The Wunderwaffe: Germany's Crazy Attempts to Win WWII

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  • Опубліковано 18 тра 2024
  • Discover the bizarre world of German Wunderwaffe - wonder weapons - in WW2. From the sun gun that could burn cities to the gigantic tank never built, see the costliest and most eccentric projects that fell short.
    Biographics: / @biographics
    Geographics: / @geographicstravel
    Warographics: / @warographics643
    MegaProjects: / @megaprojects9649
    Into The Shadows: / intotheshadows
    TopTenz: / toptenznet
    Today I Found Out: / todayifoundout
    Highlight History: / @highlighthistory
    Business Blaze: / @brainblaze6526
    Casual Criminalist: / thecasualcriminalist
    Decoding the Unknown: / @decodingtheunknown2373

КОМЕНТАРІ • 595

  • @MrAtrophy
    @MrAtrophy 9 місяців тому +469

    the Me163 comet also had a bad side effect of liquefying the pilot if the fuel leaked.

    • @burningchrome70
      @burningchrome70 9 місяців тому +57

      Even worse, the pilot was surrounded by the various fuel tanks and the landing gear was a single skid.

    • @aceundead4750
      @aceundead4750 9 місяців тому +27

      I think he did an entire video on that plane on a different channel.

    • @TamTran-vw7zm
      @TamTran-vw7zm 9 місяців тому +26

      Details, details.

    • @BMW_329
      @BMW_329 9 місяців тому +20

      ​@@burningchrome70yea they had 2 large fuel tanks either side of them, a rectum clenching ride I'm sure.

    • @cuddlepaws4423
      @cuddlepaws4423 9 місяців тому +14

      I remember seeing one of these planes at RAF Cosford when we had a school visit. I remember how small it was in comparison to every other craft and that the tour guide told us that the first thing that melted was the pilots mask. When it finally crashed there was no pilot, just remains. A real death trap. Being a pilot of that craft was akin to going on a suicide mission.

  • @techguy6241
    @techguy6241 9 місяців тому +287

    Gotta give credit to all the wunderwaffen projects that used up tons of Germany’s financial resources while having little if any impact on the war

    • @spg1794
      @spg1794 9 місяців тому

      not to mention gave the meth'd up nazi brass an endless supply of false hope😅

    • @axityouuknoow
      @axityouuknoow 9 місяців тому +5

      But it had a huge impact in the cold war

    • @patwilson2546
      @patwilson2546 9 місяців тому

      Well, not doing them would not have saved Germany. Germany lost the moment they declared war on Russia and the US in a matter of months. If Germany had done everything right they still would have lost.

    • @Lotushead.
      @Lotushead. 8 місяців тому

      I doubt all those people murdered by the V2 would agree with you,

    • @axityouuknoow
      @axityouuknoow 8 місяців тому +8

      @@Lotushead. The most people die in the factory to build them

  • @johnassal5838
    @johnassal5838 9 місяців тому +177

    The Sun Gun was the inspiration for Star Wars' Death Stars. Lucas had seen an article about the crazy German concept when he was a kid.

    • @KristianWontroba
      @KristianWontroba 9 місяців тому +9

      Yes! WWII was a big inspiration for Lucas with Star Wars in many ways. Didn’t know about the sun gun though. 😊

    • @johnassal5838
      @johnassal5838 9 місяців тому +17

      @@KristianWontroba Ikr. Ever seen the WW2 film "The Dam Busters"? The entire run on the first Death star is practically a shot for shot remake of the climactic bombing run from this war film. All the scene cuts from close ups of the aircrews to ariel shots of the attack and even to the people back at home base listening on the radio are 100% synched up with the action in A New Hope. They say amateurs borrow where geniuses steal, lol. It was certainly a genius move by Lucas.

    • @Blinkerd00d
      @Blinkerd00d 9 місяців тому +4

      ​@@johnassal5838holy crap, I thought you were exaggerating, but that was literally a 1:1 copy lol 😆

    • @johnassal5838
      @johnassal5838 9 місяців тому +3

      @@Blinkerd00d I forget who did it but there's a split screen comparison to be googled of the two films showing they literally match up, even using most of the same exact dialogue. Fwiw knowing the inspiration for the death star was this "sun gun" going into ep7 makes Star Killer base an homage to SW's backstory. Not to mention it's totally on brand for the Nazis who usually tried to go bigger and more absurd with the same impractical ideas especially after a failure. Just like the Empire.

    • @Blinkerd00d
      @Blinkerd00d 9 місяців тому +2

      @@johnassal5838 yeah, the split screen version was the one I watched lol

  • @stefaneer9120
    @stefaneer9120 9 місяців тому +77

    As a German I love it, when English speaking people speak German words.

    • @bluefish2303
      @bluefish2303 9 місяців тому

      😂

    • @Jonathan.D
      @Jonathan.D 9 місяців тому +7

      Like when he tried to pronounce Kriegsmarine. The biggest mistake I saw was when he said that the Bismarck was slapped around by British Lancasters. As many people know, it was the Tirpitz that was sunk by the RAF flying Lancasters and dropping Tallboys. That's an amazing story.

    • @THE-X-Force
      @THE-X-Force 9 місяців тому +3

      Gesundheit!
      (sorry .. that's all I know)

    • @Jonathan.D
      @Jonathan.D 9 місяців тому +4

      When I lived in Vietnam, there were a couple of English speaking cops who would try to get bribes out of tourists. I learned from a German friend to say to the cop "Sprechen sie Deutsch?" Because they couldn't speak German, they would let you go. As I drove away I would shout "Không gặp lại." Which means No see you again. 😄

    • @bartybollocks
      @bartybollocks 6 місяців тому

      Pronounce

  • @dtaylor10chuckufarle
    @dtaylor10chuckufarle 9 місяців тому +20

    "I want sharks with frick'in laser beams attached to their heads!"

