The Wunderwaffe: Germany's Crazy Attempts to Win WWII

intended to gain an overwhelming technological advantage over the Allies Germany's wunderwaffe or Wonder Weapons were highly Advanced projects into which the third Rye continued to pump money in their power throughout the war especially as the tide of the war started to turn in the Allies favor but what the wound of Arthur all have in common is that even if they did manage to see some combat they weren't all that effective for their costs and their development and use did little more than pull resources and research away from other operations that desperately needed funding there were dozens of undervatha some which turned out to be real scientific Innovations like the V2 Rockets which could reach London or the me-262 the world's first operational jet fight but many others were little more than egotistical wishful thinking from the famous Sun gun to rumors of flying sources to the largest tank ever designed well here are some of the weirdest Wonder Weapons that probably weren't worth the effort foreign [Music] foreign or sun gun was a hilariously ambitious idea that is cool the plan was to construct an immense mirror in orbit likely out of metallic sodium the surface area of around nine square kilometers this could then be used to focus and direct the Sun's light at enemy targets supposedly with enough heat to burn entire cities to a crisp or boil entire seeds it's essentially the same concept as a child cooking an ant hill with their standard magnifying glass only in this case the Ant Hill is London and the magnifying glass is the size of a Smoove town in modern times the concept was first brought up by German physicist hermanoba who put forward early ideas of a space station on which a large mirror could be constructed but the idea is not a new one in fact it's actually quite ancient during the siege of Syracuse in 214 BC it was reported that the legendary inventor Archimedes used a system of bronze mirrors to burn the approaching Roman ships whether or not this actually happened has been up put a bay for Centuries with MythBusters actually even attempting their own version there's no doubt that this Legacy influenced German scientists near the end of the war bringing about desperate plans to create a weapon that would wipe out the Allies in one Fell Swoop unfortunately for them and uh fortunately for everybody else the sun gun was Way Out Of Reach of the technology of the day at that point in history Humanity had still yet to launch a satellite into orbit much less construct an immense space station and fix a gargantuan mirror to it the size of a small town everybody and this is all ignoring the ridiculous budget it would have required especially at a time when Germany's coffers were running low and the International Community wasn't exactly very keen to trade with them for these reasons the project was understandably scrapped but even if it hadn't been it would have been quite a long time before Hitler's orbital weapon would have been operational as German scientists revealed after the war that the sun gun wouldn't be completed for another 50 to 100 years but on the topic of space there were rumors of another top secret program that if true would have certainly won the war this was of course flying sources there isn't very much evidence old Flying Saucer activity or interest during the war but in the decades following several conspiracy theories and rumors began floating around that the Third Reich had been experimenting with anti-gravity technology and perhaps even time travel this would supposedly explain the common sightings of Foo Fighters by Allied pilots who reported strange shapes and lights in the skies when no aircraft were present these rumors are highly pervasive and have evolved to include German experimenting with bell-shaped aircraft that flew with rotating discs and leaked a strange purple substance reportedly the SS were in charge of the project with the construction taking place inside of a concrete ring meant to resemble Stonehenge as for why the project never reached the light of day supposedly those who worked in it were executed at the war's end to keep the advanced technology from Pauline to enemy hands though as you might expect though these are just conspiracy theories none of this ever happened in fact the flying saucers could be traced back to a book published in 2000 called the truth about the wonder weapon written by polish author Igor wikowski well it would certainly be very interesting there's absolutely no credible evidence to support the notion that the Germans were working on anti-gravity technology and certainly not time travel if there's one thing that Germany was lacking throughout the war it was a strong Navy the cruise Mariner had been using U-boats rather effectively to sink and scare Allied ships but in terms of creating an actual Armada they were pretty much dwarfed by the massive British Navy in 1939 Hitler moved to fix this and ordered the expansion of the kriegs marina with plan Zed which intended to upgrade weaponry and increase the Navy's size specifically the construction of 10 new battleships and four aircraft carrier Panzer began morphing into a wonder weapon when it was revealed that six of these battleships would be of the new h-class a class created entirely was the purpose of being the biggest and the best ever created for instance the proposed length was 266 meters just 10 meters longer than the famed Japanese Yamato class as for the Armament Hitler demanded that the guns be larger than any installed on a foreign ship but the Absurd size they Hitler wanted would have made the ship's displacement so large that German ports