History UsefulNotes / NazisWithGnarlyWeapons

Commencing the ''Heer's'' late-war policy of trying to put an 88mm gun on absolutely everything (tanks, tank destroyers, chairs, trees, surprised farm animals, etc), the Tiger I was the first of the new heavy tanks. While it used a traditional armour scheme and was hideously over-engineered (to the point where the manual was a picture book made ''by'' the tank crews), it proved a fearsome opponent. Almost as famous, and produced in much larger numbers, was the Pz V Panther medium tank which featured thick, sloped armour, excellent firepower, good mobility and is widely viewed as the best all round tank of the war. However, the late war tanks suffered from rushed development and were never as reliable in service as their American and Russian opponents. In addition, their high quality and over-engineering meant that Panthers and Tigers were incredibly outnumbered by Shermans and T-34s, which the Americans and Russians could crank out in vast numbers very quickly.

Many of the high-ranking Heer officers were respected by their Allied opponents. The most famous of these is Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox. Churchill himself said it was a shame Rommel was on the other side. As most in the Heer were conscripts who believed in "my country, right or wrong", quite a few officers were able to salvage their careers following the war. Erich von Manstein, known as the master of strategy, became a senior advisor to the new West German military in the 1950s.

The largest organization of the German war machine, the ''Heer'' is often erroneously referred to as the ''Wehrmacht''. Properly, the Wehrmacht refers to the entire organization while the ''Heer'' refers to the ground forces. The most recognized symbol of the ''Heer'' was the "coal scuttle" helmet known as the ''Stahlhelm''. It was such a popular design that it was used by civil organizations such as police and fire departments as well. Today, it can be seen in the Chilean Army, with American helmets have a similar swooped-back design.

Many of the high-ranking Heer officers were respected by their Allied opponents. The most famous of these is Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox. Churchill himself said it was a shame Rommel was on the other side. As most in the Heer were conscripts who believed in "my country, right or wrong", a few officers were able to salvage their careers following the war. Erich von Manstein, known as the master of strategy, became a senior advisor to the new West German military in the 1950s.

As part of their training, Wehrmacht infantrymen were encouraged to think two steps of command above themselves. That way, if their squad leaders were killed, the troopers next in line could take charge quickly.

The former, sometimes known as "The Doodlebug" or "Buzz-Bomb" due to its distinctive noise, had a system where the missile would be forced into a dive after a certain number of revolutions, which also cut the engine. Once the engine stopped, people on the ground knew an explosion was imminent. The V-1 was somewhat inaccurate, generally falling short of London and false intelligence from British double agents led to this not being corrected before the V-1 sites were overrun by the Allies. They could also be shot down with anti-aircraft gun with shell with proximity fuses, while fighter planes were able to down them, albeit with considerable difficulty. One popular, though difficult and potentially dangerous, method used by fighter pilots was to slide one of their planes' wingtips underneath a V-1's wingtip, then tilt their planes' wings until the V-1 tipped over (the V-1's rudimentary guidance system, which was basically a gyroscope and little more, could not stabilize the missile if it made too much a turn).

'''Apes with Steel Helmets: the Heer'''

Unlike other militaries, the Luftwaffe had its own ground troops: the ''Fallschirmjaeger'', or paratrooper. Germany employed the first large scale airbourne operations in Norway. However, a massive loss at Crete convinced Hitler that airbourne operations would no longer be feasible. For the rest of the war, they were pretty much used alongside regular infantry forces. Luckily, they did get a pretty nice CrowningMomentofAwesome in 1943: the rescue of Mussolini without the loss of a single life. The guys were so elite, they had their own Ten Commandments for combat.

Given this situation, MyCountryRightOrWrong was a ''very'' common attitude among many Wehrmacht soldiers.

As part of their training, Wehrmacht infantrymen were encouraged to think two steps of command above themselves. That way, if their squad leaders were killed, the troopers next in line could take charge quickly.

Because Admiral Karl Doenitz expected the British to adopt the convoy system quickly, which led to a sharp decline in kills by U-boats during the first world war, he instituted a new tactic for dealing with them: the ''Wolfsrudel'', or wolf pack. A group of five or more U-boats would stalk a convoy by day and then attack at night. Due to Doenitz's micromanagement of the Atlantic campaign, this tactic was eventually turned against itself; with his high usage of radio traffic, the Allies were eventually able to hunt down the boats with High Frequency Direction Finding ("Huff-Duff"). However, in their heyday, known as the "Happy Time", this tactic did prove deadly convoys. It proved so useful that the Americans started using wolf pack tactics in the Pacific Theater against the Japanese. With the advent of nuclear power submarines in the 1950s, wolf packs have become obsolete.

