Did you Know?

[podcat]

7. Did you know?
Bletchley Park cryptanalysts managed to break almost every message transmitted on the Italian Enigma machines because one Italian operator decided to transmit a message consisting entirely of "E"s.

haha ;D I bet his cat sat on the keyboard or something

 

[podcat]

9. Did you know?
The British made 5 million linseed cakes infected with anthrax as part of Operation Vegetarian and planned to drop these over germany to wipe out livestock and civilian population. The project was tested on a small island outside Scotland which was not visitable until the 90s. The go-signal was never given and the cakes were destroyed after the wars end.

Not exactly a project that gets covered a lot. I imagine the British government wasn't particularly proud of it...

http://www.fpp.co.uk/bookchapters/WSC/Bwar2.html

 

[podcat]

21: Did you know?
The Japanese weren't the only ones to have an official suicide formation.
The Germans established the Leonidas Squadron, which would have used a manned version of the V-1 flying bomb.
Although Hitler was eventually persuaded to call off the project, several dozen German pilots still killed themselves attempting to destroy Soviet held bridges over the Oder river during the desperate fighting around Berlin.

I actually thought it was the other way around? Hitler was very against the idea of suicide attacks and considered it un-german.

EDIT: He did approve the project though with some reservations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonidas_Squadron


There was also Sonderkommando Elbe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderkommando_Elbe) which was a unit set up for ramming allied bombers mid-air, but the idea there was to bail out to safety.

 

[Darkrenown]

39. Did you know that that 1940 attack on France required the German tank divisions to drive for 3 days and nights to reach their objectives in time, so they were provided with 1000s of doses of methamphetamines to keep them awake?
http://obscenedesserts.blogspot.se/2013/05/on-panzerchokolade-and-other-fun-german.html

 

[GAGA Extrem]

53 Did you know?
That the British had plans for a carrier made from wood and ice (codename: Habakkuk / Habbakuk). I think there was also a plan for a submarine made out of ice, but the project code slipped my mind and I can't find the reference anymore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk

54 Did you know?
That the german submarine U-415 was sunk shortly after leaving the harbour of Brest when it struck a mine, because the captain was late for departure and the commanding officer ordered to move the submarine on his own initiative. Most of the crew was able to escape only the cook (iirc) fell victim to the explosion because it occured next to the galley.
(From my grandfather's personal account. He was an engineer on board of the submarine. The survivors also wrote a very nice book about the history of the submarine after the war, including all details they could remember. I think it might still be around here somewhere, if anyone is interested about other details.)

 

[podcat]

58: Did you know?

Creator of famous airplane FW-190 Kurt Tank also possibly a visionary who during WW2 created models strongly resembling later 1950's jets couldn't get job after the war? While other German scientist were exported to either USA or USSR, he struggled to find work in countries like India or Argentina

bad PR probably. If only he had changed his name to Kurt Plane...

 

[Darkrenown]

Probably a bit, but it wasn't the purpose of the sweep on the 262, and the sweep was not great enough to achive what is normally refered to when people talk of swept wing planes.

 

[podcat]

Did you know...

All my workmates wanted to know what I was laughing at.

The very idea that someone convinced Adolf that these things were feasible is, IMHO, absolutely f%$£!ng hilarious

Most of the Nazi higher uppers were obsessed with the latest wonder tech to win them the war. Must have been a great time to be a crazy scientist

 

[Darkrenown]

Did You Know?

That the US produced a B-25G that had a 75mm M4 field gun mounted to fire forward through its nose? And that the "flying artillery" bombers were used in both the Pacific and Mediterranean AO?
http://www.usaaf-in-cbi.com/341st_web/aircraft/b25g.htm

The germans had similar ideas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_88#Versatility_and_operational_development
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henschel_Hs_129#Hs_129_B-3

I'm sure there was an Italian one too, but I don't recall the name.

 

[Darkrenown]

Oh, I wasn't claiming the US was the only folks to do such a thing. This is a Did You Know? and most folk don't know about the US flying arty. Btw, it was a hugely successful anti-shipping platform in the Pacific.

I wanted to add to your interesting fact, I wasn't trying to say it wasn't worth knowing. Facts can still be interesting even when not unique!

 

[Darkrenown]

Bear in mind that U-boat losses weren't constant. From 1943 onwards, Allied use of radar, long-range aircraft and ULTRA code-breaking meant that being U-boat crew suddenly became far more dangerous than it had been before.

BTW, how does that chart compare to number of active U-boats? They didn't really get construction priority until '42 (they take around 6 months to build) and more 'boats is more targets. It probably did get relatively more dangerous as more anti-u-boat technologies came into play, but perhaps not to the extent shown here.

 

[Darkrenown]

Hitler is not a unit of measurement. Back on topic, please.

 

[Darkrenown]

Anecdote: someone on another forum used to work for an American museum that has a preserved WW2 US submarine. One time, he and his boss were asked by another museum to come and give advice on renovating and preserving a German U-boat they'd acquired - so he got the opportunity to compare the two in close-up.

The pressure hull of the American submarine was basically a metal cylinder; crude but functional. The U-boat's pressure hull had sleek, moulded ends that were streamlined and high-tech... but if you looked closely, you'd notice that the two halves of the German pressure hull were misaligned and badly welded. You can't blame that on lack of materials; only on shoddy and over-hasty manufacture.

On paper, that U-boat almost certainly would have seemed to have better performance than the US sub because of its advanced design - but if the German crew had ever tried to take their submarine to its maximum depth, those faults in the pressure hull would have caused it to fail catastrophically and kill them all.

Do you know what type of U-boat it was? The type XXI suffered especially from attempts to mass-produce them using inland industry to manufacture segments that the shipyards could quickly fit together. Sadly, the whole effort wasn't very well organised and the sections didn't fit together well.

 

[Darkrenown]

Did you know?
This thread is now locked.

More on topic posts and less warcrimes in future threads, please.