    • @JABoyle3875
      @JABoyle3875 3 місяці тому +2

      Sorry. We only have ill tempered sea bass.

    • @dtaylor10chuckufarle
      @dtaylor10chuckufarle 3 місяці тому

      I did Nazi that coming!@@JABoyle3875

  • @JonMartinYXD
    @JonMartinYXD 9 місяців тому +119

    The space mirror, assuming optimal placement and 100% reflectivity, would reflect 12.25 GW of power to the Earth. Even if we assume half is lost to the atmosphere, the energy reaching the ground would be the equivalent of 1.5 tonnes of TNT exploding every second.

  • @stratometal
    @stratometal 9 місяців тому +30

    Man watching this made me want to watch Iron Sky again.

    • @rochikkelley1751
      @rochikkelley1751 9 місяців тому +2

      Ikr

    • @F1pidis
      @F1pidis 9 місяців тому +4

      I wish there were some proper ww2 scifi movies, it's all zombie nonsense. It feels like there is so much potential...

    • @stratometal
      @stratometal 9 місяців тому +5

      @@F1pidis EXACTLY! Iron sky at least was entertaining as heck and left the stoopid zombers out. The second one had me in stitches. Perfect conspiracy nerd movie.

  • @GrievousReborn
    @GrievousReborn 9 місяців тому +11

    I still like how Call of Duty zombies took the idea of the German Wonder Weapons and invented fictional ones like the Wunderwaffe DG-2

  • @chriswhite3692
    @chriswhite3692 9 місяців тому +20

    I recall hearing that a good chunk of the Me-262's weren't even deployed for combat but instead to sit back behind conventional fighters for "motivational encouragement".

    • @Jonathan.D
      @Jonathan.D 9 місяців тому +3

      Actually their development was stalled because the big guy had some silly idea that they should be used as fighter/bombers.

    • @y0h0p38
      @y0h0p38 8 місяців тому +1

      ​@@Jonathan.DSet them back a couple years just to carry 500kg bombs

    • @Jonathan.D
      @Jonathan.D 8 місяців тому

      @@y0h0p38 His decision saved thousands of lives. Lives of the allies. 😄

  • @martinstallard2742
    @martinstallard2742 9 місяців тому +18

    1:02 into orbit
    4:28 innovative for the high seas
    8:38 some really big rides
    11:50 need for speed

  • @mr.thung12
    @mr.thung12 9 місяців тому +5

    Wunderwaffe DG2 was amazing at killing zombies.

    • @GrandmasterHash
      @GrandmasterHash 5 місяців тому +2

      Its pretty sad you’re the only nazi zombies reference ive seen😢. That DG-2 was a god send from the mystery box

  • @EliteCuttlefish
    @EliteCuttlefish 9 місяців тому +43

    The Komet's story is pretty hilarious in a way. Someone slapped a very volatile rocket to a wooden glider and got it to production. Managed about as many Nazi kills as Allied from how dangerous it was to fly or just to be around in general.

  • @CobraDBlade
    @CobraDBlade 9 місяців тому +10

    Another downfall of the Me. 163 was that if the fumes of the fuel leaked into the cabin they would literally melt the skin off the pilot.

    • @Jonathan.D
      @Jonathan.D 9 місяців тому +3

      It wasn't fumes, it was the fuel, and it could turn a person into a puddle of goop in minutes. The T-stoff was made with nearly pure hydrogen peroxide. I used to work for a company that used 50%+ hydrogen peroxide. It didn't bubble on top of the skin. It got under it and would separate the skin from the flesh. It's scary stuff. If the me 163 crashed and the T-Stoff and C-Stoff were still in the tanks it would rupture and get on the pilot. The stories of what ground crews found after a crash were horrible, to say the least.

    • @Ulani101
      @Ulani101 9 місяців тому

      And that's only if they didn't burn or explode when mixed.

    • @Jonathan.D
      @Jonathan.D 9 місяців тому +1

      @@Ulani101 I think you meant to say if it didn't explode when the tanks were fuelled up. Because they are supposed to explode when mixed. That's why they were in separate fuel tanks. They would take the aircraft to one location away from everything, and a truck would add one fuel. Then the aircraft was throughly rinsed and then moved to another location to have the second fuel added. They are both clear liquids so it wasn't easy to detect any spills. You just know they learned this process the hard way.

  • @jamesricker3997
    @jamesricker3997 9 місяців тому +56

    The true purpose of the Wunderwaffen was to keep engineers working on important projects to prevent them from getting drafted

  • @Fertro
    @Fertro 9 місяців тому +4

    I admire Simon's courage to keep talking when somebody is firing a gun in his general direction.

  • @ukmediawarrior
    @ukmediawarrior 9 місяців тому +7

    Foo fighters were seen in the Pacific war too, and by all sides not just the Allies. German pilots saw them and feared it was a new Allied weapon, exactly the same way Allied pilots feared they were a new German weapon.

    • @Caleb1874ya
      @Caleb1874ya 9 місяців тому +3

      Dave Grohl had 12 aerial kills in WWII

    • @ukmediawarrior
      @ukmediawarrior 9 місяців тому +2

      @@Caleb1874ya The lead singer of the Foo Fighters?! Damn, he looks good for his age!

    • @Caleb1874ya
      @Caleb1874ya 9 місяців тому

      He was Lead WINGER first

  • @katkalocova
    @katkalocova 9 місяців тому +8

    Great content and excellent job with the research of the photos and plans!

  • @Aboz
    @Aboz 9 місяців тому +4

    Makes me think of an amazing breakfast food.. Wunderwaffle

  • @patrickhallermann3844
    @patrickhallermann3844 9 місяців тому +86

    Love the content, Simon! Note, "Wunderwaffe" is a singular noun that translates to "wonder weapon" in English. "Wunderwaffen" is the plural form of "Wunderwaffe". When referring to more than one, you should use the plural form.

