I'm going to post some stuff and ideas for comment dealing with developments in Germany that FFO will most likely cause for comments.
1) In 1940 just before the attack(s) began in the West the Luftwaffe issued a requirement to increase and disperse its Pilot and crew training program from its pre-war setup. According to USSBS documents and interviews after the war this program would have been compareable to the one developed in the US after Pearl Harbour. Apparently due to the rapid fall of France this program was cancelled and though calls for it to be re-examined were issued during the Battle of Britain it never was implemented. In FFO with the protracted battle for France this program would not have been cancelled in my opinion. It would have become operational sometime in October 1940 and within a few months would have been turing out some very experienced pilots. In fact with the red tape the RLM put on aircratf manufacturers in late 1941 early 1942 there may have been a point that more pilots may have been available than planes. If pilot training was cut back because of this the infastructure and instructors woud have remained. It just meant that fewer pilots would have been trained with lower student to instructor ratios.
2) KM - as per Marks and my thread in other areas the U-boat service will see dramatic changes starting in the fall of 1942. Excluding U-boat construction which we discussed the following will also happen.
- When plans and schematics for British radar and electronic systems are passed to the KM by the Japanese they will also be passed to various companies in Germany like Gema and Telefunkin. Within weeks units similar to the FuMO 83 Berlin U I
will be available for deployment. Type II and so on will soon following. Also because of the details of the technical papers the mass production secrets for the Cavity Magnetron developed in the US will now be available to Germany. Also within a month a wider scanning version of the German NAXOS radar detector will be available for U-boats most likely covering all possible frequencies from 12 cm down to 2 cm ( this will also be available for Luftwaffe aircraft as well ).
- FAT torpedo running devices being developed can have possible evasive patterns based on PoW tactics database programmed into there design search pattern.
3) Enigma and Codes - Not wanting to go into the political fallout of what the knowedge that the German codes are broken and Enigma has been compromised by ULTRA and MAGIC the following things I feel will begin to happen in mid to late August 1942.
- All services as an interm solution will convert to the M4-mode 3 enigma machine being used by the KM ( 336 combinations instead of 60 ) with new code books and dire consequences of anyone repeating keys ( one operator was always searched out because he used his girlfriends name as his starting key before transmission ) or using transmissions for anything other than official business.
- Increased use of telegraph, landlines and couriers.
-by mid to late October all services will switch to the M4-mode 4 machine with 3024 combinations.
- Sometime in 1943 one of the 10 rotor enigma machines ( using all 10 instead of just 4 of 8 or 9ish ) will be put in use ( developed in 1931 ). If indications of this unit being cracked are seen then a 20 rotor unit has also been developed.
- This means that the Allies will have lost a valuable intelligence tool and will effect all operations from the fall of 1942 on.
4) Goering- Drivers in FFO in June 1942 by either losses, lack of performance, complaints about barbarosa and PoW information will strip Goering of at least 2 of his portfolio's like what happened in 1943. They are aircraft development and production and occupied territory industry and raw material development. As in 1943 these will be moved to Speer. This is Huge. Implications are:
- removal of red tape in aircraft procurement and production.
- Dispersal of aircraft production
- Standardization of parts and construction
- removal of non-essential development programs
- Increased production with existing manpower.
This will give you an idea of how much this will effect production.
Historically in 1942 , ME 109 production was 2657 units. In 1943 by June ME 109 production had been 1400 units on tract to produce 2800 units for the year with increased bombing. Speers began implementing his program after June and by the end of the year 6013 ME 109's were produced. In 1944 this rose to 12807 ME 109's even with major disruptions caused by allied bombing. All using the same manpower. Parts were also universal which they had not been up till then.