Probably the most iconic German weapon of WWII was the MP-40 sub-machine gun. Near ubiquitous in war films, it wasn't quite so common in real life as it was only really useful in short ranged firefights. It was issued to paratroopers, tank crews, platoon and squad leaders. The MP-40 is also noteworthy for being specifically designed to be easy to mass produce.

Germany's surface navy wasn't up to a tremendous amount. Capital ships take a long time to design and build and the Navy had scarely begun its ambitious expansion plans when the war started (Admiral Raeder had been assured by Hitler that there wouldn't be a major war until 1945). It's widely agreed that Operation Sealion would have failed as the landing craft would have been devastated by British naval power, and because, lacking the mobile harbours of operation Overlord, it would have had to have taken one of the British channel ports relatively intact to keep the invasion forces supplied. Notably, Nazi Germany never completed an aircraft carrier, though two were laid down; this was largely due to politics. Hitler found the carriers thoroughly uninteresting and Goering viewed the concept of a naval air arm as undermining the Luftwaffe's authority; Erich Raeder even found opposition within the Kriegsmarine itself from the influential Admiral Karl Dönitz. Much of the ocean-going fleet was seriously damaged in the Norwegian campaign. Various measures took care of their two biggest capital ships, ''Bismarck'' and ''Tirpitz''; even if they hadn't, both ships were hardly state-of-the-art, using two types of deck guns rather than modern dual-purpose guns and an obsolete pre-Jutland armouring scheme that left their rudders and steering gear without any effective protection.

'''Note:''' (The Type XXI U-boat ''was'' the first true submarine thanks to the snorkel, a greatly increased battery capacity and much greater submerged speed than previous U-boats, but due to severe construction faults all but two Type [=XIIs=] would never make it to wartime patrol... and then Germany surrendered before either of those two could sink a ship.)

Probably the most iconic German weapon of WWII was the MP-40 sub-machine gun. Near ubiquitous in war films, it wasn't quite so common in real life as it was only really useful in short ranged firefights. The MP-40 is also noteworthy for being specifically designed to be easy to mass produce.

'''U-Boats and battleships; the Kriegsmarine'''

Commencing the ''Heer's'' late-war policy of trying to put an 88mm gun on absolutely everything (tanks, tank destroyers, chairs, trees, surprised farm animals, etc), the Tiger I was the first of the new heavy tanks. While it used a traditional armour scheme and was hideously over-engineered, it proved a fearsome opponent. Almost as famous, and produced in much larger numbers, was the Pz V Panther medium tank which featured thick, sloped armour, excellent firepower, good mobility and is widely viewed as the best all round tank of the war. However, the late war tanks suffered from rushed development and were never as reliable in service as their American and Russian opponents. In addition, their high quality and over-engineering meant that Panthers and Tigers were incredibly outnumbered by Shermans and T-34s, which the Americans and Russians could crank out in vast numbers very quickly.

Because it is absolutely ''not'' [[TruthInTelevision true]] that AllGermansAreNazis, even while Hitler was in power, it should come as no surprise that most members of the ''Wehrmacht'' were not in it for the ideology. In fact, there was a fairly clear division between the branches of the ''Wehrmacht'' in terms of politics; the Luftwaffe tended to be the most Nazified service, as it had only been re-created under Hitler's regime; the Army was not so much Nazi as merely conservative, especially in its [[BlueBlood Junker]]-dominated officer corps; and (as anyone who's seen ''DasBoot'' can tell you) the Navy was the least-Nazi service, occasionally considered to be a hotbed of democratic and leftist sentiment (sailors of the High Seas Fleet had started the democratic [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Revolution_of_1918%E2%80%9319 German Revolution]] at the end of WorldWarOne). Hitler himself was known to joke that he had "a conservative army, a Nazi air force, and a communist navy."

