The Second World War unleashed by Hitler personified a new type of highly mechanized war - swift and deadly. The armed forces of Nazi Germany entered her most trained. With the support of German science, technology and modern methods of mass production, the Reich armed the army with powerful weapons. Archival photos of German technology from World War II confirm this.
The military industry of the Third Reich created high-tech types of weapons for that time. The rapid onslaught of the Wehrmacht army swept over the slower moving enemies and allowed Germany to subjugate almost the whole of Europe to itself in a short time. The German technology of World War II seemed invincible ...
Panzerwaffe - Armored Forces
The tanks invented by the British during the First World War were used primarily for defense. In the Wehrmacht Army, armored forces became the dominant offensive force of the ground forces. By the beginning of the war, Germany had three thousand one hundred and ninety tanks. Tanks, like all German military equipment of World War II, were equipped with modern weapons. After the annexation of Czechoslovakia, Wehrmacht armored forces were replenished with 369 tanks of Czech production.
Up to eighty percent of the German tank forces were medium tanks Panzerkampfwagen III and IV.
Tiger - Breakthrough Tank
The Tiger in the early years of World War II enjoyed a reputation for being deadly and invincible. Panzerkampfwagen VI was created as a heavy breakthrough tank. He had a combat weight of fifty-six tons. Much larger than most tanks of the time, with an engine of 700 liters. With., the tank developed a speed of up to 38 km / h.
The Tiger, armed with an 88 mm KwK 36 cannon, two 7.92 mm machine guns and six smoke grenade launchers, easily destroyed any Allied serial tank built during the war. Frontal armor 100 mm thick and onboard 80 mm thick reliably protected armored vehicles from most anti-tank shells.
Panzerkampfvagen VI (Tiger) is the most famous tank of German technology of World War II.
In addition to tanks, the German Pantherwaffe were armed with armored personnel carriers and self-propelled artillery guns: tank destroyers, assault guns, and self-propelled gun mounts.
Luftwaffe - Aviation
The Luftwaffe was given a crucial role in the doctrine of lightning war - a deadly military strategy developed by General Heinz Guderian. When German tank divisions buried deep into enemy territory, the task of the bombers was to destroy the enemy’s communications and supply lines.
By the beginning of World War II in September 1939, the Luftwaffe had operational forces of one thousand fighters and one thousand and fifty bombers. Such a number of aircraft provided the Reich with almost complete dominance in the sky at the initial stage of the war. Only the air force of Great Britain could resist them.
Messerschmitt Bf 109 - a deadly fighter of the Second World War. The aircraft, designed by aircraft designer W. Messerschmitt in the mid-1930s, had a monocoque fuselage, retractable landing gear and an enclosed cockpit.
The early Bf 109A models were used in the Spanish Civil War. By the end of the thirties, Me109 became the main Luftwaffe fighter. High-speed and maneuverable, was armed with two large-caliber machine guns and a 20-mm gun. Until 1943 he was the best fighter of World War II, was used on all fronts in Europe, North Africa and the USSR.
Kriegsmarine - Navy
The fleet during World War II was not the dominant weaponry of the German military. The dominance of the German naval forces on the high seas did not happen. The limited resources of the Navy of the Reich throughout the war were focused on military operations with the Royal Navy of Great Britain and the Northern Fleet of the USSR.
The French Navy, inferior to the power and armament of only England, the USA and Japan at the beginning of the war, ceased to exist two weeks after the surrender of the country, and the British, and not the Germans, had a "great" merit in this.
The doctrine of sea battles
Nazi Germany made the main bet in the planned war on the sea for submarines that have proven themselves in the First World War. During the Second World War, fascist submarines sank two thousand seven hundred seventy-nine Allied ships with a total displacement of 14.1 million tons. The crew of the submarine P-48 sank fifty-one ships, with a total displacement of 306.874 tons.
In the naval battles of Kriegsmarine, the tactics of the wolf pack were used: the hunting of submarine groups for ocean convoys.
Submarines, like other German equipment from the Second World War, were equipped with modern weapons: 4-6 torpedo tubes, over 40 min.
Submarine attacks forced the Allies to slow the flow of troops and military materials across the Atlantic and organize convoys to protect ship caravans. By 1943, new convoy tactics, radar and anti-submarine patrol aircraft caused serious problems with German type VII boats.
The initially powerful submarine fleet of the Third Reich was eventually destroyed by countermeasures by the Allies. During the war, Germany lost seven hundred and sixty-five submarines, but was never able to break the lines of communication between North America and Western Europe.
Faustpatron
Nazi Germany's use of a huge number of tanks on the battlefield opened Pandora's box. For several years, the Allied armies were building up their tank potential, and in the summer of 1943 the German army was confronted with a large number of British, American and Soviet tanks.
The Wehrmacht needed an inexpensive and easy to use method of saturating the battlefield with anti-tank firepower. In August 1943, the first Faustpatrons - disposable grenade launchers - entered the troops.
The Faustpatron was incredibly simple for effective anti-tank weapons. For its use, specially trained fighters were not required. A primitive, open at both ends tube with a warhead, a trigger - that’s all wisdom. Effective firing range - up to fifty meters. The warhead had an amazing ability to penetrate armor up to 140 mm thick, which made it capable of destroying any allied tank.
Faustpatron made everyone, even the elderly and sixteen-year-old boys, who were mobilized into the army at the end of the war, potential tank killers. In total, before the end of the war, German industry produced more than eight million such weapons of various modifications. Fortunately, even such a masterpiece of German technology of World War II did not save Hitler Germany from defeat.