As for the other portfolio this is almost as big. Effectively while under Goerings control other than the French renault plant, the Gnome-Rhone engine plant, iron ore shipments from Norway and Sweden, Goering did nothing to rebuild, promote or develop production. In FFO most of the plants that were in France would have been blown up or destroyed as the French retreated. Germany would have been left with a far different France then what she got in OTL. Most likely, other than a half hearted attempt to restart the Rhone engine plant and maybe renault's plant very little money would have been earmarked by germany for reconstruction in France. Finding most of the machine tools still salvageable they all most likely as done in other countries in OTL would have been packed up and shipped to southern Germany or Austria for storage. Now Historically when Speer got the portfolio he had some issues to contend with. He needed more steel to increase production of Synthetic oil plants ( 6 million tons ), later in 1944 he needed oil, nickle , chromium and magnesium. To try to answer the steel issue he investigated what had been available before the war. He found that Belgium was a large exporter or Pig iron, France was one of the 5 largest producers of steel with most of its industry in Northern France, Poland also had several steel production facilities. He went about restarting those plants and got abut 30% output out of the French plants and about 3 and 4 % out of Belgium and Poland even under constant Allied bombing. In 1944 he searched out where to get supplies of Oil, nickle, Chromium and magnesium. He found that Yugoslavia was an exporter of Chromium, Magnesium and nickle and Copper. He also found surveys of Test wells done in 1937 thru 1939 of an Oil field in northern Yugolsavia with 14300 billion metric tons of reserves, and Natural gas reserves of 25000 billion cubic meters. He also found a request by a german company to build an oil shale plant in Central Yugoslavia with a capacity of 450000 metric tons of oil per year ( the plant, using these plans was built in 1947 by the Russians and met those production figures BTW ). Incursions in the region by the Allies and partisans made none of the projects viable for him then. Enter FFO, Speer's will restart the French, Belgian and Polish steel and pig iron plants. Production values are a guess but even if he gets his 30% for 2 years from the french plants he has all the steel he needs to build and double the synthetic plants in Germany without touching German production ( this means btw possible synthetic oil production by August 1943 of 66 million barrels per year ). Thanks to the bombing of the Romanian fields in FFO this has put Oil on the radar. Speer's department will find as historical the resource numbers for Yugoslavia and suddenly it becomes a strategic asset. The puppet government in Yugoslavia has a place they can send there labour camps to and a new source of Chromium, Magnesium, copper and nickle become available to the German's. As for the Oil, using one other thing Goering did do as an example. In 1941 Germany captured a oil field from Russia. Two companies were sent in by Goering and re-drilled and setup the field again and within 12 months from when they started to when they had to evacuate the field again they managed to extract 4.7 million barrels of oil. If those 2 companies were to go to the field area in Yugolsavia it is quite possible, if run by the Germans that a capacity of 4 to 5 million barrels could be had in the first year with an increase to 14 to 18 million barrels of year by second year ( not worrying about the long term productivity of the field like Romania was with hers ).
5) Luftwaffe - Technology from the PoW find will have an effect on the RLM's attacks most likely starting in late fall 1942.
- The Luftwaffe will have access to AI radar sets for there own night fighters. They will also have an advantage that if used right could decimate the RAF's own night fighter aircraft who would not know of the RLM's advantage.
- The Luftwaffe will have access to there own ASV units and as was seen by the Berlin units, the units made by Telefunkin will be smaller ,lighter and more powerful. Also with the secret of the Bell labs process of mass producing the Cavity Magnetron the one hurdle the Germans could not get by in really mass producing and developing the sets is overcome.
- The Fritz X and the HS 293. A simple modification to the guidance system of these units will make doubly lethal to the Allies. I asked a missile specialist I know and he said with a slight addition to the guidance system these bombs could suddenly become Anti-radiation bombs. The pilot of the bomb releases and steers the bomb till it gets within about 10 to 20 km of the fleet or target ( fritz would have to get closer )(note: added later HS 293 is 8 to 10 km and Fritz X is 5 km ). A green light comes on his console telling the operator that the bombs have acquired a radar signal. He pushes a button, locks out the radio controls for the bomb and the aircraft leaves. Bomb follows the direction of the radar signal until impact. If radar turns off it goes towards last known location. No jamming is possible in this case. The Technical specs the Germans get from the Japanese will allow this to become a possibility very easily.
