their Tacit Blue and B-2 programs, have built a full-size replica of the airframe and tested it at their desert facilities where they determined that the design was indeed stealthy, and would have been practically invisible to Britain's Chain Home radar system of WWII."
every other stealth programme goes with the notion that it has to be invisible at all times.
Not exactly. You will never be invisible, and stealth technology/employment is a lot more complicated than "we'll just be invisible". Even today, remaining undetected until past the threat is a fairly well-used technique. Just look at the F-22. And even if your airframe isn't fully-LO, you see a lot of emphasis on reducing frontal RCS. The B-1, Typhoon, Rafale, and Super Hornet all use some degree of RCS reduction, which buys them that much more time to get in close. Modern cruise missiles use the same principle.
Interestingly enough, raw speed can buy you some of the same advantages. Go fast enough and high enough, and the defenses just won't have enough time to react, even if you're lit up like a billboard.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Doesn't matter what the plane is made out of as long as it's faster, accelerates faster, and climbs faster than than what the other side has.
If you aren't mature enough to look at a swastika in a relevant place (we're talking about Nazi Germany here) you shouldn't be on the internet. Let me guess, you are also for the elimination of the flag of the Confederate States too? Please, show some maturity, if you can't handle seeing a swastika, perhaps you shouldn't be looking up information on Nazi Germany.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Technical sophistication is one advantage on the battlefield, but manufacturing capacity is also important.
The Germans choose technical complexity over quantity believing that superior machines could beat the vast numbers of inferior machines the allies built.
The Germans were wrong.
As Stalin said "quantity has a quality all its own". A stealth aircraft or two may have been pretty trick, but if you have thousands of targets to bomb, you better have hundreds if not thousands of aircraft (and pilots) to do the job.
-ted
Not hardly, as Jacob McCandles would have said. The Germans biggest problem in the war wasn't their technology, it was their production. The USA built enough tanks that they could afford to give away more than the total German tank production. The Soviets built more tanks than the USA.
Airplanes, the USA built enough to give away more than the Germans made. The Soviets didn't build more than the USA, but they built nearly as many.
The USA built more ships than everyone else combined, much less the Germans.
And on and on like that. Nothing the Germans could have done would have mattered a hill of beans, really - the only way they could have won that war was if they'd started building up their industry to USA/USSR levels in the 20's.
And even then, their chances would have been slim at best - they didn't have the manpower to operate industry at our level and put 20 million men in the field at the same time.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Maybe, maybe not.
Obviously this is all speculation, and doesn't matter much when you're comparing it to a real timeline... Yes, the United States developed an atomic bomb... But the Germans were also working on one. So if you extend the timeline to allow the Germans to develop this stealth jet, would they have had time to develop their own atomic bomb as well?
Albert Speer (who as minister of armaments after '43 was in a position to know) wrote that the Nazi atomic program was in its infancy in 1943. When Hitler was informed that an atomic bomb would probably not be produced until the 1950s, he downgraded the priority of the research.
The Nazis' were hampered by Hitler's view of technology. The Me-262 (first jet fighter) was outfitted as a light bomber, for instance, because Hitler saw more value in bombing than in defending airspace (in 1945!). The V-2 rocket was pushed hard, even though a single B-17 raid carried more explosives than the entire V-2 production. Anti-aircraft missiles were ignored and naval armaments were always given a low priority.
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Hitlers single, fatal mistake was taking on the Soviet Union without first ensuring that Britain and the rest of the Allies were out of the war for good. Had Hitler not committed to the Eastern Front, he could have easily have prevented an Allied invasion, and indeed have triumphed in North Africa.
Hitlers basic failure was greed. He wanted the Soviet Union as well, when there was no possibility he would have won that war due to the sheer size of the USSR. He had no heavy strategic bombers, nothing to interfere with Soviet production facilities once they were moved further east, and that doomed him to lose.
Europe learned a lesson from the fascists. Curtailing free speech was a powerful aid in keeping those regimes in power.
Therefore, in order to completely disavow that era, European governments have decided to turn the power to curtail free speech towards the purposes of good. If you are a European government minister, this makes complete sense.
It's important to bear in mind that free speech has never had the same value or application in Europe that it has in places like the US. In the US, its a sacred right, the Most Holy First Amendment. In Europe, it's just considered a pretty good idea, as long as it doesn't get overly inconvenient or embarrassing for the government. Just because they invented the concept doesn't mean that they have fully implemented it.
I don't think Hitlers underestimation, if he even did, of Britain and Frances wish to fight for Poland was damaging at all - by the middle of 1940, Germany had caused France to capitulate and thrown the British army out of Europe. Had Germany won the Battle of Britain that year and not invaded the USSR, then in all probability Europe would still be in the hands of the Third Reich.
Without Britain as a staging post, the US, Canada and Australia would have had no firm base to launch an invasion of Europe. With Britain out of the war, Hitler would have held North Africa as well, preventing the Allies from using that as an invasion staging post. Basically, the Allies would have lost any easy gateway into Europe, and with that went any hope of liberation.
Yes, because people were generally stupid then.
Other astounding inventions from tree-dwelling tailhangers in the first half of the 20th century: nuclear power, transistors, purified penicillin, and television.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Don't make those SR-71 pilots too cocky or they'll rub it in to the other airplane pilots.
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