If only Aurora or Revell had made something like this....

[Tabonga | 2,317]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/swiss-museum-restores-german-1944-114839354.html

[Tanooki | 4,933]

That's fantastic, and bigger donators get a free ride once it works too.

Nice seeing that recovered, they're obscenely rare.  Looking at how advanced at the time they were, and even now with the muzzle velocity/shell size coupled with that very thick armor those things still would be an utter terror these days.

[Tabonga | 2,317]

While they were pretty daunting in combat that was often mitigated since they were prone to mechanical failures.  They were too big and heavy  for a lot of bridges which hampered their deployment.  They also used a lot of fuel which the Germans were chronically short of.

The Germans were in the process of making an even heavier armoured vehicle called the Maus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_VIII_Maus

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And you can fly a ME262 replica (of which there are 5 in the world).

http://warbirdsnews.com/warbirds-news/collings-foundation-messerschmitt-262.html

The original Junkers Jumo engines have been replaced with modern ones (which are a lot safer - no turbo blades snapping on these) but the new engines are in cowlings that are a copy of the Junkers Jumo engines shell.

Edited March 31, 2021 by Tabonga

[Tanooki | 4,933]

Nice, I knew about their issues, and of the Maus too.  Have to wonder what they were thinking on that one with the fuel issue.  Hell they went far enough to be on the ball doing something far nastier on a rail car (Big Bertha) which really was just obscene looking at its figures.

That's pretty slick there are working copies of the 262 in use, even if it's just a few.  Doesn't surprise me they'd swap out the engine for something smarter and safer, why not right.  There are all sorts of strange working replicas about.  Around a 2hr drive from here I could take a flight on a model of wright flyer out of Dayton if I wanted to.  There's an air strip near Wright Patterson where a club has a flying replica of the Wright Flyer B model, a two seater based on a 1910 model and you can (well could) pay to take a flight around the airfield on it.

[Tabonga | 2,317]

On 3/31/2021 at 10:40 PM, Tanooki said:

Nice, I knew about their issues, and of the Maus too.  Have to wonder what they were thinking on that one with the fuel issue.  Hell they went far enough to be on the ball doing something far nastier on a rail car (Big Bertha) which really was just obscene looking at its figures.

Big Bertha was actually a WWI gun - and referred to a class of guns rather than one single gun.  It was a 17" caliber with a range of just under 6 miles. (The German soldiers came up with the name - after Gustav Krupp's (the major German armament manufacturer) wife Bertha.)  The Allies picked up on the name and called any heavy German artillery piece Big Bertha.

The Germans did build two really massive railway guns in WWII - Schwerer (Heavy) Gustav and Dora.  They were the biggest artillery pieces used in the war with a caliber of 30.5" and a range of up to 30 miles (depending on the type of shell used)

Edited April 2, 2021 by Tabonga

[Tanooki | 4,933]

Yeah it is, and like now I'm up late and probably not keeping it clear.   Germans knew their big barrels, probably compensating for something.

[Tabonga | 2,317]

5 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Yeah it is, and like now I'm up late and probably not keeping it clear.   Germans knew their big barrels, probably compensating for something.

This is a really good read (if one's mind runs to such things).

 

Here is a trivia question for you (or anyone) - when was the first anti-aircraft gun built?

Edited April 2, 2021 by Tabonga

[Tabonga | 2,317]

5 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Germans knew their big barrels, probably compensating for something.

I think they basically liked big explosions - not taking into consideration that a bunch of smaller explosions were  likely to be more effective.  Their big railway guns weren't terribly accurate and had a much much slower rate of fire than several smaller guns would have had.  

Another example were the V-1s and V2s.  While all whiz bang in terms of technology (when they worked - getting the V-2s to actually launch and fly straight was generally pretty dicey) they weren't very accurate - so while you did generally get big explosions it was usually not of anything terribly important (if one landed on your house it likely seemed important  to you though).  IMHO both programs were a waste of scarce resources that could have been better used elsewhere.

