There used to be a segment about these super weapons on the history channel before it became the alien channel. We hear all the time about German mega weapons, but how did they actually impact the war? Was it all just a waste of resources that could have been better allocated elsewhere?
Depends on your definition of âsuper weaponsâ - the V1 and V2 were super-weapons - at the time (and caused havoc in London.) The StG-44 (aka MP-44) - the first real assault rifle - was a super-weapon at the time. The Lippisch P.13 hypersonic fighter was a project that consumed resources, but not much (a coal-dust ramjet!).
One could say that the âTigerâ projects consumed resources in 1942-3 that would have been better spent on other tanks (Panthers, Pzkw-IVs), and perhaps been developed in 1944. The âMausâ was definitely a waste of resources, and there were a number of tank designs that were done that shouldnât.
There were a number of aircraft that werenât useful, but Iâd be careful about saying they were wastes of time. The Japanese stuck with the Zero (Army and Navy versions) that were produced and used for at least two years after they became obsolescent. In WWII, new aircraft had to be come up with, and nobody knew what the good ones were until tested.
Do you have any specific weapons youâre thinking about?
(Nice icon there, Sean Finn) 
Oh⌠they had a top secret moon base. As Robert Heinleinâs points out in the book Rocket Ship Galileo of the Allied plan neutralise the moon base. The use of the base of was accurately documented in a film called Star wars: A New Hope.
(One can only postulate about the scary things that lurked in the Nazi Antarctica base)
Also the Fins were getting help from the Aliens, soooooooo⌠maybe history channel was not so wrong after all.
Thanks for your answer, yes I was referring to projects such as the V-1 and V-2 rockets and if they were really worth the effort from a strategic perspective. But also other projects which required a lot of time, resources, and effort to conduct such as the Maus and Gustav Cannon. The StG 44 is definitely a wonder weapons for the time, but wasnât what I immediately thought of, thanks for pointing it out!
⌠youâre wrong. As we know, thatâs not a moon, itâs a space station
Itâs too big to be a space station.
But by David Webers testimony it is only a standard issue space ship: Mutineerâs Moon David Weber
The link does not work. But you can read the book legaly for free by downloading one of the cd files.Online reading is deactivated. âMission of Honorâ will do
https://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/.
To put the super weapons in perspective: the V2 programme delivered approx 1/3 of the explosive that the allies dropped on Hamburg in 8 days in 1943 during Operation Gomorrah.
The V1 programme delivered approx 2/3.
So the entire V1 and V2 programme delivered in a month the explosive power that RAF bomber command would do in a night.
True enough, but the V2 was a really good terror weapon; the first you knew about it was when your neighborhood blew up. V1âs were not bad for this purpose, in the last moments of flight, it was silent; but the Allies did find ways to cut V1 damage down (and once they got proximity fuse AA shells and radar directed guns, way down.)
But youâre right, they were, in military terms, insignificant. On the other hand, the Vâs were much cheaper in mass production, and didnât have a crew. If the Germans had been able to make as many of them as they wanted, the Vâs might have been more significant.
I recall hearing on one documentary or another that more enslaved workers were killed in the production of V2s than by their usage.
I often think about the things that the nazis could have done with the enormous resources needed to make these super-weapons, i am kinda glad they did not channel these resources into existing weapons that gave better results
If you count the people killed building the tunnel-factories in the first place, thatâs dead right.
I dunno. A lot of the work involved was done with âfree laborâ, that is, slave labor. The production facilities of other weapons themselves were being bombed to tiny pieces. Making V1/V2 and so on was actually, compared to that trying to grind out Panthers and Tigers, tiny. They didnât interact much in the way of raw materials.
The other thing is the V1/V2 in particular, were intended to try and convince the British to negotiate, and retaliate for the firebombing of German cities. It was also to try and buck up the morale of the civilians in the cities getting bombed. Politically, the effort was probably worth it (if reprehensible.)