    • @dtaylor10chuckufarle
      @dtaylor10chuckufarle 9 місяців тому +8

      Thank you... it was bugging me a bit.

    • @Megan-sf5vf
      @Megan-sf5vf 9 місяців тому +3

      Good to know

    • @malusignatius
      @malusignatius 9 місяців тому +18

      Wonderwaffles on the other hand, are a great way to start the day, especially when topped with seasonal berries, maple syrup and ice cream.

    • @Anatidaephobischer
      @Anatidaephobischer 9 місяців тому +5

      Don't get started with the wrong caption to "Sonnengewehr" and the botched spelling. I heard Sonn geweh -> Sonnen gehweg -> Sun(ny) pavement

    • @senorpepper3405
      @senorpepper3405 9 місяців тому +2

      ​@@malusignatiusi question the man that starts his day with ice cream.

  • @PitFriend1
    @PitFriend1 9 місяців тому +4

    I like the line from the comic series Atomic Robo. “Ah, the Nazis. Why fully fund a single wunderwaffe when you can partly fund a dozen of them instead?”

    • @tomhenry897
      @tomhenry897 9 місяців тому +1

      But which one will work

  • @kevinchristensen880
    @kevinchristensen880 9 місяців тому +14

    Even the Tiger Tank was a expensive, over engineered and resources draining project. It was still effective in certain aspects.

    • @philgiglio7922
      @philgiglio7922 9 місяців тому +4

      If it didn't break it's transmission.
      Germany over engineered everything...to the point that if it broke down only a trained engineer could repair it.
      US weapons were far simpler and many of the troops had experience either working on the farm and needing to repair broken equipment.
      Or were auto mechanics and could fix damn near anything

    • @kevinchristensen880
      @kevinchristensen880 9 місяців тому +5

      @philgiglio7922 Actually their Wonder Weapons helped us more than Germany. Especially after the war.

    • @GundamReviver
      @GundamReviver 9 місяців тому

      ​@@kevinchristensen880operation paperclip went brrrr

    • @VinnyUnion
      @VinnyUnion 8 місяців тому

      ​@@philgiglio7922Simplicity is key in the art of early war.

  • @samshuijzen
    @samshuijzen 9 місяців тому +1

    I love your choice of subjects, very interesting approach!

  • @titaniumteddybear
    @titaniumteddybear 9 місяців тому +9

    Yes, you heard correctly: "Foo Fighter" was WW2 slang for a UFO. The band is named after the slang term.

  • @tylercagle9785
    @tylercagle9785 9 місяців тому

    Yes been waiting for this one

  • @TraitorVek
    @TraitorVek 9 місяців тому +2

    Some Great Photos in there! Keep it Up! Very interesting info, superb presentation!

  • @Reddotzebra
    @Reddotzebra 9 місяців тому +9

    The Komet actually had its very own aimbot, since the time on target was so short the Germs rigged its guns to a fotocell based auto targeting system, so you just had to line the craft up with the enemy, and the guns would fire on their own.

    • @magnemoe1
      @magnemoe1 9 місяців тому +2

      Most US ships from destroyers to battleships had aim bots as in analogue computers feed by radars.
      Then the Iowas was reactivated in the 1980's they found that the 1940 analogue computers was pretty much as good as the new digital who mostly copied them.
      Yes the digital ones was very cheap but not set up for the 16" guns so they just kept it.

    • @philgiglio7922
      @philgiglio7922 9 місяців тому

      ​@@magnemoe1... firing tables for the big guns were developed by Admiral Lee. Who was also an expert, and Olympic winning shooter, in both pistol and rifle.
      A very interesting individual

    • @Jonathan.D
      @Jonathan.D 9 місяців тому +1

      Is a photocell am aimbot? All it did was complete a circuit.

  • @philgiglio7922
    @philgiglio7922 9 місяців тому +2

    You forgot the V3... the pumped cannon that Gerald Bull later tried to make for Saddam Hussein

  • @rookiexreviews
    @rookiexreviews 9 місяців тому +15

    Hmm Simon the real question is why you trying to hide Hitlers flying saucers and time travel machine?? Imm on to you sir

  • @adoredpariah
    @adoredpariah 9 місяців тому +14

    Have you guys done an episode on Pervitin yet? If not it would make for a very interesting video. And not just in how the German fascists used it either, but also in how it was utilized across the world would make for an interesting deep dive. Sorry if parts of this comment seem a little cryptic, but youtube just simply automatically deletes comments containing certain words, what can you do.

    • @everythingsalright1121
      @everythingsalright1121 9 місяців тому

      Funny thing about the use of stimulant drugs during wwii; i read up quite a bit on this during university. There had actually been research done prior to the war that found problems with taking them. Between not having as great of an effect as desired, side effects popping up in certain individuals and addictiveness, several nations simply elected to not use it or just not issue it as much as they couldve like the UK and U.S. I feel like its a common misconception that every army was popping pills like mad.

  • @stephenconnolly3018
    @stephenconnolly3018 9 місяців тому +7

    The myth of German advanced technology is a very recent phenomenon. During the War the head of the German air force Goring state that when war ended he was going to buy a British radio because he want something that would work for once.

    • @christopherconard2831
      @christopherconard2831 8 місяців тому +1

      A lot of their ideas were good on paper. In the real world, not so much. Some, like jets and rockets, fall under the category of "A great idea.....if we started five years ago."
      By the end of the war they were drafting any man who could walk and factories were turning out rifles that are half a step above zip guns. While still dumping resources into dream weapons that could only work in the minds of their creators.

  • @GolfKilo
    @GolfKilo 9 місяців тому +2

    All these crazy never realized projects had one effect: They saved hundreds and thousands of technicians from getting killed at the front lines.

