Most Important Technology for Allies in WW2

uruk said:
Not quite. See Colossus and ENIAC
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Colossus is still working
http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/lorenz/rebuild.htm

ETA:

"One reason for wanting to get Colossus working in 1996 was that for far too long the Americans have got away with the myth that the ENIAC was the first large-scale electronic digital calculator in the world. It was not, but they got away with it because Colossus was kept secret until the 1970s. As 1996 was the 50th anniversary of the switch-on of ENIAC I made sure that Colossus was rebuilt and working in Bletchley Park, just as it was in 1944."
 
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catsmate1 said:
The (Canadian:)) Garand gave US forces a density of fire unmatched my other nations; no one else issued a semi-automatic rifle as a standard infantry weapon1. However pretty much every other country integrated superior light machine guns (Bren, MG34/42 et cetera) at section/squad level for fire support while the US used the BAR.
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Don't get me wrong, the Garand is a great rifle, but it was prone to jamming and you could not reload unless you fired all 8 rounds. Also, the *ping* of the mag ejecting once you've fired all 8 rounds (which was accurately represented in the Medal of Honor game series) was a dead [pun] giveaway that you had expended your ammo to the enemy.
 
I disagree with those that downplayed the significance of the air war. I believe the Allied airpower was unmatched. Aircraft such as the P-51 Mustang and the P-38 Lightning were years ahead of the Germans. More importantly, the training of the Allied pilots was far superior as well...which played a huge part in the Pacific Theater where the Zero was the better plane. Without the dominance in the air, the Allies would have been sunk...literally.
 
The P-51 -- having such a long range fighter that could escort bombers deeper than before -- was pretty big.

Honorable mention: self-sealing gas tanks on the planes.
 
sabretooth47 said:
Don't get me wrong, the Garand is a great rifle, but it was prone to jamming and you could not reload unless you fired all 8 rounds. Also, the *ping* of the mag ejecting once you've fired all 8 rounds (which was accurately represented in the Medal of Honor game series) was a dead [pun] giveaway that you had expended your ammo to the enemy.
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The GIs learned to keep an expended clip and toss it away when they were down to 3-4 rounds. It taught the Germans not to assume so much. :D
 
Gawdzilla said:
The GIs learned to keep an expended clip and toss it away when they were down to 3-4 rounds. It taught the Germans not to assume so much. :D
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The whole thing was a myth anyway. While there was a distinctive ping when the clip is automatically ejected, the clip itself could be manually ejected at any time. The whole idea that you can't reload the Garand unless you empty the clip is just a video game mechanic that somehow became "common knowledge."

catsmate1 said:
The (Canadian:)) Garand gave US forces a density of fire unmatched my other nations; no one else issued a semi-automatic rifle as a standard infantry weapon1.
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Come now, the man was raised and educated in the U.S., a U.S. citizen, and developed the rifle at the Springfield Armory. Associating Canada with the rifle in any way is like claiming Tesla's inventions for Serbia.
 
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sabretooth47 said:
Don't get me wrong, the Garand is a great rifle, but it was prone to jamming and you could not reload unless you fired all 8 rounds. Also, the *ping* of the mag ejecting once you've fired all 8 rounds (which was accurately represented in the Medal of Honor game series) was a dead [pun] giveaway that you had expended your ammo to the enemy.
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Without a clip it's possible to fire a Garand but only singly loaded rounds. This was a design flaw which wasn't present in Pedersen's design.
Garand experimented with various other magazine (mainly BAR or modified BAR box magazines) systems during WW2 but by the time the design was done the war was almost over. Only about 100 of the T20 rifles were manufactured, they were intended to replace the BAR in the 'Automatic Rifle' role.
Likewise the US clone of the MG42, the T24, never worked properly.
 
McHrozni said:
Hedgehog mortar was a ship-borne mortar that fired a spread of small contact-controlled depth charges to a certain distance. The problem with sonar at the time was that it couldn't keep a lock during the final moments of a depth charge run. Germans knew that and had a tendency to change direction abruptly when the allied destroyer was approaching and was very close by.
The distruptions caused by the depth charges made sound detection in the general area just about impossible for up to 10 minutes, giving the submarine valuable time to escape, hence the average success rate of depth charge attacks was a less than impressive 4%.

Hedgehog mortar improved that to about 25%, it was also helped by the fact that the shells it fired were contact ignited and any explosion meant the sub was hit and also gave you a rough reading where it was.

All in all, it probably wasn't decisive, but it certainly was a technology that made a disproportionate amount of change to the balance of power in the Atlantic :)

McHrozni
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One important aspect of the hedgehogs was that they fired forward. Keeping the contact up to the firing point was helpful in the attacks.
 
Shangrila said:
The whole thing was a myth anyway. While there was a distinctive ping when the clip is automatically ejected, the clip itself could be manually ejected at any time. The whole idea that you can't reload the Garand unless you empty the clip is just a video game mechanic that somehow became "common knowledge."
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I didn't mean to imply that ejecting the clip was impossible, just not something that could be done easily. You had to pull the operating rod all the way back and then depress a button to release the clip latch. The clip didn't always drop out and was rather frustrating for GI's, so it was often just easier to expend the rounds and reload after the clip ejected.

My grandfather would tell stories about his service time in WWII and gripe about the rifle all the time. But it couldn't have been that bad, cuz he bought one and used it for deer hunting for as long as my dad could remember. My dad still uses it from time to time.
 
Skwinty said:
Colossus is still working
http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/lorenz/rebuild.htm

ETA:

"One reason for wanting to get Colossus working in 1996 was that for far too long the Americans have got away with the myth that the ENIAC was the first large-scale electronic digital calculator in the world. It was not, but they got away with it because Colossus was kept secret until the 1970s. As 1996was the 50th anniversary of the switch-on of ENIAC I made sure that Colossus was rebuilt and working in Bletchley Park, just as it was in 1944."
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Hmm... just sayin'. :D
 
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