Posted on 07/19/2010 2:18:51 AM PDT by Ayn And Milton
The Brits leapfrogged the Germans (and everybody else) by inventing the multicavity magnetron. This made microwave radar possible. German sets were still UHF and VHF (Chain Home was ridiculously long wave HF. Yet it was just good enough.) While the Germans and Japanese eventually produced limited number of microwave sets, they never produced them in the numbers that the Allies did.
When the Tizard commission carrying the latest British scientific inventions arrived in the U.S. by ship, they landed first in Boston, where they were greeted by Roosevelt’s scientific advisor Vannevar Bush. (No relation to Prescott or the George’s.) Bush, just happened to be a founding director of Raytheon Company. He showed the multicavity magnetron to Percy Spencer, later famous as the inventor of the microwave oven (in 1947!). Although the British scientist who carried the tube over from England had kept it in a case chained to his arm, Spencer took it home to play with. The next day he proposed that instead of machining it out of a solid piece of copper, he could produce them by stamping sheets of copper, bolting them together and then machining out the inner surface of the resonant cavity. In the event Raytheon went on to produce over half of all the magnetrons made during World War II.
Airborne surface search radar turned the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic. In this role, cheap microwave radar was a truly a war winning invention. The U.S. spent more money developing radar during the war than it did on the Manhattan Project. It has truly been said, that while the atomic bomb ended the War, radar won it.
Plus the breaking of the German and Japanese ciphers.
ENIGMA gave no warning the the Ardennes Offensive. While the Germans enforced strict radio silence, possibly to thwart traffic analysis, perhaps they smelled a rat, Allied commanders had become too reliant on ENIGMA giving them the German order of battle. Radar did come through, even in the Bulge. The Army had anti-personnel artillery shells with radar altimeter fuzes. They had kept them back lest the Germans reverse engineer duds and use them on us. Their use was first authorized during the Bulge. The effect, both tactical and psychological was devastating. Some German infantry units mutinied. Patton was so aghast that he thought they should be outlawed by international treaty, like gas and germ warfare.
I figured you has seen it but just in case.
I showed that to a co-worker at work a while back, he was an engine mech on C-124s and A-1s way back yonder and he almost dived under his desk:-)
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Please don't misunderstand my question as disrespectful to the R.A.F. or their contributions in WWII.
Different sorts of war, I think. After the Battle of Britain, the Germans spent a lot of their air power defending against Allied bombing raids; and they also used their airpower extensively on the Eastern Front against the Russians.
The RAF fighters were more fully engaged in North Africa and the Mediterranean, and I think there was less air-to-air combat there.
I think the numbers are skewed primarily because a lot of German aces made their bones early in the war against the air forces of nations flying obsolete aircraft with marginally trained pilots (i.e. France, USSR, Poland, etc.) For example the German "Ace of Aces", Erich Hartmann is recorded as having 352 aerial victories. 345 of these were against the Soviets.
Thank you for the info. I knew Hartmann fought on both fronts, but I didn't realize the balance was that skewed.
Wouldn’t know, sorry. But there are some WWII experts in this thread, perhaps someone can answer?
And: I think your question makes eminent sense. I’d like to know the answer too... it doesn’t show any disrespect at all, by the way.
Many, many heartfelt thanks to all who contributed today, and shared their comments and expert knowledge. I must log out now, it’s near dinner time in Holland.
All of you gave a generous surprise with your replies, and be sure that I will open the thread tomorrow morning and read all the stuff diligently.
So guys and girls: please keep on posting...
I was just concerned that it would sound like I was asking, "why didn't those lazy Brits do more?" Not the case!
Thank you for the post with those great pics!
Correct you are. Still, there were a fair amount of German aces that racked up some serious kill totals against the western allies.
Marseille got most of his kills in North Africa, against US and Brit fighters..he died there, too....I think he holds the record for most kills in a day, over 5 separate sorties, if my memory serves.
I think Gunther Rall, who had 302 killes (I think) got most of them against the West...(should go back and check my memory... :))
Walther Novotny was another who had alot of kills against US and British targets....he died in air combat flying the ME-262 in early 1945
If you could do a graph for these things for each of the major combatants in WWII for the years 1939 - 1945 it would be revealing.
Actually for the US, you'd have to do two graphs...one for the Pacific and one for the European theaters.
The Japanese and British, for all intents and purposes, finished the war with the same aircraft they started (excepting the Gloster Meteor which essentially found its role killing V1s). After Coral Sea and Midway, Japanese pilot training programs could never replace the losses and institutional experience of their downed aviators. The US started the Pacific war in a dismal state with Brewster Buffalos, Wildcats, and few P-38s and P-40s. The ascendency of the Hellcat, Corsair and Thunderbolt turned the tables, and the US wisely rotated experienced combat pilots home to train new aviators. In Europe, Germany continued to increase the quality and effectiveness of its aircraft finishing out the war with the Me262 and Fw190, but their pilot losses and low manufacturing numbers couldn't keep pace. Similarly, I think a lot of Mustang pilots probably would have racked up even higher numbers if they had not been purely dedicated so much of the time to deep bomber escort missions and given a longer leash for purely tactical operations.
I think there are a lot of reasons for the disparity you cite, but I think it also has a lot to do with the kind of aviators flying for the respective powers and how that was phased as they transitioned from fighting defensive to offensive wars or vice versa over the course of WWII, superimposed over what they happened to be flying at the time.
I watched a program and they interviewed an RAF vet (I can't recall whether he was a bomber pilot or a bomber crewman) but he arrived, as a replacement, at his new base while the unit were on a mission. None of them came back.
I read somewhere where 60% of all RAF Bomber Command crewmen were killed, wounded, or wound up as a POWs over the course of the war. The highest casualty rate of any allied command of the war.
I remember watching The show The 20th Century showing how they took out the ME-262`s,just wait till they ran low on fuel and have to land...then shoot `em down
You've swerved into another question that has always baffled me: When the Japanese started the war with the United States they had a superior aircraft and more experienced pilots - at least that's the way it's always stated. But didn't the Japanese get most of their experience against enemies like the Chinese who were basically flying biplanes? Are the Japanese advantages over the U.S. over-hyped?
A few weeks after Pearl Harbor, the inexperienced Americans with the AVG, in their obsolete p-40's, operating under extremely primitive conditions, handed the Japanese their butts in Burma and China.
yep, even the vaunted P-51 Mustang was no match for the speed of the 262. The tactics the USAAF employed was to ambush them as they landed or took off at their home fields.
The other advantage was that those early jet engines JUUMO 210, were prone to failure, and very high maintenance, and it was common for Mustang pilots to catch a 262 with some engine problems, and were then easy prey.
That said, all things being equal, the 262 was an incredible technological feat, and set the standard for jet airframe design for years to come for the rest of the world.
And that was while they were primarily flying night missions. No wonder they thought we were crazy to try unescorted daylight missions.
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