Commencing the ''Heer's'' late-war policy of trying to put an 88mm gun on absolutely everything (tanks, tank destroyers, chairs, trees, surprised farm animals, etc)(can you blame them? Almost the only targets the 88 couldn't reliably kill from insane distances were warships and bunkers, for crying out loud!) , the Tiger I was the first of the new heavy tanks. While it used a traditional armour scheme and was hideously over-engineered, it proved a fearsome opponent. Almost as famous, and produced in much larger numbers, was the Pz V Panther medium tank which featured thick, sloped armour, excellent firepower, good mobility and is widely viewed as the best all round tank of the war. However, the late war tanks suffered from rushed development and were never as reliable in service as their American and Russian opponents. In addition, their high quality and over-engineering meant that Panthers and Tigers were incredibly outnumbered by Shermans and T-34s, which the Americans and Russians could crank out in vast numbers very quickly.

Commencing the ''Heer's'' late-war policy of trying to put an 88mm gun on absolutely everything (tanks, tank destroyers, chairs, trees, surprised farm animals, etc), the Tiger I was the first of the new heavy tanks. While it used a traditional armour scheme and was hideously over-engineered, it proved a fearsome opponent. Almost as famous, and produced in much larger numbers, was the Pz V Panther medium tank which featured thick, sloped armour, excellent firepower, good mobility and is widely viewed as the best all round tank of the war. However, the late war tanks suffered from rushed development and were never as reliable in service as their American and Russian opponents. In addition, their high quality and over-engineering meant that Panthers and Tigers were incredibly outnumbered by Shermans and T-34s, which the Americans and Russians could crank out in vast numbers very quickly.

Germany was one of the first countries to get jet aircraft into military service (the jet engine was an independent, simultaneous german and british invention, as agreed on by both inventors), but the Me 262 arrived too late in the war to have a major impact due to a lack of pilots, fuel, manufacturing capacity, viable runways (the plane required a longer runway to take off), and raw materials. It is also sometimes argued that Hitler himself crippled the Me 262 program by demanding that the new aircraft be purposed as a fighter-bomber rather than the originally designed air superiority fighter. Powerful engines that would have made it a nimble and incredibly fast interceptor made for a merely ''decent'' ground attack aircraft due to their high fuel consumption, and heavy bombs ruined the jet's biggest advantage -- an enormous climb speed.

Because it is absolutely ''not'' [[TruthInTelevision true]] that AllGermansAreNazis, even while Hitler was in power, it should come as no surprise that most members of the ''Wehrmacht'' were not in it for the ideology. In fact, there was a fairly clear division between the branches of the ''Wehrmacht'' in terms of politics; the Luftwaffe tended to be the most Nazified service, as it had only been re-created under Hitler's regime; the Army was not so much Nazi as merely conservative, especially in its [[BlueBlood Junker]]-dominated officer corps; and (as anyone who's seen ''DasBoot'' can tell you) the Navy was the least-Nazi service, occasionally considered to be a hotbed of democratic and leftist sentiment (sailors of the High Seas Fleet had started the democratic [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Revolution_of_1918?19 German Revolution]] at the end of WorldWarOne). Hitler himself was known to joke that he had "a conservative army, a Nazi air force, and a communist navy."

It is a [[CommonKnowledge myth]] that the entirety of the Waffen SS was elite. Many of them actually received poorer equipment and training than their Heer counterparts, and only three divisions are generally considered by militaria experts to be elite, namely the [[PraetorianGuard 1st SS Division Leibstandarte (Life Guard) Adolf Hitler, Hitler's personal bodyguard]], the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, infamous for their [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane#Massacre actions]] at the French town of Oradour-sur-Glane (it says something that the officer responsible would probably have been tried for war crimes even if Germany had ''won'' the war) and the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf, infamous for both their Death's Head insignia and their roots in the prewar Totenkopfverb?e (Death's Head Organisation), which administered the prewar (and [[ItGotWorse slightly less brutal]]) concentration camp system.

The result was the up-gunning of the Panzer IV, formerly an infantry tank specifically ''not'' designed to engage armour; many obsolete hulls were turned into tank destroyers with heavier fixed main guns, and a new series of Panzers envisioned; larger, with heavy armour and powerful main guns.

Commencing the ''Heer's'' late-war policy of trying to put an 88mm gun on absolutely everything (tanks, tank destroyers, chairs, trees, surprised farm animals, etc), the Tiger I was the first of the new heavy tanks. While it used a traditional armour scheme and was hideously over-engineered, it proved a fearsome opponent. Almost as famous, and produced in much larger numbers, was the Pz V Panther medium tank which featured thick, sloped armour, excellent firepower, good mobility and is widely viewed as the best all round tank of the war. However, the late war tanks suffered from rushed development and were never as reliable in service as their American and Russian opponents.

