Most Important Technology for Allies in WW2

sabretooth47 said:
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.
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The Zero was the "better" plane until the Grumman Hellcat was introduced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F6F

By the way: aircraft like the Thunderbolt or Typhoon actually destroyed a negligible number of tanks. They did make them run out of fuel & ammunition, though.
 
Another great piece of technology from the Germans which benefitted the Allies after the war:

The Messerschmitt Me P.1101.
The first variable sweep wing jet fighter.
The wing sweep could be changed but only on the ground.
 
Dr. Tobias Fünke said:
The Zero was the "better" plane until the Grumman Hellcat was introduced.
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The F4F had a positive kill ratio against the Zero. It's superior ability to take punishment and dive, and vastly superior roll rate (and having a radio in every plane) made up for inferior turn, rate of climb, and range. Speed and firepower were roughly equal.

But on topic, individual aircraft, weapon, or engine designs really can't be said to be critically important to the war. If there were no Merlin, both the British and the Americans had engines nearly as good that could be just as good or better with the development funding that would have gone to the Merlin. If there were no P-51, the P-47N or P-38L would have been developed earlier and perform just as well. It's really the production technology and electronics industry that made this the case.
 
Delvo said:
I've seen former German pilots talking in interviews about using a dogfighting technique of first climbing above an enemy plane and then diving back at it because they knew that Allied planes didn't have the engine power to climb like they could.
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Much of that depends on the capability of the aircraft design itself, though of course a great design with an underpowered engine is going to be at a significant disadvantage regardless.

Also, that tactic was pretty standard. Attack from a higher altitude by diving on the enemy, then use the speed of the dive to zoom climb back up to a higher altitude before the enemy could respond. Repeat as necessary until the enemy is shot down or disengages. The U.S. used this tactic against the Japanese once it had more powerful fighters in its arsenal.


Delvo said:
And the Thach Weave that someone else mentioned before was explicitly designed to overcome enemy planes' superior climb rates and turning rates.
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Yes—but for fights between the sluggish but tough F4F Wildcat and the Japanese A6M Zero. Once the superior F6F Hellcat came onto the scene, the Zero had more than met its match (indeed, the Hellcat was essentially designed to exploit the flaws of the Zero). The Hellcat couldn't dogfight with the Zero at low speeds, but it was more maneuverable at high speeds, faster, and much better protected. The Hellcat decimated the Zero in combat, achieving a 13:1 kill ratio (though in fairness there were other factors contributing to that success beyond the designs of the aircraft).
 
I'm surprised no one mentioned pin-up technology and the inspiration of Betty Grable in making the Yanks fight harder. (Pun intended.)
 
Gawdzilla said:
"What technological advantages did the Allies employ most effectively to help them win the war?"
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That wasn't the question: It was "(something that either "won" the war for us, or at least gave us an edge to win the war sooner.)".

The Germans had better technology in essentially every category. It was how people used what they had, and kept up, that won the war, not any single technology.
 
Elind said:
The Germans had better technology in essentially every category.
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I'd have to dispute that. I don't think that the Germans were ahead of the Allies in radar, sonar, nuclear physics, bomber design, low-speed aerodynamics, naval gunnery, ship design, armor, codebreaking, computers, mass production, etc.

I'd give the Germans the edge in optics, turbine design, high-speed aerodynamics, and rocket propulsion.

Of course, any of those topics is worthy of debate probably worth its own thread.
 
Elind said:
That wasn't the question: It was "(something that either "won" the war for us, or at least gave us an edge to win the war sooner.)".
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Did you somehow miss the "most important technology" bit right before that?

The Germans had better technology in essentially every category. It was how people used what they had, and kept up, that won the war, not any single technology
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That's a pretty nutty claim to make. I doubt you can identify any technologies outside of high speed aerodynamics and rocketry where Germany was ahead of the Western Allies in any sort of meaningful sense.
 