6) In 1940 the Russians and Germans met and a Panzer III was shown to the Russians. The Russians were allowed to purchase a few copies for study. The evaluations of the Panzer III caused quite a turmoil in Russia and caused issues with the T-34. The plan was in July August 1941 that the Russians would hold trials for the Germans and showcase there KSV-1 and T-34 tanks. In a letter Stalin wrote in April 1941 it almost sounded like he wanted to have it as a showcase to possibly sell the tanks to Germany. Historically this meeting never happened but there is no reason it wouldn't in FFO. This means based on the team returning, debriefing, etc. requests for new tanks etc. that a similar development schedule could follow for a Panther like tanks as historical which means, prototype by August, September 1942 and production in November, December 1942. This also means that the 35 ton 75 mm tank proposal submitted in 1941 ( which began development in 1937 ) would have been effected as well. Thus a Tiger I like tank could also be seen in August 1942. Also
- Marder I and Marder 138 variants could be seen in July or August 1942.
- The StugIII in Sept. 1942
- The Panzer IV F's in October 1942.
Again Speer took over historically production planning in August 1943, He'll most likely take over production in August 1942 in FFO I feel. This means instead of 4136 armoured vehicles in 1942 he could get as many as 10000 or more. If he gets hitler to go along with his occupied territories idea to produce the domestic goods for Germany plan and make Germany the military production center he might be able to produce more. At this point 60% of german production is domestically oriented.
6) Production - Speer will have a ton of machine tools and need for more production facilities and workers. It is most likley that many million French will be pulled from france as technical workers. They will end up in plants in Austria and Southern Germany. They will have less ability and be under more scutiny then they ever were in OTL to cause issues with production and sabotage. Many displaced workers in france may also find themselves in mines and other less hospitable places. Speer's did not control where his workers came from but his drive to increase production will displace many more people than historical.
That's all for now....more to come.
Russ / Roller007
1) In 1940 just before the attack(s) began in the West the Luftwaffe issued a requirement to increase and disperse its Pilot and crew training program from its pre-war setup. According to USSBS documents and interviews after the war this program would have been compareable to the one developed in the US after Pearl Harbour. Apparently due to the rapid fall of France this program was cancelled and though calls for it to be re-examined were issued during the Battle of Britain it never was implemented. In FFO with the protracted battle for France this program would not have been cancelled in my opinion. It would have become operational sometime in October 1940 and within a few months would have been turing out some very experienced pilots. In fact with the red tape the RLM put on aircratf manufacturers in late 1941 early 1942 there may have been a point that more pilots may have been available than planes. If pilot training was cut back because of this the infastructure and instructors woud have remained. It just meant that fewer pilots would have been trained with lower student to instructor ratios.
2) KM - as per Marks and my thread in other areas the U-boat service will see dramatic changes starting in the fall of 1942. Excluding U-boat construction which we discussed the following will also happen.
- When plans and schematics for British radar and electronic systems are passed to the KM by the Japanese they will also be passed to various companies in Germany like Gema and Telefunkin. Within weeks units similar to the FuMO 83 Berlin U I
will be available for deployment. Type II and so on will soon following. Also because of the details of the technical papers the mass production secrets for the Cavity Magnetron developed in the US will now be available to Germany. Also within a month a wider scanning version of the German NAXOS radar detector will be available for U-boats most likely covering all possible frequencies from 12 cm down to 2 cm ( this will also be available for Luftwaffe aircraft as well ).
- FAT torpedo running devices being developed can have possible evasive patterns based on PoW tactics database programmed into there design search pattern.
3) Enigma and Codes - Not wanting to go into the political fallout of what the knowedge that the German codes are broken and Enigma has been compromised by ULTRA and MAGIC the following things I feel will begin to happen in mid to late August 1942.