  • @steel8231
    @steel8231 9 місяців тому +30

    Wunderwaffes definitely made the war easier for the allies, all that time and effort spent trying to make crap that didn't work instead of refining the things that might have.

    • @alfnoakes392
      @alfnoakes392 9 місяців тому +1

      Very true, enormous resources frittered away rather than being used to make more of the tanks/aircraft etc that had already proven effective.

    • @angrydoggy9170
      @angrydoggy9170 9 місяців тому +1

      Makes you wonder how many U-boats they could have built with all the tome and effort wasted on those big battleships.

    • @johnassal5838
      @johnassal5838 9 місяців тому +5

      @@angrydoggy9170 From '44 on the more Uboats they'd make the more the Allies would've sunk. Trained crews were a bigger bottleneck than hulls.

    • @johnassal5838
      @johnassal5838 9 місяців тому +4

      @@alfnoakes392 Almost everything anybody plays "What If" about with the Nazis wouldn't have mattered much. More tanks and planes would just use more fuel Germany never had enough of. One of very few things that might've significantly changed the timing of the wars end and possibly prevented a total defeat (still pretty unlikely) was the tech included in the type 21 Uboats. Even there they'd probably been better off adapting a lot of the improvements in making them quieter and longer ranged submerged to their more conventional type 7 and 9 boats. Of course no matter how fast and silent they could've made them the Allies were still reading all their mail and knew exactly where to schedule patrols that would "just happen" to come across them. Then there the fact they wouldn't help much at all on the Eastern Front...

    • @frednone
      @frednone 9 місяців тому +2

      One of the big problems with German manufacturing philosophy is the Army told the engineers what they wanted and didn't listen to the engineers when they made suggestions, then they would come back and halt production on what they told the engineers they wanted to make alterations based on combat experience.
      As opposed to say the US where the engineers were an intrinsic part of the design process from the beginning and if the field forces found something needed to be changed, they'd often build a second production line for the new product while continuing to produce the original until Line 2 was up and running then switch Line 1 over to the new equipment.
      Wonder Weapons, while they certainly didn't help, were not the big problem with Nazi production philosophies.

  • @something1600
    @something1600 8 місяців тому +1

    These seem like they're only things that Wolfenstein could come up with.

  • @Sierra0331
    @Sierra0331 9 місяців тому +5

    You forgot one of the most popular wunderwaffe. The ray gun! Especially after pack-a-punching it. Thing cleared zombies like nobody’s business.

    • @yolofullsend
      @yolofullsend 9 місяців тому

      It's wunderwaffle ffs.. they keep saying it wrong haha

    • @liammadden7572
      @liammadden7572 9 місяців тому

      lol

  • @richpontone1
    @richpontone1 9 місяців тому +6

    Saw a TV documentary a couple of days ago where searchers had uncovered a huge tunnel near the German concentration camp in Gusen, Austria.
    They found high level of radioactivity in the surrounding area and found several reports of several huge explosions with huge clouds of dust in 1945.
    Also, there were reports of Doctor Werner Von Braun visiting this camp several times which was hundreds of miles from his base of Rocket operations bordering the North Sea.
    Speculation is that the Germans had exploded a “Dirty Bomb”.
    Unfortunately for the Germans, their V-1 and V-2 Rockets only had a range of 200 to 300 miles. Hitler had always planned to explode such bombs over New York City and Washington,DC which were 3,000 miles away. So, it was impossible for them to deliver such bombs.
    To provide some verification to this theory, when contacted, the Austrian Government threw these researchers out of the area, and fenced this area off from further investigations.
    Add that to the “Wonder Weapons” of the Nazis.

    • @CAMacKenzie
      @CAMacKenzie 9 місяців тому +2

      Dirty bomb carrying V1s and V2s launched at Britiain might have made a big difference, especially since, unlike conventional bombs, they wouldn't have actually had to hit cities to have the desired effect. Contaminating farmland and water supplies might have been even better/worse.

    • @backcountry164
      @backcountry164 9 місяців тому +2

      That wasn't a documentary. It was a "documentary." Similiar to "documentaries" about things like Big Foot or the dyatlov pass incident...

    • @renaissanceredneck3695
      @renaissanceredneck3695 9 місяців тому +1

      ​@@backcountry164the Nazis were working on "atomic" weapons that's very documented. They had captured a heavy water production facility in Norway I think. The British sent in a team of commandos and they either destroyed the facility or disrupted it in some way. They may have tried tried to detonate a nuclear bomb, and instead of a fission explosion 💥 they got a fizzle. But who knows, I would think that would have made it in the history books somewhere.

    • @richpontone1
      @richpontone1 9 місяців тому +2

      @@renaissanceredneck3695
      That is why FDR and Churchill decided on “The Europe First” strategy in winning the War there first because they knew the rumors of Germany creating an Atomic Bomb first except their Intelligence about it was very sketchy there and after the War, they found that the Germans were not close to completion. “A Dirty Bomb” is easier to make.
      Of course, there was a second reason. If Stalin went unopposed, his Red Army might have first taken over Western Europe and would never leave.

    • @richpontone1
      @richpontone1 9 місяців тому

      @@CAMacKenzie
      The U.S. produced 75 percent of the weapons for the Allies. Hitler wanted it knocked out first. He was always anxious in destroying the U.S. Cities as it would “shock” that Nation out of the War. At least, he thought that way.

  • @justinweber4977
    @justinweber4977 8 місяців тому +2

    Dora at least got to play a role in Turtledove's World War book series, where it was fired and managed to destroy an alien spacecraft, simply because they didn't expect an object the size of what was fired to be a solid mass instead of some kind of missile they could fire on and destroy before it hit.

    • @KingAlanI
      @KingAlanI 8 місяців тому +2

      In Worldwar, the railway gun was actually used on 2 alien warships. One held much of the aliens' nuclear arsenal, important to take those out of the fight and a special operation to salvage the plutonium jumpstarted human nuclear programs

    • @justinweber4977
      @justinweber4977 8 місяців тому

      @@KingAlanI true, I thought that was pretty amusing.