Elind said:
I was watching a show on allied air power in World War 2, and it got me thinking:

What exactly was the most important technology that the Allies had in World War 2 (something that either "won" the war for us, or at least gave us an edge to win the war sooner.)
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Bad question. It wasn't the technology.
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In another post I already pointed out that our victory was not likely due to some "magic technology", but a combination of factors, including decisions by leaders at the time, and in some cases "dumb luck".

But that doesn't mean technology didn't have an impact. My question contains the clause "edge to win the war sooner". The Allies still would have won had we not developed the atomic bomb. We still would have won had we not made such good use of Sonar or computers like Collausus for code breaking. But each of those technologies helped. Without them the war would likely have lasted longer/cost more lives. So which of those technologies contributed most to ending the war sooner that it otherwise would have been won?
 
Centimetric and Microwave Radar.
Germany didn't even know centimetric sets could be built. When an RAF Lancaster crashed and the H2S navigation set was recovered the German Radar Engineers thought it was a deliberate hoax, they couldn't see how the Cavity Magnetron could work.
Proximity Fuses allowed for more leathal AA fire. Aircraft with surface search sets could spot a U-Boat Periscope or Snorkel tube from miles away so they could be attacked from the air even when submirged.

Navigation sets allowed RAF Bombers to see a radar map of the ground allowing accurate navigation in the dark.

APDS Ammunition, developed by French engineers just before the French-German armistice. The engineers were evacuated to the United Kingdom, it was further developed in the United Kingdom. In mid-1944 the APDS projectile was first introduced into service for the UK’s QF 6 pdr anti-tank gun and later in September 1944 for the 17 pdr anti-tank gun.

It was the only allied gun that could penetrate the frontal armour of the King Tiger and Panther.
 
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 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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Here is the Colossus at The National Museum of Computing.
http://content.techrepublic.com.com/2346-13625_11-458526.html?tag=nl.e099.dl101020&tag=nl.e099
 
dasmiller said:
I'd have to dispute that. I don't think that the Germans were ahead of the Allies in radar, sonar, nuclear physics, bomber design, low-speed aerodynamics, naval gunnery, ship design, armor, codebreaking, computers, mass production, etc.

I'd give the Germans the edge in optics, turbine design, high-speed aerodynamics, and rocket propulsion.

Of course, any of those topics is worthy of debate probably worth its own thread.
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To this and the other responses to me; The Germans had jet fighters, they had night fighters guided by radar, they had better tanks, they had the best conventional air fighters, they had cruise missiles, ballistic missiles; they had optically guided bombs, they had very good infantry weapons, they were working on fission weapons; and they had stupid leaders who didn't know how to make the most of their science.

They lost because they were out numbered and out smarted strategically.

OK, I will give one technology, probably already mentioned, and that was code breaking, but I wouldn't say that by itself won the war.

What won the war was the resources of the USA.
 
Shangrila said:
The F4F had a positive kill ratio against the Zero. It's superior ability to take punishment and dive, and vastly superior roll rate (and having a radio in every plane) made up for inferior turn, rate of climb, and range. Speed and firepower were roughly equal.
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Actually, when you consider that

- the A6M2 (the version of the Zero used in ´42) had little ammunition for its main weapon, the 20mm gun
- the weapon for which there was plenty of ammunition, the light machine gun, did very little damage against sturdy planes like the F4F
- both guns had different muzzle velocities, different rates of fire and different "drop" over range, and it was thus very difficult to use both on the same target except at point blank range

whereas the F4F was was armed with identical .50 cal machine guns (4 in the -3 version, 6 with less but still decent ammo in the -4), you could make a point that the F4F in fact had superior effective firepower.
 
Spindrift said:
I'm surprised no one mentioned pin-up technology and the inspiration of Betty Grable in making the Yanks fight harder. (Pun intended.)
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Hedy Lamarr invented the idea of frequency hopping which directly lead to the spread spectrum communication system we use today.

She came up with the idea to prevent the germans from jamming RF controlled torpedos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr

She was one smart cookie with looks to match!
 
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