- All services as an interm solution will convert to the M4-mode 3 enigma machine being used by the KM ( 336 combinations instead of 60 ) with new code books and dire consequences of anyone repeating keys ( one operator was always searched out because he used his girlfriends name as his starting key before transmission ) or using transmissions for anything other than official business.
- Increased use of telegraph, landlines and couriers.
-by mid to late October all services will switch to the M4-mode 4 machine with 3024 combinations.
- Sometime in 1943 one of the 10 rotor enigma machines ( using all 10 instead of just 4 of 8 or 9ish ) will be put in use ( developed in 1931 ). If indications of this unit being cracked are seen then a 20 rotor unit has also been developed.
- This means that the Allies will have lost a valuable intelligence tool and will effect all operations from the fall of 1942 on.
4) Goering- Drivers in FFO in June 1942 by either losses, lack of performance, complaints about barbarosa and PoW information will strip Goering of at least 2 of his portfolio's like what happened in 1943. They are aircraft development and production and occupied territory industry and raw material development. As in 1943 these will be moved to Speer. This is Huge. Implications are:
- removal of red tape in aircraft procurement and production.
- Dispersal of aircraft production
- Standardization of parts and construction
- removal of non-essential development programs
- Increased production with existing manpower.
This will give you an idea of how much this will effect production.
Historically in 1942 , ME 109 production was 2657 units. In 1943 by June ME 109 production had been 1400 units on tract to produce 2800 units for the year with increased bombing. Speers began implementing his program after June and by the end of the year 6013 ME 109's were produced. In 1944 this rose to 12807 ME 109's even with major disruptions caused by allied bombing. All using the same manpower. Parts were also universal which they had not been up till then.
As for the other portfolio this is almost as big. Effectively while under Goerings control other than the French renault plant, the Gnome-Rhone engine plant, iron ore shipments from Norway and Sweden, Goering did nothing to rebuild, promote or develop production. In FFO most of the plants that were in France would have been blown up or destroyed as the French retreated. Germany would have been left with a far different France then what she got in OTL. Most likely, other than a half hearted attempt to restart the Rhone engine plant and maybe renault's plant very little money would have been earmarked by germany for reconstruction in France. Finding most of the machine tools still salvageable they all most likely as done in other countries in OTL would have been packed up and shipped to southern Germany or Austria for storage. Now Historically when Speer got the portfolio he had some issues to contend with. He needed more steel to increase production of Synthetic oil plants ( 6 million tons ), later in 1944 he needed oil, nickle , chromium and magnesium. To try to answer the steel issue he investigated what had been available before the war. He found that Belgium was a large exporter or Pig iron, France was one of the 5 largest producers of steel with most of its industry in Northern France, Poland also had several steel production facilities. He went about restarting those plants and got abut 30% output out of the French plants and about 3 and 4 % out of Belgium and Poland even under constant Allied bombing. In 1944 he searched out where to get supplies of Oil, nickle, Chromium and magnesium. He found that Yugoslavia was an exporter of Chromium, Magnesium and nickle and Copper. He also found surveys of Test wells done in 1937 thru 1939 of an Oil field in northern Yugolsavia with 14300 billion metric tons of reserves, and Natural gas reserves of 25000 billion cubic meters. He also found a request by a german company to build an oil shale plant in Central Yugoslavia with a capacity of 450000 metric tons of oil per year ( the plant, using these plans was built in 1947 by the Russians and met those production figures BTW ). Incursions in the region by the Allies and partisans made none of the projects viable for him then. Enter FFO, Speer's will restart the French, Belgian and Polish steel and pig iron plants. Production values are a guess but even if he gets his 30% for 2 years from the french plants he has all the steel he needs to build and double the synthetic plants in Germany without touching German production ( this means btw possible synthetic oil production by August 1943 of 66 million barrels per year ). Thanks to the bombing of the Romanian fields in FFO this has put Oil on the radar. Speer's department will find as historical the resource numbers for Yugoslavia and suddenly it becomes a strategic asset. The puppet government in Yugoslavia has a place they can send there labour camps to and a new source of Chromium, Magnesium, copper and nickle become available to the German's. As for the Oil, using one other thing Goering did do as an example. In 1941 Germany captured a oil field from Russia. Two companies were sent in by Goering and re-drilled and setup the field again and within 12 months from when they started to when they had to evacuate the field again they managed to extract 4.7 million barrels of oil. If those 2 companies were to go to the field area in Yugolsavia it is quite possible, if run by the Germans that a capacity of 4 to 5 million barrels could be had in the first year with an increase to 14 to 18 million barrels of year by second year ( not worrying about the long term productivity of the field like Romania was with hers ).
