Wunderwaffe Explained
Wunderwaffe (pronounced as /de/) is a German word meaning "wonder-weapon" and was a term assigned during World War II by Nazi Germany's propaganda ministry to some revolutionary "superweapons". Most of these weapons however remained prototypes, which either never reached the combat theater, or if they did, were too late or in too insignificant numbers to have a military effect.[1] The V-weapons, which were developed earlier and saw considerable deployment, especially against London and Antwerp, trace back to the same pool of highly inventive armament concepts. In the German language, the term Wunderwaffe generally refers to a universal solution which solves all problems related to a particular issue, mostly used ironically for its illusionary nature.
As the war situation worsened for Germany from 1942, claims about the development of revolutionary new weapons which could turn the tide became an increasingly prominent part of the propaganda directed at Germans by their government. In reality, the advanced weapons under development generally required lengthy periods of design work and testing, and there was no realistic prospect of the German military being able to field them before the end of the war. When some advanced designs, such as the Panther tank and Type XXI submarine, were rushed into production, their performance proved disappointing to the German military and leadership due to inadequate pre-production testing or poorly planned construction processes. Historian Michael J. Neufeld has noted that "the net result of all these weapons, deployed or otherwise, was that the Reich wasted a lot of money and technical expertise (and killed a lot of forced and slave laborers) in developing and producing exotic devices that yielded little or no tactical and strategic advantage".[2] However, a few weapons proved to be successful and have had a large influence in post-war designs.
Naval vessels
Aircraft carriers
- – a 33,550 ton aircraft carrier laid down in 1936; never completed.
- Flugzeugträger B – planned sister ship to the Graf Zeppelin; scrapped before launching.
- Flugzeugträger C and D – two additional proposed aircraft carriers of the Graf Zeppelin class.
- – a planned 56,500 ton aircraft carrier, converted from a transport; cancelled before work started.
Battleships
U-boats
Oceangoing U-boats
Littoral U-boats
U-Cruisers
- Type XI – a U-boat designed to carry the Arado Ar 231 collapsible floatplane and have 128mm turrets; four were laid down but canceled at the outbreak of World War II.
Armoured vehicles
Anti-aircraft weapons
Anti-tank weapons
- Sturer Emil ("Stubborn Emil") –An experimental Panzerjäger style, open-topped tank destroyer armed with a Rheinmetall 12.8 cm K L/61 gun, 2 prototypes built for tests. Sole surviving prototype on display at the Kubinka Tank Museum.
- Elefant (Ferdinand) - A heavy tank destroyer, mounting a 8.8 cm Pak 43/2 L/71 gun, 91 units produced.
Super-heavy tanks
- Landkreuzer P. 1000 "Ratte" (Rat) –A planned super-heavy tank, weighing 1000 tonnes and armed with two 280mm cannons, one 128mm anti-tank gun, 8 20mm flak guns and 2 15mm heavy machine guns; cancelled in early 1943.
- Panzer VII "Löwe" (Lion) –A planned super-heavy tank, weighing 90 tonnes and armed with a 105mm cannon; cancelled in March 1942 in favor of the Panzer VIII Maus.
- Panzer VIII "Maus" (Mouse) – A super-heavy tank, weighing 188 tonnes and armed with two cannons of 128mm and 75mm calibre; five were ordered but only two operable prototypes completed – lone survivor currently on display at the Kubinka Tank Museum.
- Panzerkampfwagen E-100 –A planned super-heavy tank (the heaviest of a series of "E-tanks") weighing 140 tonnes and armed with either 128 or 150 mm cannon, one prototype hull nearly completed, the hull was later captured and evaluated by the British before being scrapped in the 1950s.
Reconnaissance tanks
- Kugelpanzer (ball tank)-A prototype spherical reconnaissance/cable-laying tank with a mysterious history. Sent to Japan and captured by the Soviets in 1945. Currently on display at the Kubinka Tank Museum.
- VK 16.02 Leopard-Planned reconnaissance tank. Only mockup of Waffenträger (weapon carrier) was built.
Gliders
Piston engine aircraft
- Blohm & Voss BV 141 – a tactical reconnaissance aircraft with unusual asymmetrical design.
- Blohm & Voss BV 238 – a super-heavy transport flying boat and bomber, it was the heaviest aircraft ever built by the time of its completion.
- Dornier Do 335 – a heavy fighter with the push-pull configuration.
- Focke Rochen - a VTOL experimental aircraft project.
- Focke-Achgelis Fa 269 – a planned tilt-rotor VTOL fighter.
- Focke-Wulf Ta 152 – a high-altitude interceptor.
- Focke-Wulf Ta 400 – a planned Amerikabomber candidate with six radial engines and two jet engines with a range of 13,000 km in bomber configuration.
- Heinkel He 111Z – a five engined Zwilling (twin)-fuselage aircraft created by combining two He 111s and designed to tow large gliders.
- Heinkel He 274 – a high altitude heavy bomber with four in-line engines with a range of 3,440 km, two completed by France after the war.
- Heinkel He 277 – a planned, advanced long-range bomber design, designated by RLM by February 1943, inheriting many He 219 prototype design features during its evolution but never built as a complete aircraft, evolved to be an Amerikabomber candidate, to be powered with four BMW 801 radial engines and up to 11,000 km range.
- Junkers Ju 390 – an Amerikabomber candidate with six radial engines with a range of 9,700 km, two airworthy prototypes built and flown.
- Junkers Ju 488 – a heavy bomber with four radial engines with a range of 3,395 km.
- Messerschmitt Me 264 – an Amerikabomber candidate with four inline or radial engines and a range of 15,000 km, three airworthy prototypes built and flown.
