I'm no expert on subs. Maybe it's the claustrophobe in me, but I try to stick to what's above the water. Have been on one before, at the Patriot's Point museum in Charleston SC, and I have nothing but respect for ANYONE who would go through a war serving on one. That being said....
From what I've read, the subs of all the major powers in WWII had their strengths and weaknesses... as with combat aircraft, it depended on the strategic values and tactical uses assigned to their design process by the military establishments of each nation... yes, maybe I'm being Captain Obvious here.
1. Shipbuilding is built on naval traditions.
2. The Germans really had only one tradition and that was mangled by an idiot, who did not understand how guerre de course is supposed to work or
which submarine operating characteristics were important before the advent of snort and nuclear boats, but that is what "Those Marvelous Tin Fish" is all about.
German subs could dive deeper... and had better sonar/acoustic gear, semi-auto torpedo loading and periscopes, but their dive controls were crap, human ergo was horrible, and their electronic warfare suite was positively WWI primitive. They also had horrible trim stability low underwater dash speed, huge turning circles and their battery system was designed by idiots.
US subs were quieter... and except for one or two one off classes, after the Sargos were built to a common pattern. (Share a lot in common with American tanks.). Their torpedoes were crap, their surface speed was not the best, and 1/4 of them in 1940 were built with defective German style diesel-electric propulsion. Their acoustic systems were ... below average in the beginning. Periscopes were not too good, and their crews loaded torpedoes using equipment that would not look out of place on HMS Victory. Yes, I mean Napoleonic War era block and tackle rigs.
The Gatos and Balaos are surprisingly tough so their book dive limits are serious understatements.
On the other hand, the US subs could go and fight anywhere. They had high underwater dash speeds, could turn tightly underwater better than a destroyer above them, were reserve flotation adaptable for add-ins and could be refitted easily for radar, radio direction finding, and they had the BEST torpedo fire control systems on EARTH. Their trim control and dive systems were outstanding and after Squalus, they were SAFE boats and ergo easy to use by comparison (Again like US tanks.) with foreign types. After the torpedo crisis, their torpedoes were "average".
Japanese subs had better torpedoes... the list could go on and on ad infinitum...
The Japanese had submarines that were adequate, if one likes 14 different types and noise and hull leaks as routine operational characteristics. They had all the German advantages and liabilities only worse and their sound gear was French based (Good but passive mostly.). Their saving graces were uniform long range for type, good marine diesels, and a high surface speed.
Question is, whether the licensing of proven designs from other powers would've helped any of the belligerents. In the case of submarines, I doubt it would. All of the major powers had their own design prerogatives based on their current deployment/usage strategies, and those would be hard to alter based simply on using an "imported" design. Only combat would prove if they were correct in their assessments or not... and if proven wrong, it was probably too late to change it with a licensed design from an ally...
Subsystems. The Germans could use a ballast and trim management system and an admiralstaB that was "Dutch" as far as submarines went. Nobody was going to sell them EWM (Well, the French did develop Metox at gunpoint.).
Subsystems... Americans get Italian help during the war after 1943 with wet-heater torpedoes, both in propulsion and in contact exploders and steer control. This was not done at gunpoint actually and helped post-war massively. Too bad that idiots like Stark and Leahy did not think about guys like Italo Balbo
when the trade of ideas with Italy WAS ON THE TABLE in the mid-1930s.
Of course the Americans could also have acquired the Ferreitti snort; too. (As they will.)
But that's not a license its a copy, And the US army did not want LMG, if they did they have several options that are easier to make.
There is a thing you miss a licence is just permission from the rights holder to make it in return for consideration ( money). For the BAR or simple things like artillery pieces not much of a problem.
For an aircraft or ship, or tank, these are assemblages of many components from many manufacturers each of which has to agree to the licence, airframe, engines, radios, instrumentation, bomb sights, armament ( defensive and bomb types) and the same with ships. And just because you have permission does not mean you have capability. The problem with advanced aircraft engines is they need advanced alloys to work at the designed operating temperature. Very few places in the world can make the alloy pre WW2 its a specialised item with the market dominated by a few companies its only in wartime that it becomes a mass production necessity but the people ( quite literally the individuals who know how to do this) are in certain countries this is almost the era when quality of metal is judged by an expert metal worker judging its colour by eye.
Then you have to integrate it into the system you have. licence build an artillery piece, can you hitch that to your prime movers?
Exactly. The example is the lowly machine gun. What works in a machine gun has to be designed by someone who builds machine guns and has experience with machine guns. The ammunition has to have the push and the operating system has to cycle off that push and the mechanical operating system selected has to work reliably. Plus
the idiots in charge of the ordnance development have to understand the peculiarities of tolerances, the behavior of metals in the operating temperature ranges to be expected and have battlefield experience with prior systems to know what works.
MG34s and Mg42s do not work well with US ammunition and US propellant chemistry, and US gun metals. They can be made to work well, but NOT by idiots who make substandard automobiles. One needs someone from Winchester or from Remington or have RUGER design the weapon to be used as an LMG. Not Invented Here is based on as much, it is not in our tech tree yet as it is in "its foreign" we don't want it. If the subsystem is close enough as the Merlin was to the Allison or to a Packard auto engine as to the tech tree, then that can be licensed, reverse engineered and made as a part of a P-51 or it can be a Browning BAR derived operating system put into the T23E1 machine rifle.
