Let's Examine Crusade

[MKSheppard]

If they captured the UK, wouldn't they steal their jet technology?

That's a pretty good point -- it flew right over my head. *headbonk*

They wouldn't be able to get the final sets of drawings or the final test engines/engine part models; but they'd get enough dirty paper, and have access to the people who made them on the workshop floor -- to provide an independent knowledge base in mid-1945 when the Jumo 004 fails to scale up and the next generation of German jet engines turn out to be meh.

Same thing with the Cavity magnetron -- they'd be able to get the basic concept, though scaling it up to mass production would be hard.

About the only thing I can imagine they'd fail to make off with substantative data on, would be TUBE ALLOY stuff -- that would be comprehensively destroyed.

[Stark]

Don't they say the UK loses in 1941? Wouldn't the first jets have flown by then? I guess the circumstances could change those events (I doubt there was a land invasion, so maybe not) but it was only the UK's situation that prevented them following up their jet development faster.

[TimothyC]

Don't they say the UK loses in 1941? Wouldn't the first jets have flown by then? I guess the circumstances could change those events (I doubt there was a land invasion, so maybe not) but it was only the UK's situation that prevented them following up their jet development faster.

The UK stops fighting in '40 with serious restrictions to the military and is occupied by the end of '42. My guess is R&D slows over those 2-2.5 years.

[MKSheppard]

Don't they say the UK loses in 1941? Wouldn't the first jets have flown by then?

The issue I'm referring to is the crisis that German powerplant designers (and aircraft designers) would have faced if the war had gone on longer.

All of the advanced "Luft '46" jets and such boomflash stuff depended on a group of advanced engines, such as the He S 011.

The problem was that even post-war, the Russians could never really get them to fully quite work out and develop the thrust that they were supposed to give. This is buried in Yefim Gordon's monographs on Soviet/Russian early post-war aircraft development.

This isn't an unique problem -- the US was severely impacted by the failure of the Westinghouse J40 turbojet in the 1950s. The engine was supposed to deliver 10,000 lbf of thrust; but it only hit 6,800 lbf in reality. All the planes it was to power had to be re-engined with the J57 or J71.

Having the early models, dirty paper for later advanced models and access to the lower ranking engineers of the Whittle turbojet design lineage in hand gives Germany an option to continue the "thrust" race in 1945+

[Simon_Jester]

The fact that he's talking about how Germany isn't building up a navy and so can devote proportionally more resources to its air force and army?

They're building more navy than they did historically- maybe less submarines, but not that much less, and the difference largely goes into the larger surface fleet.

So I don't see how this argument is sound.

Don't they say the UK loses in 1941? Wouldn't the first jets have flown by then? I guess the circumstances could change those events (I doubt there was a land invasion, so maybe not) but it was only the UK's situation that prevented them following up their jet development faster.

The UK stops fighting in '40 with serious restrictions to the military and is occupied by the end of '42. My guess is R&D slows over those 2-2.5 years.

Yes. If the military isn't getting funded, a lot of those programs shut down, and in many cases the British population won't be all that cooperative in sharing the fruits of the program with the Germans. Thus, technical advantages from being able to look over British hardware will trickle in slowly and late for Germany, although they would probably trickle in.

Don't they say the UK loses in 1941? Wouldn't the first jets have flown by then?

The issue I'm referring to is the crisis that German powerplant designers (and aircraft designers) would have faced if the war had gone on longer.

All of the advanced "Luft '46" jets and such boomflash stuff depended on a group of advanced engines, such as the He S 011.

The problem was that even post-war, the Russians could never really get them to fully quite work out and develop the thrust that they were supposed to give. This is buried in Yefim Gordon's monographs on Soviet/Russian early post-war aircraft development.

This isn't an unique problem -- the US was severely impacted by the failure of the Westinghouse J40 turbojet in the 1950s. The engine was supposed to deliver 10,000 lbf of thrust; but it only hit 6,800 lbf in reality. All the planes it was to power had to be re-engined with the J57 or J71.

Having the early models, dirty paper for later advanced models and access to the lower ranking engineers of the Whittle turbojet design lineage in hand gives Germany an option to continue the "thrust" race in 1945+

Hmm. Interesting. Of course, Stuart did give the Germans those jet aircraft in working condition in TBO, as I recall, which implies that they had working jet engines in the right thrust range. So I'm not sure this puts them in any better position than Stuart was willing to grant in the Great Lopsided Story.