  • @maultasche668
    @maultasche668 8 місяців тому +1

    I would also name the submarine type XXI, which had no effect on the war but highly influenced many submarines after the war

  • @andrewwright.
    @andrewwright. 9 місяців тому

    nice

  • @ryandowney8743
    @ryandowney8743 7 місяців тому +1

    I always figured that the real main reason for the Wunderwaffen projects was to intimidate the enemy. They were all so big and austentaitous that rumors of them being developed were guaranteed to spread.

  • @Duck0War
    @Duck0War 9 місяців тому +2

    They should have invested more on the Donier Do 335 which was relatively cheap while was the fastest piston powered fighter plane

    • @53kenner
      @53kenner 9 місяців тому

      The P-51H Mustang was faster, cheaper, lighter ... and actually managed to get into serial production.

    • @Duck0War
      @Duck0War 9 місяців тому

      @@53kenner It was cheeper than Me-262 .
      And I see I was wrong about the speed.

  • @noboddy999
    @noboddy999 8 місяців тому

    this guy is like the Johnny Sins for dokumentaries, he really does everything

  • @Genghis-Jon
    @Genghis-Jon 9 місяців тому +8

    Someone needs to tell Simon that "Marine" as in, "Kriegsmarine" is pronounced the same in English and German.

    • @Jonathan.D
      @Jonathan.D 9 місяців тому

      Also, tell him that the Bismarck wasn't slapped around by British Lancasters. As many people know, it was the Tirpitz that was sunk by the RAF flying Lancasters and dropping Tallboys. That's an amazing story.

    • @Sharky762
      @Sharky762 9 місяців тому +1

      ​@@Jonathan.D*fixed*

    • @Jonathan.D
      @Jonathan.D 9 місяців тому +1

      @@Sharky762 Thank you sir!👍

  • @derekwhistler4957
    @derekwhistler4957 9 місяців тому

    Like your videos Simon!

  • @baddman69
    @baddman69 6 місяців тому

    There was a DOS game called Secret Weapons Of The Luftwaffe which me and my Dad played back in the day. It featured all the planes mentioned here and a few others. I remember the comet being a nightmare to fly because of its fuel consumption. I think it only had enough fuel for 5 min of powered flight and had to glide the rest of the time. Fun game though.

  • @BoostedSpeedDemon
    @BoostedSpeedDemon 9 місяців тому

    I heard that burp when you were talking about the Gustav lol

  • @Allan_aka_RocKITEman
    @Allan_aka_RocKITEman 9 місяців тому +2

    Of ALL the wonder weapons the Nazis created that actually entered service, my 'favorite' -- if you could call it that -- is the Messerschmitt ME-263 Komet.
    It is STILL the ONLY manned rocket-propelled interceptor aircraft to be used in combat.

  • @kaizerzero07
    @kaizerzero07 9 місяців тому +1

    The Gustav was insane 😅

  • @Mr16bit
    @Mr16bit 9 місяців тому +1

    It makes you wonder how much of these projects and expansion of designs like the h class were malicious compliance to bankrupt or waste resources from within.

  • @venoxidae
    @venoxidae 8 місяців тому

    The audio is slightly less similar, yet now I can gear the room modes in the voicectrack.

  • @thorshammer8033
    @thorshammer8033 9 місяців тому +3

    Well , everyone else had crazy odd programs too. The only difference was they didn't rely on these to save their ass

    • @philgiglio7922
      @philgiglio7922 9 місяців тому

      The US bat bomb is an example
      Not a totally bad idea, but when they burned down a town near the test station the idea was scraped
      Also using pigeons as the 'brain' of a smart bomb

    • @jimthorne304
      @jimthorne304 9 місяців тому

      There's often a case against innovative weapons; the famous 'Bouncing Bomb' only destroyed 2 German Dams, one of which was peripheral to the effort against Ruhr industry; it was never used against shipping. The 'Tallboy' and 'Grand Slam' bombs both came very late in the war, which severely reduced their impact. The Allies certainly had some pretty crazy ideas too, e.g. the plan to defeat any invasion of the UK from the sea by floating oil on the sea water, then setting it on fire. There's probably a video there about Allied innovative weapons.

  • @hmpeter
    @hmpeter 9 місяців тому

    Even small engineering projects in that time needed a lot of people. Not only engineers, but technical draftsmen and people manually calculating stuff. For a decent project, you might need hundreds of people, maybe more. If you know your government is susceptible for megalomanic projects and you can talk them into at least exploring some ideas without using much resources, your engineering team might not get drafted into active military duty. I read somewhere the team that designed the gigantic railway that was supposed to carry all the settlers into the east after the victory did exactly this. Not sure if it is true, but it might explain the motivation behind some of those projects. ^^

  • @dralord1307
    @dralord1307 9 місяців тому +2

    The "sungun" idea came from before ww2, and its was way off in its design at the time. It was later thrown around as an idea for the far future by germany. It wasnt like the video suggests

  • @Ulani101
    @Ulani101 9 місяців тому +1

    How about an episode on Kurt Diebner, and his supposed atomic bomb? The one that equally supposedly took down telephone systems with EMP, and put several senior SS officers in hospital with terminal radiation poisoning.
    Interesting story, if true.

  • @HighRaptorjr
    @HighRaptorjr 9 місяців тому +1

    *Sees the P1500*
    Ordinatus Oberon has awoken

  • @RustyDust101
    @RustyDust101 9 місяців тому +1

    Calling a full naval group against one Bismarck and one support ship "slapped around" when it was an outrageously lucky torpedo hit that took out Bismarck's ability to turn fully is a bit ludicrous.
    Even then the Bismarck took out HMS Hood despite being seriously outnumber, outgunned, and outweighed by the total number of ships arrayed against her. Even so it took several days of chasing Bismarck during which she was lost from observation multiple times in fog and the night. That's not what I would call "being slapped around". Yes, she was ultimately sunk, but definitely not without punching way above her weight class.