wouldn't be deep enough to service her it took a while but he finally agreed to arm them with 40.6 centimeter guns the same that would be installed on the U.S North carolina-class battleships eventually the blueprints were finalized with a full load displacement of over 63 000 tons along with later the 40.6 centimeter guns the h-class would be equipped with 56 guns of various sizes and be able to carry up to nine seaplanes per reconnaissance in 1939 the contracts were awarded to various companies for the construction of the six ships and the first two only named H and J at the time even had their Keels laid down as construction began on H more than 800 tons of steel was installed and several thousand more tons have been delivered and machined but construction stalled after the outbreak of World War II with practically no work happening at the shipyard the designers of the h-class went back to the drawing board to make some last-minute improvements based on feedback from the wall for example after the ship sharn horse took some serious bomb damage in 1941. the designers of the h-class decided to increase the levels of armor then they decided the ship needed to be bigger much bigger bigger much wider wider oh and it also needed bigger guns and more of them by the fifth design iteration known as h-44 the ship plans had swelled to a ludicrous length of 345 meters that's over 1100 feet by far surpassing any other Battleship on the planet its main Armament was upgraded to eight massive 50 centimeter guns 28 secondary turrets and 68 anti-aircraft guns all of this and the thick armor that was intended to protect the Behemoth brought its total displacement to a staggering 130 000 tons unsurprisingly these insane plans never made it to the shipyard and the little work that had been done on the two hulls was eventually scrapped when the h-class was officially canceled but this wasn't the end of big German dreams on the high seas a work on one aircraft carrier the graph Zeppelin had been steadily marching forward before the war and by 1939 it was nearly 85 complete of course this halted as priorities shifted and she was mostly used for wood storage during the war but as the war progressed it became obvious to German High command but aircraft carriers were the best bang for your buck it could be the key to defeating the Allied navies this became especially apparent when the Great German battleship Bismarck was slapped around by British bombers around 1942 Admiral Eric Rader approached Hitler and proposed that the carrier be finished as it would be crucial for providing air cover to prevent something like this happening again with the fuhrer's authorization work on the Graf Zeppelin resumed but it was bogged down with technical problems on just about every front it was estimated that it might not be operational until 1946 and by 1943 Hitler's order was avoided and the ship was left as a floating but otherwise useless vessel the graph Zeppelin was eventually captured by the Soviets and sunk in a live far training exercise off the coast of Poland there was another aircraft carrier that was almost completed when it was proposed that the civilian ship Europa be converted into a carrier Europa would have been even larger than the Graf's airplane but disagreement between the kriegs Mariner and the luftwaffe are about sufficient pilot training halted the project in its tracks Europa bite the graph Zeppelin was also captured at the end of the war This Time by The Americans who used her for troop transport what sets the schwera Gustav apart from the previous super weapons on this list is that not only did it make it out of the design phase and through construction without any hiccups but it actually even saw combat however that doesn't mean it was even remotely worth the cost designed in the mid-1930s the Gustav was a colossal Railway gun capable of firing an absurd 800 millimeter caliber projectile it weighed 1 350 tons and was 47 meters or 155 feet in length it required a crew of 250 people to assemble the gun which took three days and 2500 men to lay track for it reloading the bees took tremendous effort and so it could only be fired every 45 minutes on average if you're wondering what such a giant gun is for well the answer is giant enemy bases specifically the Gustav was created with the intent of destroying the fortifications along the French magino line it was imagined that the the gun could be moved along the front line and demolished the concrete fortifications one at a time without posing a big risk to German forces as long as anti-aircraft guns protected it from enemy Air Raids the Gustav would be unstoppable a second gun was also ordered named Dora so it must have been awkward when in 1940 German forces overran Belgium the Netherlands and France in just six weeks while Gustav was still being constructed but are wanting to let such a monster go to waste it was shipped to the east for the fight against the Soviet Union and experienced its first combat during the sieges of astapot Gustav was deployed in a few more offensives but it was just a bit of a pain in the ass to move around reassembling it onside requiring extensive rails not to mention the huge crew all was just a bit too much of a hassle but this problem had the solution What If instead of having rails the Gustav simply had wheels and now we introduce the Land Cruiser P 1500 monster a 1500 ton vehicle intended to be a platform for Gustav and Dora and one could only imagine how powerful this Titan would have be but the imagination is where this one would remain as the ridiculous weight meant that it would never be able to cross a bridge and if it got Stark well good luck Towing it a slightly