[MKSheppard]

Hmm. Interesting. Of course, Stuart did give the Germans those jet aircraft in working condition in TBO, as I recall, which implies that they had working jet engines in the right thrust range. So I'm not sure this puts them in any better position than Stuart was willing to grant in the Great Lopsided Story.

He gave them the Hs-132 and Go-229 which were powered by Jumo 004s or BMW 003s; albeit slightly uprated in thrust.

It's been quite a while since I read TBO, so I'm a bit fuzzy on exact details past those two planes, which played significant roles.

[Stark]

Yes. If the military isn't getting funded, a lot of those programs shut down, and in many cases the British population won't be all that cooperative in sharing the fruits of the program with the Germans. Thus, technical advantages from being able to look over British hardware will trickle in slowly and late for Germany, although they would probably trickle in.

Are you seriously saying a conquered Britain would hold a referendum on whether to share technology with Germany? Since the UK was ahead of Germany by the start of the war, the programs can 'shut down' all the want; the advantages are still there.

Shep, apparently it was engine delays that slowed the UK program, so maybe they won't get any useful help anyway.

[TimothyC]

Yes. If the military isn't getting funded, a lot of those programs shut down, and in many cases the British population won't be all that cooperative in sharing the fruits of the program with the Germans. Thus, technical advantages from being able to look over British hardware will trickle in slowly and late for Germany, although they would probably trickle in.

Are you seriously saying a conquered Britain would hold a referendum on whether to share technology with Germany? Since the UK was ahead of Germany by the start of the war, the programs can 'shut down' all the want; the advantages are still there.

Shep, apparently it was engine delays that slowed the UK program, so maybe they won't get any useful help anyway.

Technology changes Stark. What was state of the art in 1941 won't be by 1943. And it's not a referendum, but death by a thousand cuts of people who are not as cooperative as they could be.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes. If the military isn't getting funded, a lot of those programs shut down, and in many cases the British population won't be all that cooperative in sharing the fruits of the program with the Germans. Thus, technical advantages from being able to look over British hardware will trickle in slowly and late for Germany, although they would probably trickle in.

Are you seriously saying a conquered Britain would hold a referendum on whether to share technology with Germany? Since the UK was ahead of Germany by the start of the war, the programs can 'shut down' all the want; the advantages are still there.

No, I'm not, and I can't imagine why you thought so.

The scientists and engineers involved won't be particularly cooperative or helpful. They can be forced to work, but the risk of sabotage, of prototypes and blueprints getting hidden or destroyed, and so on is constant, and it will be a problem, especially since the British aren't going to immediately agree to a peace that involves them being occupied in summer 1940- if the Germans are to establish full control of British soil, it will take some time in which disruption to British R&D programs will kick in.

So in jet engines, as in other areas, the Germans will only benefit from British knowledge gradually. Look at air defense (where Stuart explicitly gives the Germans a very up-to-date air defense network by 1947). Sure, some of the system's features are partly derived from or inspired by things the Germans know the British did with their own air defenses, Chain Home, the ground control facilities, and so on. But that doesn't mean Hugh Dowding was stopping by to give them pointers on how to set up the system when, all things considered, he'd rather spit in their eye.

So technology transfer is going to be rather slow and limited, and Shep points out the British aren't that far ahead of the Germans- as shown by the fact that their jet aircraft of 1944-45 weren't much better than the German ones.

[Stark]

I have no idea what you're even trying to say. Established technologies in the testing phase won't be shared with conquerors because... the public? That's why the French never... oh. Your blithering about technology misses the point; Germany's jet program sucked. The English were ahead, even very early in the war, due to technological superiority. If you're saying Germany would already be ahead in Bart's retardoworld by 1941, then cool - why don't they have better jets than the UK would have had while being starved?

Maybe everyone in Britian has a little piece of the jet blueprint and they have to put it all together like a pirate map!

EDIT - oh man. Stating opinions as facts and writing a huge fanfic just to explain why your mate's omission is totally rational and fine? You need a new hobby, Simon. Try 'being intelligent' for a starter.

You heard it here first, guys. No conqueror ever got any technological advantages from victory.

[Simon_Jester]

Stark, you've been playing too many strategy games: "Achievement bonus unlocked: Foreign Rocket Scientist captured! You get jet technology!"