- Messerschmitt Me 323 "Gigant" (Giant) – a heavy transport with six engines, adapted from the Me 321 giant troop-glider.
Jets and rocket-propelled aircraft
Helicopters
Bombs and explosives
Artillery
Missiles
- Aggregat series
- A1 – the first German liquid-propellant experimental rocket.
- A2 – an experimental rocket, gyroscopically stabilized.
- A3 – an experimental rocket with an inertial guidance system.
- A4/V-2 – the first ballistic missile and the first human-made object to achieve sub-orbital spaceflight.
- A5 – an experimental reusable rocket.
- A6 – planned version of the A5 with different propellants; may have also been a proposal for a manned reconnaissance version of the A4b/A9.
- A7 – winged rocket, never completed.
- A8 – proposed stretched version of the A4 to use storable propellants.
- A9/A10 Amerika Rakete – a planned intermediate-range ballistic missile to be used to strike the eastern United States.
- A11 Japan Rakete – proposed three-stage rocket.
- A12 – planned four-stage orbital launch rocket, capable of putting 10 metric tons into low Earth orbit.
- Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg – a manned "suicide attack" cruise missile.
- Enzian – a planned surface-to-air missile with infrared guidance.
- Feuerlilie F-25 "Fire Lilly" – a surface-to-air missile.
- Feuerlilie F-55 "Fire Lilly" – a two-stage, supersonic surface-to-air missile.
- V-1 flying bomb/Fieseler Fi 103/Vergeltungswaffe 1 – the first cruise missile.
- Fliegerfaust "Pilot Fist" or "Plane Fist" / Luftfaust "Air Fist" – the first man-portable air-defense system (MANPADS) anti-aircraft weapons system.
- Fritz X – an unpowered air-launched, MCLOS-guided anti-ship missile using the FuG 203/230 Kehl-Straßurg control system, the pioneering wartime example of a gravity-type PGM, used from September 1943 through 1944.
- Henschel Hs 117 Schmetterling "Butterfly" – a manually guided surface-to-air missile.
- Henschel Hs 117H – a manually guided air-to-air missile.
- Henschel Hs 293 – a pioneering MCLOS-guided, launch-boosted air-to-ship missile using the Kehl-Straßurg radio link as with the Fritz X, used in combat from 1943 to 1944.
- Henschel Hs 294 – an MCLOS-guided air-to-ship missile/torpedo.
- Henschel Hs 298 – an air-to-air missile.
- R4M Orkan "Hurricane" – an unguided air-to-air rocket.
- Rheinbote "Rhine Messenger" – the first short-range ballistic missile.
- Rheintochter "Rhinedaughter" – a manually guided surface-to-air missile.
- Ruhrstahl X-4 – a wire-guided liquid-fueled air-to-air missile intended to be usable with the Ta 183.
- Taifun "Typhoon" – a planned unguided surface-to-air missile.
- Wasserfall Ferngelenkte Flakrakete "Waterfall Remote-Controlled A-A Rocket" – a supersonic surface-to-air missile.
- Werfer-Granate 21 – a heavy-calibre (21 cm/8 inch) unguided air-to-air rocket, in use by the summer of 1943.
- G7es/Zaunkönig T-5 – acoustic homing torpedo used by U-boats.
Orbital
- Silbervogel (Silverbird) — a suborbital rocket bomber, similar to later generations of rocket spacecraft.
- Sonnengewehr (sun-gun) – a parabolic mirror in orbit designed to focus sunlight onto specific locations on the Earth's surface.
Rifles
Mission equipment
Purported
Similar developments in Axis powers
Japan
Romania
- 75 mm Reșița Model 1943 – an anti-tank gun with a muzzle velocity of over 1 km/second which could also elevate enough to double as a field gun, reported to have outperformed its Western, German and Soviet counterparts to become arguably the most versatile gun in its class during World War II (at least 375 produced).[3]
- Self-propelled 75 mm Reșița Model 1943 – 2 prototypes completed and tested (reportedly, this vehicle served as the inspiration for the Hetzer, or as a significant influence in the latter's development).[4]
- IAR 81C fighter aircraft fitted with the Werfer-Granate 21 air-to-air rocket (1 prototype).[5]
Hungary
- 44M Tas – a local attempt to replicate the heavy Panther or the "Tiger 2" tank (2 incomplete prototypes produced, including 1 complete hull).[6]
See also
Notes
Works consulted
- Book: Hans Kammler – Manager des Todes . August von Goethe Literaturverlag. Frankfurt am Main . Merkel, Reiner . 2010 . 978-3-8372-0817-7.
- Book: Tooze. Adam. Adam Tooze. . 2007. Penguin. London. 978-0141003481.
Further reading
Notes and References
- [Willy Ley]
- Web site: Neufeld . Michael . The Myth of the German "Wonder-Weapons" . Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum . 19 April 2020 . 13 April 2020.
- Mark Axworthy, London: Arms and Armour, 1995, Third Axis, Fourth Ally: Romanian Armed Forces in the European War, 1941–1945, pp. 235–237 and 149
- Mark Axworthy, London: Arms and Armour, 1995, Third Axis, Fourth Ally: Romanian Armed Forces in the European War, 1941–1945, pp. 228–235
- Mark Axworthy, London: Arms and Armour, 1995, Third Axis, Fourth Ally: Romanian Armed Forces in the European War, 1941–1945, p. 265
- Dénes Bernád, Charles K. Kliment, Helion and Company, Magyar Warriors: The History of the Royal Hungarian Armed Forces 1919-1945, Volume 1, p. 371