It is a [[CommonKnowledge myth]] that the entirety of the Waffen SS was elite. Many of them actually received poorer equipment and training than their Heer counterparts, and only three divisions are generally considered by militaria experts to be elite, namely the [[PraetorianGuard 1st SS Division Leibstandarte (Life Guard) Adolf Hitler, Hitler's personal bodyguard]], the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, infamous for their [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane#Massacre actions]] at the French town of Oradour-sur-Glane and the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf, infamous for both their Death's Head insignia and their roots in the prewar Totenkopfverb?e (Death's Head Organisation), which administered the prewar (and [[ItGotWorse slightly less brutal]]) concentration camp system.

The U-Boats were not true submarines in the modern sense of the word, but rather submersibles - they spent most of their time on the surface and were slow underwater. Late in the war Germany employed the Schnorchel (snorkle) device, which they copied from some Dutch submarines captured in 1940 (it was invented in 1938). It allowed U-Boats to draw air from the surface and stay underwater indefinitely. The U-Boats were probably the single most successful weapon at the Kreigsmarine's disposal, but even they had issues; persistant problems with faulty torpedoes led to many vessels escaping destruction, and at least two U-Boats sank ''themselves'' with faulty acoustic homing torps.

Germany's surface navy wasn't up to a tremendous amount. Capital ships take a long time to design and build and the Navy had scarely begun its ambitious expansion plans hen the war started (Admiral Raeder had been assured by Hitler that there wouldn't be a major war until 1945). It's widely agreed that Operation Sealion would have failed as the landing craft would have been devastated by British naval power, and because, lacking the mobile harbours of operation Overlord, it would have had to have taken one of the British channel ports relatively intact to keep the invasion forces supplied. Notably, Nazi Germany never completed an aircraft carrier, though two were laid down; this was largely due to politics. Hitler found the carriers thoroughly uninteresting and Goering viewed the concept of a naval air arm as undermining the Luftwaffe's authority; Erich Raeder even found opposition within the Kriegsmarine itself from the influential Admiral Karl Dönitz. Much of the ocean-going fleet was seriously damaged in the Norwegian campaign. Various measures took care of their two biggest capital ships, ''Bismarck'' and ''Tirpitz''; even if they hadn't, both ships were hardly state-of-the-art, using two types of deck guns rather than modern dual-purpose guns and an obsolete pre-Jutland armouring scheme that left their rudders and steering gear without any effective protection.

Germany was one of the first countries to get jet aircraft into military service (the jet engine was a British invention), but the Me 262 arrived too late in the war to have a major impact due to a lack of pilots, fuel, manufacturing capacity, viable runways (the plane required a longer runway to take off), and raw materials. It is also sometimes argued that Hitler himself crippled the Me 262 program by demanding that the new aircraft be purposed as a fighter-bomber rather than the originally designed air superiority fighter. Powerful engines that would have made it a nimble and incredibly fast interceptor made for a merely ''decent'' ground attack aircraft due to their high fuel consumption, and heavy bombs ruined the jet's biggest advantage -- an enormous climb speed.

** Matrosenhauptgerfreiter (Equivalent to Leading Seaman 3th class)

** Maat (Equivalent to Petty Officer 3nd class)

The SS, itself almost a state within a state, had its own military wing seperate from the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS. Particularly later in the war, they tended to get new equipment before the Wehrmacht, not exactly easing their relationship which was already strained.

Because it is absolutely ''not'' [[TruthInTelevision true]] that AllGermansAreNazis, even while Hitler was in power, it should come as no surprise that most members of the ''Wehrmacht'' were not in it for the ideology. In fact, there was a fairly clear division between the branches of the ''Wehrmacht'' in terms of politics; the Luftwaffe tended to be the most Nazified service, as it had only been re-created under Hitler's regime; the Army was not so much Nazi as merely conservative, especially in its [[BlueBlood Junker]]-dominated officer corps; and (as anyone who's seen ''DasBoot'' can tell you) the Navy was the least-Nazi service, occasionally considered to be a hotbed of democratic and leftist sentiment (sailors of the High Seas Fleet had started the democratic [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Revolution_of_1918?19 German Revolution]] at the end of WorldWarOne). Hitler himself was known to joke that he had "a conservative army, a Nazi air force, and a communist navy."

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