  • @skydivekid01
    @skydivekid01 9 місяців тому

    “D@m it Richthofen, I thought we were trough with this” Dempsey

  • @robryan2079
    @robryan2079 7 місяців тому

    Interesting, the photo from Trondheim Norway, I believe Trondheim is where the Tesseract was found by Red Skull in the first Thor movie

  • @SlimothyNate3218
    @SlimothyNate3218 9 місяців тому +9

    Kinda ironic that the percentage of military spending of an entire country for v2 rockets was similar to the development of US nuclear weapons. Even worse America gained both, through questionable methods😅

    • @cynthiaherbst3909
      @cynthiaherbst3909 9 місяців тому +3

      So did the Soviets, what's the point?

    • @stardogMLB
      @stardogMLB 9 місяців тому +1

      And that is ironic how?

    • @SlimothyNate3218
      @SlimothyNate3218 9 місяців тому +3

      @@stardogMLB ironic how they spent the same but the victor ended up with the best of both worlds

  • @DevenDeCoste
    @DevenDeCoste 9 місяців тому

    Editing of this video really caught me off guard lol

  • @barryon8706
    @barryon8706 9 місяців тому +6

    To be fair, it's reasonable to say that a wonder weapon did end World War 2.

  • @Jason-fm4my
    @Jason-fm4my 9 місяців тому

    This is why drugs are bad. One minute you're chilling in your basement, the next you're demanding your failing Riech create whimsical ultra battleships and time travel.

  • @lloydevans2900
    @lloydevans2900 7 місяців тому

    The idea that the big parabolic mirror on the proposed Nazi space station designed by Oberth was some kind of solar focusing weapon is a complete myth. For a start, the size of the mirror wasn't anywhere near big enough for that purpose - it would need to be several orders of magnitude larger and the curvature would need to be way more subtle in order for the focal length to hit targets on the ground from low earth orbit.
    In reality the parabolic mirror wasn't a weapon at all - it was the power source for the space station. Remember that photovoltaics (aka solar panels) didn't exist at the time because semiconductor research hadn't really got going yet. The mirror was actually designed to fire a solar boiler to drive a steam turbine system to generate electricity for the space station. Even that would never have really worked as designed because any thermal power station doesn't just need a heat source: It needs an effective heat sink as well to provide cooling for the condenser side of the turbine. On earth the cooling source is easy enough if you have access to the sea, a large river or lake for cooling water. But in space the only effective cooling is by radiating heat - take a look at the size of the radiator panels on the ISS, they are almost as large as the solar panels and that's just to dump the excess heat from the people and electrical equipment on board. Radiators powerful enough to deal with the excess heat from a steam turbine would need to be impractically large - probably far larger than the entire space station itself. So solar-fired boilers in space are a bit of a non-starter.

  • @Sedgewise47
    @Sedgewise47 9 місяців тому +4

    “Hail Hydra”…
    ( 😆!…)

    • @Reddotzebra
      @Reddotzebra 9 місяців тому +1

      Well to be fair, they DID create a lot more super science weapons that actually worked. Not to mention the first Cosmic Cube.

    • @chadimirputin2282
      @chadimirputin2282 9 місяців тому

      Slava urine.

    • @Sedgewise47
      @Sedgewise47 9 місяців тому

      @@Reddotzebra
      Actually-they didn’t “create” the cube, they _found_ it.

  • @JaelaOrdo
    @JaelaOrdo 9 місяців тому +9

    “I'M A' FIRIN' MEIN LAZER!!”
    - Austrian Painter

  • @richardpatton2502
    @richardpatton2502 9 місяців тому +5

    You should do a BioGraphics on Dr. Steven Greer.
    I think he’s a lunatic but I’m curious to see what you guys find out about him
    All the best to everyone

  • @avabethmcghee3048
    @avabethmcghee3048 7 місяців тому

    German Wunderwaffe were an albatross for the German military.. a millstone. The world owes a debt of gratitude to the madmen who actually tried to make them happen.

  • @TGGiant
    @TGGiant 8 місяців тому

    Slight problem with the sun gun. How do you "turn it off"?

  • @flyback_driver
    @flyback_driver 8 місяців тому

    I know Google translate is not super accurate but I found this interesting. Wunder translates to wonder and waffe translates to weapon. However, wunderwaffe translates to magic bullet and wunder waffe translates to wonder weapon. Kind of useless trivia but I thought it was interesting.

  • @blue_beephang-glider5417
    @blue_beephang-glider5417 7 місяців тому

    The 262 was designed as a fighter and delayed into combat against the Allied bomber streams by a year and a half as Hitler wanting it to be a bomber, then deigning it be used as a fighter. This would have lengthened the war but the result would have been the same.

  • @suit1337
    @suit1337 9 місяців тому

    unfortunately you got Gustav wrong
    it was designated "80-cm-Kanone (E)" and Krupp internally called it "Schwerer Gustav" (presumably because Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was in the Advisory Board of Krupp at the time but there is no account for that)
    the first of the 2 units built was nicknamed "Dora", the second one never got a name and was never used in combat
    also it is not a railway gun, it is just a huge gun that uses railway tracks
    a regular railway gun would be the "28-cm-Kanone 5 (E)" (the Krupp K 5)

  • @zioming
    @zioming 9 місяців тому

    1:07 This is literally the first time I'm hearing about this...

  • @mitchellneu
    @mitchellneu 9 місяців тому +7

    “AWESOME! BZZZZT!!!!”
    - Tank Dempsey’s thoughts on getting the Wunderwaffle out of the Mystery Box in Der Riese, Call Of Duty: World At War

    • @believeinmatter
      @believeinmatter 9 місяців тому +1

      It’s “wunderwaffe” , where did the L come from?