Nope. Some of the prototypes wind up damaged, or missing because they got chucked away in a warehouse for months, or destroyed, or turn out to be useless dead ends that looked good on paper. It slows things down. Or the factory they set up to make something has to be duplicated in your own territory, which takes time. Or the foreigners aren't trusted, and aren't given enough resources to produce results competitive with the native engineers' work. There's a long process of integration, even when the scientists are cooperating. Sometimes they aren't- some of the guys you want working for you aren't cooperative and have to be forced to work at gunpoint.

It's slow, and painstaking, and only offers small advantages except in very unusual conditions.

And yes, I know you think anything much over one paragraph is long-assed. I'd say this says more about you than about the paragraphs.

[Stark]

Dude, they don't even NEED the prototypes (even though the engines are better than the German ones, apparently). The UK already had a superior techbase, since it was only low budgets that prevented development even earlier. You can't make that go away without massive systematic sabotage, which they almost certainly won't be given the opportunity or have the inclination to perform. The idea that they'd learn absolutely nothing from work done years before is pretty exceptional - and pretty funny when you're defending fatsos stupid story in which they apparently steal the radar technology just fine.

It doesn't take much to improve on the engines Germany fielded, and I don't think you can make an entire body of engineering just disappear.

And sorry, I don't play strategy games. I'm allergic to sliders.

[Simon_Jester]

The story's half-retarded at best. It's just that your brainless fake-commentary is worse. Which is impressive, really.

I don't even know what the hell you're talking about on the radar.

The British technical base for jet engines wasn't a production line in 1940-41, it was a bunch of guys turning out prototypes and test models and trying to figure out how to make the things work on a useful military aircraft. That's not a "techbase" in the sense that you would mean the word, if you knew what you meant by it.

[thejester]

And like it matters anyway. What was the highest individual loss rate the Germans managed to inflict on an individual mass heavy bomber raid during the CBO? Bit over 10% at Nuremberg and Schweinfurt? Great, let's say they replicate that (and there are a whole lot of reasons they can't/won't in this scenario). 90% of bombers hitting targets with atomic weapons? Germany is still fucked.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, you're right.

[Shroom Man 777]

Shep expressed the same thing to me actually. When it comes to nyukulear weapons, even if just a teensy weensy percent make it through, even if der einsatzdeutschvergeltungsuberkampfernapkinwaffenkaiserschlickschnellgruppen inflict shitloads of casualties on the nuke bomber force, Germania would still get fucked.

Poop.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, if they shoot down 90% and the other 10% make it through, they're still capable of prosecuting the war, just not as well, and it's gonna be a long time before another nuclear attack like that becomes possible.

But for more realistic kill rates against large concentrated bomber forces, yeah, you're fucked. The only thing working in your favor is that the attack force is spread out into many small units which can be destroyed with less application of force... and conversely, you have to catch all of a larger number of individual threats.

[Stark]

The story's half-retarded at best. It's just that your brainless fake-commentary is worse. Which is impressive, really.

Statement of fact associated with no evidence; Simon Says! I'm not sure you know what 'commentary' even means, since all I did is mention that the UK had superior jet technology at the time. When you're less open to new ideas than Shep, you're a very, very special kind of fuckwit.

The British technical base for jet engines wasn't a production line in 1940-41, it was a bunch of guys turning out prototypes and test models and trying to figure out how to make the things work on a useful military aircraft. That's not a "techbase" in the sense that you would mean the word, if you knew what you meant by it.

Having the scientific and engineering support required to do something = not techbase anymore; must defend TBO! It's not an establishment or company doing something; just a bunch of guys. Declared non-transferable by Bart Fiat. You can just say 'maybe he didn't think of it' or 'maybe he figured they'd hide their blueprints in the basement' or something instead of trying to 'prove' that it's 'impossible' to derive any benefit because fatso didn't mention it in his thrilling story.

Anyone who thinks criticism of TBO has to revolve around how fucked Germany would be is a fucking retard. Next we'll hear how grammar doesn't matter either, because GERMANY FUKKED!

[Simon_Jester]

Heh.

If you didn't seem to think that technology transfer was some kind of "achievement bonus activated- new unit type available!" bullshit, I wouldn't have a problem with what you were saying.

There are plenty of reasons to criticize TBO- bad characterization, improbable decisions made by the characters that don't make a lot of sense even in context, the endless spiteful murders of people Stuart dislikes IRL...

