The Wunderwaffe: Germany's Crazy Attempts to Win WWII

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

[@MrAtrophy]

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

[@burningchrome70]

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

[@aceundead4750]

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

[@TamTran-vw7zm]

Details, details.

[@BMW_329]

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

[@cuddlepaws4423]

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]

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]

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

[@axityouuknoow]

But it had a huge impact in the cold war

[@patwilson2546]

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.]

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

[@axityouuknoow]

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

[@johnassal5838]

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]

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

[@johnassal5838]

@@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]

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

[@johnassal5838]

@@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]

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

[@stefaneer9120]

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

[@bluefish2303]

😂

[@Jonathan.D]

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]

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

[@Jonathan.D]

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]

Pronounce

[@JonMartinYXD]

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.

[@RidinDirtyRollinBurnouts]

Or enough energy to get 10 DeLoreans sent back in time

[@liamwinter4512]

This is the way

[@Michael_Smith-Red_No.5]

@@liamwinter4512 This is the way.

[@stupitdog9686]

But would it help with a quick tan??

[@JC12223]

@@stupitdog9686the quickest

[@dtaylor10chuckufarle]

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

[@JABoyle3875]

Sorry. We only have ill tempered sea bass.

[@dtaylor10chuckufarle]

I did Nazi that coming!@@JABoyle3875

[@GrievousReborn]

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

[@martinstallard2742]

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

[@mr.thung12]

Wunderwaffe DG2 was amazing at killing zombies.

[@GrandmasterHash]

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

[@chriswhite3692]

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]

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

[@y0h0p38]

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

[@Jonathan.D]

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

[@EliteCuttlefish]

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.

[@stratometal]

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

[@rochikkelley1751]

Ikr

[@F1pidis]

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

[@stratometal]

@@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.

[@patrickhallermann3844]

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]

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

[@Megan-sf5vf]

Good to know

[@malusignatius]

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]

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

[@senorpepper3405]

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

[@rookiexreviews]

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

[@jamesricker3997]

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

[@isaacperkins5227]

Sources

[@clamcrewcarclub6017]

Pretty sure the government could just exempt anyone they wanted from the draft lol

[@katkalocova]

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

[@Fertro]

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

[@PitFriend1]

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]

But which one will work

[@CobraDBlade]

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]

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]

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

[@Jonathan.D]

@@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.

[@samshuijzen]

I love your choice of subjects, very interesting approach!

[@ukmediawarrior]

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]

Dave Grohl had 12 aerial kills in WWII

[@ukmediawarrior]

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

[@Caleb1874ya]

He was Lead WINGER first

[@TraitorVek]

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

[@Aboz]

Makes me think of an amazing breakfast food.. Wunderwaffle

[@adoredpariah]

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]

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.

[@tylercagle9785]

Yes been waiting for this one

[@Reddotzebra]

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]

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]

​@@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]

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

[@philgiglio7922]

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

[@baddman69]

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.

[@kevinchristensen880]

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

[@philgiglio7922]

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]

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

[@GundamReviver]

​@@kevinchristensen880operation paperclip went brrrr

[@VinnyUnion]

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

[@titaniumteddybear]

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

[@steel8231]

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]

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

[@angrydoggy9170]

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

[@johnassal5838]

@@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]

@@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]

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.

[@maultasche668]

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

[@justinweber4977]

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]

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]

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

[@GolfKilo]

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

[@BoostedSpeedDemon]

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

[@ryandowney8743]

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]

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

[@53kenner]

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

[@Duck0War]

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

[@stephenconnolly3018]

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]

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.

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

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.

[@something1600]

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

[@derekwhistler4957]

Like your videos Simon!

[@thorshammer8033]

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

[@philgiglio7922]

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]

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.

[@lloydevans2900]

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.

[@venoxidae]

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

[@Jason-fm4my]

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.

[@RustyDust101]

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]

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

[@Mr16bit]

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.

[@robryan2079]

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

[@richpontone1]

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]

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]

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

[@renaissanceredneck3695]

​@@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]

@@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]

@@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.

[@noboddy999]

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

[@dralord1307]

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

[@Sierra0331]

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]

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

[@liammadden7572]

lol

[@swedichboy1000]

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

[@hmpeter]

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. ^^

[@Ulani101]

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.

