3 ms·

I love that someone did it. But I also wonder what they thought they were going to get...

hnbad 5y ago
The Nazi high command loved its claims of "wunderwaffen" as part of the propaganda effort but mostly failed to deliver on them. Most of the "wunderwaffen" that saw actual use ended up being a horrific waste of resources and impractical to use if they didn't fail outright. Contrary to its claims the most important factor was the "blitzkrieg" strategy of overwhelming an unexpecting enemy's defenses to force a surrender -- a strategy that only worked at the beginning of the war when the other parties involved didn't know that they were going to participate in it. If you're wondering why Nazi scientists attempted these moonshots the answer is simply that there was an increasing demand to be able to deliver on the claims of having a "wunderwaffe" and incrementalism wasn't going to produce it. That said, it's unlikely the Nazis could have produced a working nuclear weapon (the only actual "wunderwaffe" that could have turned the tides at that point) and the Nazis weren't the only side producing technical innovations during that war.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  The V-series did pretty good in instilling fear by being able to attack across the channel virtually without risk to the Germans. They didn't do an enormous amount of physical damage but the psychological effects were immense.
- _carbyau_ 5y ago
  Thank you for this wonderful explanation of the mindset behind this. Kind of like the google moonshot idea but with the desperation of the times. The engineers themselves must've been in the position of having to say "Yes sir!" while all the time knowing it wasn't going to amount to anything. I guess you could have multipart projects where each engineering party thinks their bit is useless but together it amounts to something. And that is why I wonder .. what was the person behind this bit of wunderwaffen actually conceiving. Did they think they'd get a flying car? Or a 300kmhr supercar? What were they possibly dreaming up? We'll never know. I look at this and see - at best - a fast-ish car that would experience enough aerodynamic effects to have miserable handling but nowhere near enough to take off.

The Nazi high command loved its claims of "wunderwaffen" as part of the propaganda effort but mostly failed to deliver on them. Most of the "wunderwaffen" that saw actual use ended up being a horrific waste of resources and impractical to use if they didn't fail outright. Contrary to its claims the most important factor was the "blitzkrieg" strategy of overwhelming an unexpecting enemy's defenses to force a surrender -- a strategy that only worked at the beginning of the war when the other parties involved didn't know that they were going to participate in it. If you're wondering why Nazi scientists attempted these moonshots the answer is simply that there was an increasing demand to be able to deliver on the claims of having a "wunderwaffe" and incrementalism wasn't going to produce it. That said, it's unlikely the Nazis could have produced a working nuclear weapon (the only actual "wunderwaffe" that could have turned the tides at that point) and the Nazis weren't the only side producing technical innovations during that war.

jacquesm 5y ago
The V-series did pretty good in instilling fear by being able to attack across the channel virtually without risk to the Germans. They didn't do an enormous amount of physical damage but the psychological effects were immense.
_carbyau_ 5y ago
Thank you for this wonderful explanation of the mindset behind this. Kind of like the google moonshot idea but with the desperation of the times. The engineers themselves must've been in the position of having to say "Yes sir!" while all the time knowing it wasn't going to amount to anything. I guess you could have multipart projects where each engineering party thinks their bit is useless but together it amounts to something. And that is why I wonder .. what was the person behind this bit of wunderwaffen actually conceiving. Did they think they'd get a flying car? Or a 300kmhr supercar? What were they possibly dreaming up? We'll never know. I look at this and see - at best - a fast-ish car that would experience enough aerodynamic effects to have miserable handling but nowhere near enough to take off.