5) Luftwaffe - Technology from the PoW find will have an effect on the RLM's attacks most likely starting in late fall 1942.
- The Luftwaffe will have access to AI radar sets for there own night fighters. They will also have an advantage that if used right could decimate the RAF's own night fighter aircraft who would not know of the RLM's advantage.
- The Luftwaffe will have access to there own ASV units and as was seen by the Berlin units, the units made by Telefunkin will be smaller ,lighter and more powerful. Also with the secret of the Bell labs process of mass producing the Cavity Magnetron the one hurdle the Germans could not get by in really mass producing and developing the sets is overcome.
- The Fritz X and the HS 293. A simple modification to the guidance system of these units will make doubly lethal to the Allies. I asked a missile specialist I know and he said with a slight addition to the guidance system these bombs could suddenly become Anti-radiation bombs. The pilot of the bomb releases and steers the bomb till it gets within about 10 to 20 km of the fleet or target ( fritz would have to get closer )(note: added later HS 293 is 8 to 10 km and Fritz X is 5 km ). A green light comes on his console telling the operator that the bombs have acquired a radar signal. He pushes a button, locks out the radio controls for the bomb and the aircraft leaves. Bomb follows the direction of the radar signal until impact. If radar turns off it goes towards last known location. No jamming is possible in this case. The Technical specs the Germans get from the Japanese will allow this to become a possibility very easily.
6) In 1940 the Russians and Germans met and a Panzer III was shown to the Russians. The Russians were allowed to purchase a few copies for study. The evaluations of the Panzer III caused quite a turmoil in Russia and caused issues with the T-34. The plan was in July August 1941 that the Russians would hold trials for the Germans and showcase there KSV-1 and T-34 tanks. In a letter Stalin wrote in April 1941 it almost sounded like he wanted to have it as a showcase to possibly sell the tanks to Germany. Historically this meeting never happened but there is no reason it wouldn't in FFO. This means based on the team returning, debriefing, etc. requests for new tanks etc. that a similar development schedule could follow for a Panther like tanks as historical which means, prototype by August, September 1942 and production in November, December 1942. This also means that the 35 ton 75 mm tank proposal submitted in 1941 ( which began development in 1937 ) would have been effected as well. Thus a Tiger I like tank could also be seen in August 1942. Also
- Marder I and Marder 138 variants could be seen in July or August 1942.
- The StugIII in Sept. 1942
- The Panzer IV F's in October 1942.
Again Speer took over historically production planning in August 1943, He'll most likely take over production in August 1942 in FFO I feel. This means instead of 4136 armoured vehicles in 1942 he could get as many as 10000 or more. If he gets hitler to go along with his occupied territories idea to produce the domestic goods for Germany plan and make Germany the military production center he might be able to produce more. At this point 60% of german production is domestically oriented.
6) Production - Speer will have a ton of machine tools and need for more production facilities and workers. It is most likley that many million French will be pulled from france as technical workers. They will end up in plants in Austria and Southern Germany. They will have less ability and be under more scutiny then they ever were in OTL to cause issues with production and sabotage. Many displaced workers in france may also find themselves in mines and other less hospitable places. Speer's did not control where his workers came from but his drive to increase production will displace many more people than historical.
That's all for now....more to come.
Russ / Roller007