[@justincase3230]

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

[@ScionStorm1]

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

[@flyback_driver]

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.

[@Genghis-Jon]

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

[@Jonathan.D]

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]

​@@Jonathan.D*fixed*

[@Jonathan.D]

@@Sharky762 Thank you sir!👍

[@kaizerzero07]

The Gustav was insane 😅

[@Sedgewise47]

“Hail Hydra”… ( 😆!…)

[@Reddotzebra]

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

[@chadimirputin2282]

Slava urine.

[@Sedgewise47]

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

[@christianklein5774]

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 ...

[@FatalWarGhost]

I was watching this in landscape mode on my phone and the border changed color! How'd you do that?

[@williamarthurfenton1496]

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.

[@richardpatton2502]

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

[@AD-on3zx]

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]

The Ar 234 you mean?

[@AD-on3zx]

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

[@Ulani101]

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

[@xNeMx]

Does anyone have a clue which music is playing between 4:33 and 8:35 ?

[@suit1337]

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)

[@TGGiant]

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

[@rustywater3219]

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

[@JaelaOrdo]

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

[@EnclaveOfficer1776]

Should have just let him into art school.

[@SlimothyNate3218]

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]

So did the Soviets, what's the point?

[@stardogMLB]

And that is ironic how?

[@SlimothyNate3218]

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

[@blue_beephang-glider5417]

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?

[@marchelligaming]

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]

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

[@marchelligaming]

@@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]

@@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.

[@DevenDeCoste]

Editing of this video really caught me off guard lol

[@zafarsyed6437]

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...

[@Ass_of_Amalek]

14:46 holy shit, is that a lifting body?!

[@Ass_of_Amalek]

yes it is, how have I never heard of this one? suborbital craft with lifting body designs are currently some of the most cutting edge weapons in development, specifically as the hypersonic missiles promising the best performance characteristics. that makes this silbervogel the one concept in this video that's by far the furthest ahead ofi ts time.

[@Jonathan.D]

Lifting bodies are actually old tech. They were first conceived in 1917. NASA made one back in the 1960's. What was once old is now becoming new again.

[@zioming]

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

[@Ettrick8]

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

[@Zsinj3]

The problem with the rocket based technology wasn't cost, but targeting. Using V2s on civilian targets was asinine and worthless. Bases and ports are valuable military targets just as easily hit by the V2 and could have in theory at least done *something* impactful to actual British/Allied war efforts. The same goes for jet aircraft. Not only were they too late by a couple years, but they were wasted trying to prevent bomber attacks when they would have been massively more effective as a means to devastate bases and slow moving ground columns. The ideal use case for the Me262s was to be available in time to participate in the Battle of Britain, during which they would ravage the British fleet with impunity. Without her Home Fleet to ensure safe transit into harbors, and the help of the jet fighters themselves, the U-boat effort to cut off supplies via blockade would actually have a chance to succeed. As with basically everything in the German military during the Nazi era, a massive flaw in the Wunderwaffen programs were the idiotic decisions constantly mismanaging and misallocating everything.

[@blue_beephang-glider5417]

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.

[@lordofinnistrad8757]

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

[@rumbleman65]

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

[@TheRavenLord1]

If only on certain ones on this list.

[@HighRaptorjr]

*Sees the P1500* Ordinatus Oberon has awoken

[@pauld6967]

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.

[@BananenBoerBob]

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]

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

[@avabethmcghee3048]

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.

[@jonathanpatze87]

Achja the Wunderwaffen, a bit of genius, some voodoo and a loooot of megalomania.

[@ChrisToefurBackCashGrab]

Are the sound effects abnormally loud or is it just me?

[@leaguemastergg3647]

12:44 fun side note, the bat bomb might have actually been more destructive than the nukes at the time

[@oFFtheWall518]

Another Fat Electrician fan!

[@ross.venner]

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

[@sop1918]

10:17 was it not used to destroy a giant deep underwater bunker owned by Belgium?

[@15DEAN1995]

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

[@lucius6667]

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

[@oFFtheWall518]

So _that's_ where the "wonderwaffle" came from. Got it.

[@nijadbahnam9859]

Wunderwaffe . I heard this term fir the first time in the cap america xomic serie .

[@pashakdescilly7517]

15:15 What is this aircraft design?

[@ToomasTelling]

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]

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.