From: umteghts@ccu.umanitoba.ca (david teghtsoonian)
Subject: Re: The Luftwaffe
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 14:56:23 GMT


From umteghts@ccu.umanitoba.ca (david teghtsoonian)

In <BuDF4v.Ftu@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> dasher!patter@uunet.UU.NET (24224-guthrie) writes:


>This is *highly* debateable*. There is considerable evidence to indicate
>that Germany would have had the atomic bomb several months before the
>U.S. did, were it not for resources diverted to the Luftwaffe for use
>against the bombers. Imagine an a-bomb on a V-2 for a couple of seconds.

  I can imagine an a-bomb(circa 1945) on a V2. What I can't imagine is
the thing lifting itself off the launch pad. Early atomic bombs were
VERY heavy. It took a B29 to lift the American bombs. A V2 doesn't have
nearly enough thrust. Remember that it took the USA many years after the
war to develop a working nuclear missle, even though they had captured
V2s, scientists and far more resources at their disposal that war-torn
Germany. The USSR would have overrun Germany from the east long before the
Nazis could have come up with a nuclear missle, even if, as the previous
writer speculates, the Allied invasion of France never took place. I suspect
the German leaders figured as much, which is why they chose to use their
limited resources for producing conventional weapons.

>The most likely scenario is that Britain would have surrendered in late
>1945. Since plans were also on the drawing board at Dornier for a "New
>York" bomber, the U.S. would probably have been accessible by 1947.

  This is slightly more feasable except that the Germans would have needed
both a working a-bomb and an aircraft capable of carrying it( which the
Luftwaffe never did have) in order to prolong the war long enough to
develop either of them!

>In addition to this, Eisenhower regarded the bombing campaign as a means
>to eliminate the Luftwaffe as a threat to his forces on D-Day. The entire
>series of raids known as the "Big Week" was designed to ground the German
>fighters (at least temporarily). Without the daylight bombing raids in this
>period, D-Day would not have occurred - ever.

  I must take issue with this also. The raids of the "Big Week" were intended
to destroy the French and German rail transportation system, which they did.
Without a transportation system, the Wermacht could not maneuver its reserves
into position to repel the Allied invasion. There isn't much that German
fighters can do to stop the largest seaborne invasion in history. It takes
*bombers* to do this. What was left of the bombing arm of the Luftwaffe
was busy trying to stop the Soviet steamroller in the east. Now, as history
tells, the Allies were virtually unopposed in the skies over Normandy. The
best the Luftwaffe could have done would have been to OPPOSE them. It would
have been a hell of an air battle but I would hesitate to concede victory
to the Luftwaffe even if they had opposed the invasion with every available
aircraft. The Allies had one *heck* of a lot of fighters and bombers of
their own.
>Put jets into combat in 1943, and there is no invasion, Germany can devote
>much more of its resources into the Eastern front, London is radioactive
>vapor by 1946, and we're all speaking German by now.

Not likely.
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>                    | It is commonly agreed that the inventor of a weapon
>                    | used to kill and maim must share in large measure
>George Patterson -  | the guilt for its thousands of victims. By the way,
>                    | who DID invent the bicycle chain?
>                    |                            Kelvin Throop
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------


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