    • @mitchellneu
      @mitchellneu 9 місяців тому

      @@believeinmatter it’s uttered by Tank Dempsey, one of the playable characters in Call Of Duty: World At War’s Nazi Zombies mode. Upon receiving it, he’d often shout: “Ooh-rah, Wunderwaffle!”

    • @jus__gra
      @jus__gra 9 місяців тому +1

      @@believeinmatterit’s actually commonly known as that within the call of duty zombies community.

  • @jessiesratrods1210
    @jessiesratrods1210 9 місяців тому +7

    Britain had the best navy for a reason. The sun never set on the British empire at one point.

    • @suprarcjpop545
      @suprarcjpop545 9 місяців тому

      FFs the British navy are pathetic just like their Army. Just look at the state of Faslane

    • @simonrooney7942
      @simonrooney7942 9 місяців тому +3

      Not anymore that is for sure

  • @Ettrick8
    @Ettrick8 8 місяців тому

    However, some of these projects tied up allied resources in countering them through retaining forces in the UK or attacking their bases/manufacturing them.
    The Me264 didn't have the range to bomb America, much to the embarrassment of Messerschmitt when they calculations were found to be thousands of miles out

  • @justinhale2584
    @justinhale2584 9 місяців тому +1

    Why can i see your legs?
    You put those legs away, sir.

  • @justincase3230
    @justincase3230 9 місяців тому

    Hey Simon, should do something with minuteman, I reckon you guys would be fun to watch.

  • @swedichboy1000
    @swedichboy1000 9 місяців тому +1

    4:09 How so? There are soldier accounts of seeing strange crafts during and after the war.

  • @rumbleman65
    @rumbleman65 9 місяців тому +1

    They did make the wonderwaffle - it can kill zombies at and round😋

  • @15DEAN1995
    @15DEAN1995 9 місяців тому

    It's been a long time since I've seen the symbol that shall not be named on youtube

  • @zafarsyed6437
    @zafarsyed6437 9 місяців тому +1

    No one is going to comment on "M E 26 2"?
    Wouldn’t it have just been easier to have said "Messerschmitt M E 2 62"?
    Otherwise, I'm going to expect all 3 digit numbers to be pronounced as double digit, single digit...

  • @awkc63
    @awkc63 9 місяців тому +7

    There were many innovations they created that in time became useful to the world. If they had started some of these projects like the ME 262, or Horten 229 a few years earlier, it could've made a real difference.

    • @alfnoakes392
      @alfnoakes392 9 місяців тому +3

      The same could be said for Allied developments. If the Air Ministry had taken Frank Whittle seriously in the late 20s when he presented the idea of the jet-powered aeroplane, and provided even modest development support, history could have turned out very differently.

    • @dongiovanni4331
      @dongiovanni4331 9 місяців тому

      The allies had jets almost as early. The British offering to the Jet Age had it's first flight a month after the German's.

    • @jamesverity2879
      @jamesverity2879 9 місяців тому

      The Germans did start early with a big budget compared to the British inventor of the jet engine who was ignored by the British government and his papers were published for the Germans to happily read. But by the end of the war the British had a more powerful and reliable jet engine that was cheaper and easier to maintain as well a single engine platform that could be produced at at least twice the rate. All this despite neglect by the British to the concept and the inventor, as well as, delaying the project by over 6 months to let the Americans have a look. Let’s just say that it was the British who could kick development into overdrive and not the Germans. So if the numerical superior Germans had tried to introduce their deeply flawed early 15:36 jet fighter concepts it probably would have been like when the most powerful navy in the world released the ship called the Dreadnaught effectively reducing their lead to 1. Except it would be far worse.

    • @tomhenry897
      @tomhenry897 9 місяців тому

      Once we invaded france it was over

    • @gabrielho1874
      @gabrielho1874 7 місяців тому

      Good luck finding fuel

  • @AD-on3zx
    @AD-on3zx 9 місяців тому +3

    Surprised you didn’t mention the wasserfall sam project or the actual deployed jet bomber (let alone the possibly… deployed hs162 jet fighter). Cut for time I suppose :)

    • @johnassal5838
      @johnassal5838 9 місяців тому +1

      The Ar 234 you mean?

    • @AD-on3zx
      @AD-on3zx 9 місяців тому

      @@johnassal5838 i actually meant the hs162, but i forgot the name of the ar234 so I didn't also mention it :)

    • @Ulani101
      @Ulani101 9 місяців тому

      Let's not forget Red Riding Hood and Butterfly. Those Germans had a twisted sense of humour, with their weapon names.

  • @lucius6667
    @lucius6667 9 місяців тому +1

    Guessing we're going to forget about the coal powered ramjet designs that was viable

  • @nunyabidniz2868
    @nunyabidniz2868 9 місяців тому +2

    Supposedly, fairly early in the war [1940? '41?] a wreck of a lend-lease plane provided to England w/ Pratt & Whitney radial engines was salvaged and given to Luftwaffe engineers to evaluate the American technology. When asked for their analysis, the engineers informed the higher ups that the American engine was made to tolerances that German industry couldn't match, and did not leak oil the way their radial engines did. The executive summary was "We've already lost the war..."

  • @ross.venner
    @ross.venner 9 місяців тому

    5:04 - Quadruple turret, viz a turret for the King George V class.

  • @lordofinnistrad8757
    @lordofinnistrad8757 9 місяців тому

    And then the giant artillery cannons on trains became the concept of a YuGiOh deck.

  • @MarshmallowMidgets
    @MarshmallowMidgets 9 місяців тому +8

    The sun gun could probably happen with today’s technology

    • @user-jg6bd7se8u
      @user-jg6bd7se8u 9 місяців тому +2

      Mr Burns built something similar on the Simpsons.