Hmmmm...
Well, perhaps if they licensed the design early enough, the Italians could have had a Turan I equivalent M18/40 and then an M18/41 armed with the 75mm used in the Semovente as a Turan II equivalent?
The Skoda power trains were not developed well. The armor was rivetted onto a frame and offered little advantage over the Fiat. Same for the suspension and track running gears. The Italian tanks were actually BETTER in that regard as were the main guns. There might be something in the Gubureaux machine guns which were better than the strange Breda M38s.
'Not Invented Here' seemed to be even stronger in Italy than in the USA, and only took German Aero engines from the failure of Italian companies to come up with engines anywhere close in power.
Same reasoning. Not because "we don't want it", but it is; "we may have trouble making that work into what we make, how we make it, and with what we use to make it." It turns out that Italian aero-engine makers could build MB 601-605 series engines. I might note that German aero-engines were HEAVY by British and American standards, despite some very advanced features. Something about the steels not being as good?
Ummm...
It supposed to be 7.92x57mm Mauser not 7.98mm, if you want the M1 Garand to be compatible with the MG 34/42.
And ammo compatibility doesn't really mean much.
The Germans would have to make a new type of stripper clip because the 5 round one used in the K98k won't work.
But other than that I totally agree with you. Germany had plenty of time to make a semi-auto and they didn't.
en.wikipedia.org
IMHO this would make a great POD. The German military mission in China find out about this semi-auto rifle in 1935 and buy some for research purposes which saves a lot of time by teaching them
what not to do when making a semi-auto rifle. The fact that the general Liu used the same 7.92x57mm Mauser would help as well. By 1938 ITTL the Germans should have a good semi-auto rifle, the Gewehr 38, which is just OTL's Gewehr 43 except it's in production in 1938. Gewehr 43 had a 10 round detachable mag, making it a 20 rnd wouldn't be too hard.
As for heavy fighters, Germans should have used this. The German Lightning that never was.
en.wikipedia.org
Pocket battleships (Deutschland class) were fine. Graf Spee was lost due to a shitty captain, not because the ship was defective.
Honestly the full diesel propulsion of the Deutschland class was probably better than 3/4 of the Kriegsmarine surface fleet which used shitty high pressure boilers instead.
1. Refer to the comments about machine guns.
2. Refer to comments about chemistry, propellants, tolerances, (the spring in the Liu rifle is a hint.) metallurgy and the gunmaker.
3. Refer to the Garand... and to Baretta. (
Beretta BM 59 - Wikipedia) Those guys short circuited the process because they were "experten". Otherwise welcome to the M14.
4. Crap ships are crap ships. Comparing them to crappier ships and calling them "good" is an invalid comparator. Compare them to a Town Class.
5. Calling an FW197 a heavy fighter is not valid. The thing had a combat radius of 1 and 1/2 hours aloft.
Screw the T-21.
Give them T-25s instead.
View attachment 575472
Or even T-15s to start out with. The gun shown is a 47mm I think, probably could be upgraded to the 5cm KwK 38 if necessary.
View attachment 575473
Compared to what they used OTL, both T-25 and T-15 have better suspension, are fully welded, better firepower, and have sloped armor.
Can't get much better than that.
The fact that the Czechs designed should be no problem for them, unlike with the Nazis and their racial BS.
Probably needs a license from the Nazis though, which can be obtained by trading torpedoes with them.
Can the Italians do anything about the riveting and sulfur contaminated steel armor plate they use? Otherwise, why?
I should know that, since I own both a Garand and a G98. I was thinking ammo compatibility not for logistics, but purely for streamlining manufacturing a little bit.
There's just no reason other than doctrinal stuborn-ness not to have.
There are good German doctrinal WWI infantry tactical lessons to make the machine gun the assault base of fire and the riflemen the supporting covering fire.
And there is the technical reasons. Machine gun barrels and semi-auto rifle barrels compete for the same scarce trace metals used in high temperature and pressure steels. Cruder gun metal alloys can be used in a bolt action rifle. Besides a man can only carry so much ammunition!
More like doctrinal stupidity.
When Germany started fighting OTL, there had very few SMGs in their squads. AFAIK only NCOs had them.
Which leads to my great big question.
Did the Germans just forget about Sturmtruppen tactics in WW2?
Why didn't they recreate the Sturmtruppen formations (SMG, flamethrower, light mortar, sack of grenades) except for the addition of a MG-34/42?
Because they needed their high quality bright boy infantry candidates for
a. The Luftwaffe
b. The Kriegsmarine
The best of the leftovers, not made into officers, became tank crews, or mechanics and truck drivers, or sergeants and corporals to lead the squads and fire teams or became machine gunners, mortar men, artillery men or specialist weapon users or supply clerks and REMFs. What was left to form their line infantry was usually not mentally capable enough to handle SMGs, much less handle initiative and high risk infiltration tactics without firm leadership. You also do not give the mentally incapable and easily startled and indecisive and easily confused human being automatic weapons... ever.
Bolt action rifles for those guys.
