Why was the German's military technology the best during WW2?

Answer 1

As an earlier poster pointed out the Germans often invested in quality over quantity, they were also blessed with several world class designers and engineers, men such as Willy Messerschmitt and Ferdinand Porsche, and they were good at incorporating combat experience into design improvements.

However, their overall record is patchier than you might think. For example, it is often assumed that the Germans early war victories were due to better equipment, but in fact in was usually due to better training and tactics. Their equipment was sometimes inferior in critical areas. Read any account of the early fighting on the Eastern front to see just how shocked the Germans were by the T-34. Also their equipment tended to be complex and early versions were often plagued by teething troubles.

Areas where the Germans were clearly superior included optics (their gun sights were suberb), jet engine technology, missile design (the V2), and submarines.

Areas were they were very good but not necessarily better than the Allies included single engine fighter design (Me-109 and FW-190), anti-tank weaponry, particularly high velocity anti-tank guns, heavy tank design (though the Panther was much influenced by the Soviet T-34) and warship design.

Areas that they lagged the Allies would include radar, long range, multi-engine bombers and anti-submarine warfare.

And of course, their ultimate technological failure was to take completely the wrong path toward engineering an atomic bomb.

Answer 2

Hard work! The work was usually performed under pain of death, a transfer to the Russian front, an all expense paid vacation in a concentration camp, or some such. The bottom line was design, test, modify, retest, redesign, ad infinitum, until the jet engine or rocket guidance performed as required. So, the answer is hard work, and lots of it. This has always been true in any technology and always will be true even when the nineteenth generation home computer is designing the twentieth. Some person will be working hard at the keyboard!

Still, I wouldn't say the German technology was the best. Their atomic bomb was a long ways from being ready to test. Their submarines were the same as World War One. Their army issued the bolt action Mauser '98. Our army issued the semiautomatic M1 Garrand. The only four engined bomber the Luft Waffe operated was the Focke-Wulf Condor, and it was known to have the wing fail, sitting on the tarmac!

Answer 3

In the pre WW2 era Germany was a leader in engineering and science and many skilled engineers and scientists like Werner Von Braun and Willi Messerschmidt.

The German military also went for quality over quantity. While the vaunted Panzer and Tiger tanks were probably the best right next to Russia's T-34 Russia and America with it's Sherman could produce far superior numbers of them especially toward the last years of the war when Germany's factories were pretty much in a shambles.

Another major component was the German military especially the Waffen SS were better trained than many of their Allied counterparts.

Answer 4

Most German Tech was great because they took the best ideas from other people. The Panther Tank used the sloped armor from the USSR. They also used high amounts of testing that took time but got the kinks out of their weapons. Most of the time their tech was the same as the Allies but little thing made them better. For Example, The Panzer III and IV were equal to British and French tanks, but the Germans had a radio in their tanks as the Allies did not have one at all. Then as the war went on the equipment was modified to make them better from combat experience

Answer 5

The German nation was driven by the concept pf "Total War." Everything, particularly industrial production and development, was geared toward the war. The industrial developments of war technology led modern nations during WWII. Unfortunately, the advancements were slowed by the explusion of top scientists in the Jewish purges and led to the ultimate loss in the development of the atomic bomb.

Answer 6

Because they tended to go for supreme quality rather than quantity. The Russians churned out many thousands of tanks and aircraft using standardised parts while the Germans were producing comparatively small numbers of high quality tanks which required precision tools and many man hours to construct. They had the best quality equipment but in the end they simply didn't produce enough of it.

Answer 7

What? Well, they had some good techy stuff but they lost the war....