Bullshit reasons don't have to be made up to do the job.

[thejester]

Stark: so why bring up jet engines in the first place?

[Stark]

Can you quote me saying that? I don't think you can, Simon Says. Maybe it was in the tone of my glowing phosphor letters when I said 'If they captured the UK, wouldn't they steal their jet technology?'

Maybe you consider jet technology similar to early computer technology, which (for example) the Polish were able to hide/destroy/give to the British around the time they were conquered. However, I don't think that's very comparable to a much broader set of technological challenges, particularly since making those 'computers' just required individual expertise, rather than the combination of engineering, materials science, testing, etc to produce a jet engine. They are similar, however, in that most of the science was already well-known, and it was just the application and testing that remained - especially for the poor old Germans, who found out too late that their designs sucked dogshit.

[Simon_Jester]

If you could quote me saying half the things you say that I've said, I'd be impressed, Stark.

As for the technologies, early jet engines were still in that individual phase too- much like rockets were five years later. The technology was in its infancy, and the work of small groups still mattered a lot, making it more difficult to transfer the knowledge without the consent of the people involved.

[Stark]

Stark: so why bring up jet engines in the first place?

Maybe because people were talking about German military focus, given the significance of B36 wank? I hate to suggest old fatboy might have pulled shit out of his ass in a forum post and then spun out a bunch of books... okay, that's a lie.

Simon Says - concession accepted!

If you were a cleverer person, you might have been able to catch on that included in any question of technology transfer is the state of that technology. Since I never wasted my life reading a classic like TBO, I was relying on Bart's victims fanboys READERS to let me know about the timeline. Amusingly, only Shep was open to this idea.

I'm pretty sure the UK jet program was beyond the single tech demo level in 1940, but regardless (and putting aside that I'm literally making your argument for you because you're a cretin) I don't see why we should consider the situations similar or flat-out deny that it's worth talking about. Does the story even mention the patriotic traitors of industrial England destroying technology, or are you literally making it up to cover for old son Barto?

In the vain hope that people who aren't giant fuckwits are still around - hilariously, like Shep - were the British and German approaches different enough that the Germans would be able to learn about the mistakes they were making beforehand and save effort?

Or is that not relevant, because GERMANY FUKKKKKKKED?

[Simon_Jester]

Hell, I'm open to the idea too- upgrading the engines by a bit doesn't make much difference anyway, but for all I know they did.

It's just that your tone's so full of shit that I can't tell how full of shit you are, since you spend more time mocking other people for not being you than you do explaining what the hell you're saying. So you say things are possible, then shit some of your brains out onto the page, then wander off, and I'm left trying to figure out whether to listen to the shit or to pretend 90% of your post never happened.

Me thinking you thought it was "achievement bonus unlocked!" was a pretty natural mistake. Me thinking that such an idea was idiotic, that wasn't a mistake at all. You do a good idiot impersonation when you've got your smarm on.

Substance over style is all very well, until you adopt a shit-for-brains tone that makes your substance incomprehensible and cryptic.

[Stark]

Lets not get into smarm vs pretention, buddy; you might cry.

So you say things are possible, then shit some of your brains out onto the page, then wander off, and I'm left trying to figure out whether to listen to the shit or to pretend 90% of your post never happened.

Is your attention span measured in hours or something? Look, if you are actually retarded just let me know and I'll go easy on you.

The laugh, for me at least, is that you didn't look at the issue (I actually did for you, and not even a 'thank you') and simply threw out 'no way' and 'videogames lol' like it's meaningful stuff regarding my original statement. I do apologise for not seeing your post on the last page where you talk about 'collaborationist' scientists, though. Since I'm not clear on the circumstances in TBO, I certainly can't comment on that... which is probably why I asked a question instead.

You can bang on about how much you HATES ME PRECIOUS all you want, but people were having a jolly old chat about the assumptions implicit in a forum post for yesteryear before you came along and dictated how the world works. That I had to defeat my own argument to help you out should really embarrass you. 'More dogmatic than Shep' should be your new CT.

I'm sad he left, actually, since he was talking about more middle-term development (ie post 1945, well into fantasyland) and the advantages Germany would see at that point from assimilating all this information. I'm sorry if this isn't 'relevant' because they're all going to be murdered by Stuart SAC THE SEER.