smaller Land Cruiser was also proposed the p1000 ratter this one was only a mere thousand tons but instead of Simply being a platform for a larger gun the ratter was intended to be the first in a new play mass of ultra heavy tanks this plan was also scrapped when it became apparent just how problematic heavy vehicles are less than the creation of the panzerade mouse which await 188 tons and was actually constructed the mouse was the heaviest tank ever built but there's a reason it didn't turn the tide of War it was seemingly impossible to find engine strong enough to accelerate it and the early versions of it had no Weaponry for close Court combat meaning enemy soldiers could essentially run right up to it as long as they avoided its main turret this was addressed by the German High command who insisted it needed Close Quarter Weaponry as it would be used alongside infantry and an mg3 machine gun was mounted the designers even noted that they plan to attach anti-aircraft guns to its roof but while the mouse was supposed to be combat ready in 1943 these deadlines were never met and she was eventually tossed out as continuing the project became unfeasible as the war neared its end the German Research into rockets and jet propulsion was perhaps the most influential of all the wound of Arthurs and many of the discoveries and Innovations in the field would have a great influence on the evolution of Aeronautics following the war that being said they were probably the only Wonder Weapons that had an actual chance of turning the tide of War but they still didn't quite make the impact that the Nazis have been hoping for the V2 rocket for example became the first man-made object to pass into space before cruising down at supersonic speeds and exploding in London or Antwerp with absolutely no risk to German soldiers but the program was insanely expensive with estimates placing the total cost at around 500 million dollars which in comparison to the German economy at the time was an equivalent industrial effort to the United States's Manhattan Project which resulted in the creation of nuclear weapons and while nuclear weapons did actually turn out to be a super weapon that dictated the end of the war V2 Pockets only killed around 9000 people in fact more people died in the forced labor construction of these Rockets than from the actual attacks another example is the messerschmidt me-262 oh it was the world's first operational jet-powered fighter it actually proved to be an absolute Menace In The Air shooting down at least 500 Allied aircraft which had no chance of chasing the speeding demon the me-262 wasn't even Germany's fastest aircraft that award goes to the me-163 comet the world's first rocket-powered aircraft which could reach speeds of a thousand kilometers per hour or 620 miles per hour these were so quick that they would fly directly up through Allied bombing formations firing off a few rounds before climbing to high altitude and Diving back through the formation it was difficult to hit the Comets while in this attack pattern but they also weren't too effective at hitting Allied bombers certainly not as effective as the me-262s another problem with the comet was the cabin wasn't pressurized so it couldn't stay at super high altitudes very long the Allies soon learned to adapt to these new threats though realizing that they couldn't compete with the new technology in the sky they resolved to destroy it while it sat on the ground German airfields became targets of the highest priority and swaths of jets were destroyed before they could even take off Allied Pilots would also wait until the Jets inevitably needed to land before engaging making it an easy target this was a tactic used by legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager when he became one of the first Americans to shoot one down British Pilots managed to even score a few kills in the air from the Hawker Tempest so as advanced as these Jets were their introduction was just a bit too late in the war to make a difference perhaps an earlier entrance into the war such as during the Battle of Britain would have made a bigger difference but it's just speculation much of the research into rocket and jet power was intended to be used in the America bomber project an ambitious plan to create a long-range bomber capable of striking the us there were tons of proposals for this including many Innovative designs like the Flying Wing Horton 18 powered by six jet engines another proposal was the Silver Vogel or silverbird a suborbital rock powered bomber ultimately it was decided that one of the best candidates for bombing the United States would be a traditional piston engine powered me-264 a large prototype hypothetically capable of taking off from France and striking New York City but all these ideas suffered the same issues as most of the other one of Arthur they were highly experimental with no guarantee of success and required resources that were desperately needed elsewhere all things considered the German Wonder Weapons may have seemed like the key to winning the war but in reality they managed to become nothing more than a distraction contributing to the Nazi's eventual defeat in May of 1945 [Music]

Channel: Sideprojects

Views: 454,969

Keywords: megaprojects, construction, engineering, projects, sideprojects, the bell ww2 germany, hitlers secret weapon, war stories, war weapons, military history, military tactics, battles, cold war nuclear bomb, history of war, world war weird, war documentary, history documentary, world war, world war 2, world history, weird weapons

Id: bCZ0vUzYwNA

Length: 15min 36sec (936 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 04 2023