[Tanooki | 4,933]

I think Germans were much into what's now considered shock and awe.  The larger the boom and shake it caused, the more you could wreck someones mind as much as their body from the the mental impact if the physical didn't get you.  Just like your lead into the V weapons, again shock and awe.  They may not have worked well as far as guidance goes, but damn they did some pretty fair good damage on stuff they did manage to hit, even if hit was not typically the intended/hoped target as guidance is something largely lacking.  I recall many stories over the years I've seen and heard, it wasn't the boom or impact that mentally really screwed with the brits and some soldiers, it was that signature shrill shreaking sound the jet engine did.  You knew it was coming, you knew it was too fast to take down with conventional weapons, and you knew it was too fast to run from, and even if you stupidly tried it, since they couldn't target accurately you could be running face first into the thing seconds later.  A true sit and kiss your ass goodbye moment and hope it wasn't the time.

As far as early AA goes, my guess would be shortly after powered flight, once military got a look into the perspective usefulness of them for not just scouting but terror(combat) and knowing if they were that smart, others would too.  US took the lead in flight, probably the same in shooting it down too, my guess, pre WW1.

[Tabonga | 2,317]

28 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

 

As far as early AA goes, my guess would be shortly after powered flight, once military got a look into the perspective usefulness of them for not just scouting but terror(combat) and knowing if they were that smart, others would too.  US took the lead in flight, probably the same in shooting it down too, my guess, pre WW1.

You are right about pre WWI but (as odd as it may sound) it was actually quite a bit before powered flight. 

 

Spoiler

During the Franco Prussian War of 1870 the Prussians had surrounded Paris and put it under siege.  The residents of Paris communicated with the rest of France via messenger pigeons and balloons.  The Prussians used falcons to catch the pigeons (the French thought this was really barbaric) and Krupp built a special cannon to try to pot the balloons.  They damaged several with it and brought down at least 5 of the balloons - 3 balloons apparently just vanished so they may have been hit also.

 

Edited April 2, 2021 by Tabonga

[Tanooki | 4,933]

I've got nothing, well done.  I was thinking more in respect to actual airplane concerns, not spotter balloons.  I wouldn't have been surprised if that hadn't gone a slight bit earlier into the Civil War even.

 

[Tabonga | 2,317]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

I've got nothing, well done.  I was thinking more in respect to actual airplane concerns, not spotter balloons.  I wouldn't have been surprised if that hadn't gone a slight bit earlier into the Civil War even.

 

In the Civil War the balloons were a least a bit behind the lines since they were used strictly for observation and mapping.  So the range would have been greater than was  the case with the Paris balloons which perforce had to go over enemy lines. 

The north likely could have built a gun like the Prussian one (assuming they could have dealt with the extra range) but there was not a lot of need since the Confederates had fewer balloons.  Aside from the relatively small  Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond the south didn't have much in the way of advanced projectile weapon manufacturing capability.   

[Tanooki | 4,933]

2 hours ago, Tabonga said:

In the Civil War the balloons were a least a bit behind the lines since they were used strictly for observation and mapping.  So the range would have been greater than was  the case with the Paris balloons which perforce had to go over enemy lines. 

The north likely could have built a gun like the Prussian one (assuming they could have dealt with the extra range) but there was not a lot of need since the Confederates had fewer balloons.  Aside from the relatively small  Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond the south didn't have much in the way of advanced projectile weapon manufacturing capability.   

Makes sense, and I'm aware of the deficiencies of the south, it never was going to be a fair fight once the slowness of the north woke up to what was going on and really did what they needed to and ultimately did.  I studied the Civil War a bit in college back in the day.

[Tabonga | 2,317]

5 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Makes sense, and I'm aware of the deficiencies of the south, it never was going to be a fair fight once the slowness of the north woke up to what was going on and really did what they needed to and ultimately did.  I studied the Civil War a bit in college back in the day.

One problem the south had that is often overlooked was the disparity in railroads - the south had  far fewer miles of track and a lot less rolling stock.  In addition there were several different gauges in use among the various states (the north just had one). At one point there was a vital link being made between two  cities (it escapes me right now which two) - which the south could only build by stripping track from elsewhere and it was being built with two different gauges from each end.  The north further aggravated things for the south by creating these little doobies in areas they briefly took over:

Prussian military observers took note of the importance of railroads in the war and built their railroad networks accordingly - this was one of the reasons they won the Franco Prussian War so handily.

[Tanooki | 4,933]

Yeah no doubt the southern rail lines were a mismatched joke and just a mess overall.  We went well into how that impacted supplies but also basic troop movements too.  It caused so much problems for them, and really had the north not been a whining dumpster fire of somewhat apathy up front and being wishy washy with their crap promotion of awful people to leadership spots, while keeping other dimwit generals around that caused so many failures in the early years the south would have been smoked out much faster.