    • @boden8138
      @boden8138 9 місяців тому +2

      It would also be extremely easy to destroy.

    • @jamesleggett9644
      @jamesleggett9644 9 місяців тому +1

      ​@@boden8138yeah but doing so would ruin create so much debris that itd be impossible to put anything in space for a long long time

    • @MarshmallowMidgets
      @MarshmallowMidgets 9 місяців тому

      @@boden8138easy is relative, there’s still only a handful of countries who can reliably get rockets to space, just have the sun gun torch them before they can even get ready to attack

    • @Caleb1874ya
      @Caleb1874ya 9 місяців тому

      Not if you’re barren or childless!!!

  • @kingjames4886
    @kingjames4886 9 місяців тому +1

    simonwaffe...
    edit: lol took the AI a minute to process that one.

  • @marchelligaming
    @marchelligaming 9 місяців тому

    What is missed is Horten HO229 which design features were later used in USA stealth fighter program and actual replica was created to test it

    • @CodeNameHOSEY
      @CodeNameHOSEY 9 місяців тому +1

      That’s not true. It didn’t influence American stealth design, and the Horten was not a stealth aircraft.

    • @marchelligaming
      @marchelligaming 9 місяців тому

      @@CodeNameHOSEY If you are so knowledagble, would this plane be detected later by radars than other fighter planes at that time, if it would be than yes it is called stealth technology, just sayin

    • @CodeNameHOSEY
      @CodeNameHOSEY 9 місяців тому

      @@marchelligaming It did have a marginally smaller RCS than a conventional prop aircraft. But you have to consider that the tests conducted on the modern mock-up of the Ho229 removed the engines, external weapons, the fuel tanks and the large steel space-frame that the real aircraft was built around, all of which would produce a large radar return. The tests also found that the Ho229 (without those features listed) would be able to be detected fairly easily by the Chain home radar sets on the Channel coast, though the range of this detection was lower than an ordinary aircraft (as you said). However, with the features that the mockup was missing added, the range would shoot back up negating the benefits of any ‘stealth’ qualities the shape had.

  • @pauld6967
    @pauld6967 9 місяців тому

    Simon, you and Lloyd, your writer, forgot to mention the plan to send V2s against the east coast of the United States from a launch canister towed behind a U-boat.
    Decades before the U.S. started firing missiles from submerged submarines.

  • @blue_beephang-glider5417
    @blue_beephang-glider5417 7 місяців тому

    No provable fact but my father a Hungarian soldier said he saw two Me 163s breaking the sound barrier. This was after I showed him a model of one. I have know idea what sound the rocket engine made on ignition, it could be turned off and on in flight. Or possibly it could go supersonic, it was very close and had swept wings?

  • @ScionStorm1
    @ScionStorm1 8 місяців тому

    Everybody knows vampires conspired to sabotage attempts to develop the sun gun.

  • @sudazima
    @sudazima 9 місяців тому

    to be fair the first thing to reach space was essentially a modified V2.

  • @Proudly.Somnolent
    @Proudly.Somnolent 9 місяців тому

    And after all, you're my Wunderwaffe.

  • @christianklein5774
    @christianklein5774 8 місяців тому

    Rheinwschestern sometimes Rehintöchter was anit Aircraft Misselsystem that rund by a Radarwagon and the Miselaucher that fired a dadio drictet misel to the radar detet aircraift as i sad it need to much constrution capacity and whetn delet for the much cheaper comet ...

  • @rustywater3219
    @rustywater3219 9 місяців тому

    Id like to hear your take on the material in the 'hunting Hitler' series.

  • @captiannemo1587
    @captiannemo1587 9 місяців тому +1

    There’s more stuff that have never made it into a book … that were actually tested.

  • @williamarthurfenton1496
    @williamarthurfenton1496 5 місяців тому

    What people overlook I think with these counter-factual arguments like "What if Germany introduced these advanced weapons like jets earlier, and withhout meddling from up in high command." is the Allies wouldn't just sit there and let this new serious threat ruin their war efforts. Britain also had a fully functional jet programme-- they would be forced to adapt in a new arms race (as is always the way in war), and with the huge resources of America it really wouldn't have been long before Allied jets were rolling off production lines. German jets and rocket weapons were never a real threat, which is why they didn't respond in kind.

  • @BananenBoerBob
    @BananenBoerBob 9 місяців тому

    Imagine how scary Germany would be if they did manage to develop a nuke. With the V2 as a delivery method they'd be getting close to having ICBMs decades ahead of anyone else. And I don't think Hitler would've hesitate to use them either. With the frontlines, the UK destroyed and with the US developing their nuke it would become a battle of who could deliver such a weapon to the enemy first. With the V2 insufficient for this range on its own it would need to be launched from a ship/u-boat. Or the amerikabomber project would become top priority for them. Not sure what timetable they would need to get all that ready though

    • @philiphumphrey1548
      @philiphumphrey1548 9 місяців тому +1

      Two problems with using the V2 for an atomic bomb. The maximum payload for a V2 was 1000kg. The little boy atomic bomb used by the Americans was over 4, 000kg. The Germans also lacked a proximity fuse that would have allowed it to explode before it hit the ground. Instead, the V2 buried itself in the ground before exploding which wasted most of the explosive power of any warhead. The WW2 delivery system actually used for the atomic bomb was the B-29 bomber, another enormous project in its own right that some claim cost more to develop than the atomic bomb. The Germans had nothing equivalent

  • @ToomasTelling
    @ToomasTelling 9 місяців тому

    the horton 18 desgin would become the base to the american B2 bomber. the Horton 229 was the only working Prototype for the flying wing known to exist and survive the war.

    • @CodeNameHOSEY
      @CodeNameHOSEY 9 місяців тому

      No it didn’t, and no it wasn’t. Flying wings had been experimented extensively pre-war. Have a google of the Northrop YB-49/YB-35 for example.