German Development/Production Technology Failures in WW2 (rev. April '25)

[MKSheppard]

[For the April '25 update, I combined two different threads to make this]

mekozak
Old Friend
Posts: 62
(2/11/01 8:04:36 pm )

German Development/Production Technology Failures in WW2

I think many people argue that German technology had an air of superiority because of the leaps they were willing to take with regard to jets, rockets, main battle tanks, etc. Some historians have pointed out that these technologies did not work very well at the time and have listed a number of failings. These historians argued that the Allies had much of the same technology (Pershing tanks, P-80 Shooting Stars, etc.) and did not use those new technologies because either the war was obviously won or that the Allies did not want to interrupt production of the tried and true weapons. The point I want to bring out is that technology is more than just the final product. It is important to mention that there are many factors that are required to deliver the right product at the right time to the battlefield, for example, product planning, product development, production, logistics, maintenance & repair, and integration of the weapon into the force structure.

This essay will try to bring awareness that technology is important, not only in the final product, but throughout the product's strategic assessment, development, testing, and production. I will try to explain why, from a US perspective (from analysis after the war), the Germans if anything were typically technologically inept during the product rationalization, product development, and production phases and did not do the proper product planning to know why.

As background here, my company was offered the opportunity to obtain (in part as war reparations) a series of production facilities that were not seriously damaged during the war. These were some of the same facilities that produced Nazi Germany's most vaunted weapon systems. My company rejected the offer at the time because the technology employed by the Germans, the production facilities themselves, the testing facilities, the prove-out facilities were hopelessly obsolete. Production methodologies were more closely akin to pre-WW1 methods than anything we might associate with rocket or jet technology.

As an example of American manufacturing capability (which you can read about in the book "Detroit Goes To War"), the cost of machine guns before the war was in the $500 per copy range (I'm working from memory here). These production costs were based on European arms manufacturing data that was shared with the US Government since the US had purchased many of its guns from Europeans before WW2. A contract was given to General Motors to produce a large quantity of the guns now that we were drawn into the conflict. General Motors, with their production techniques, was able to reduce the cost of the guns to about $50 per copy. This cost reduction was partly redesign but mostly production techniques. And these guns were more reliable (50 cal Brownings) than anything the enemy had. These cost reductions and production reliability improvements did not stop at machine guns.

How does the product development process work? What are the product planning & development steps that American producers employed that would afford such improvements versus the Axis countries (or for that matter our other Allies)? Listed below are the general steps taken by American strategists and producers in WW2 with a brief contrast to German methods:

Strategy & Product Planning

The strategic planning phase of product development and production does not so much employ technology in the ways that product development and production engineers are familiar. The strategy and product planning process is critical to understand where engineers should focus their efforts. Unlike analysis of German wartime product development and production efforts which left significant artifacts (like production facilities, test facilities, and prototypes of various technologies in process of development) and a host of engineers behind to interrogate, there are fewer clues in understanding the specific mechanisms to strategy development and product planning by Germany. In fact, much strategic work was initiated by people like Adolf Hitler and is therefore lost to the historian.

The following are the process steps that are typical in the strategy and planning world and were used by America during the war. Note that these first "planning" steps are rarely linear and there are numerous feedback loops as more information in constantly added to the decision maker's desks. Many of the strategy and planning processes at my company were, in fact, developed by a certain group of "Whiz Kids" who previously employed their brand of magic for the US Army Air Corps during and immediately following WW2:

1. Strategic Futuring
2. Customer Research and "Functional" futuring
3. Competitive Analysis
4. Budget & Metrics development
5. Technology identification
6. Advanced project selection/Incremental analysis

1. Strategic Futuring:
This is the initial phase of any senior level planning group. Simply said, strategic futuring is the process of envisaging a variety of potential scenarios where the military might be engaged. Each potential scenario includes an analysis of the requirements to meet the proposed threat. Scenarios are then compared to identify similarities of requirements. Systems that would be required in many of the proposed scenarios are usually among the first to be requested. Scenarios are also evaluated by probability to assess the need for unique requirements. An example of a clear failure by Germany at the strategic & scenario level is the potential implications of a war against the USSR, UK, and the USA. Was there no serious evaluation of the impact of America declaring war? Was there no indication before mid-1943 that production levels of all weapon systems would need to be dramatically increased? By contrast, the identification of Japan by the United States as a potential enemy allowed for the development of a navy that was to specifically address Japanese strengths.

2. Customer Research & Functional Futuring:
Any government department, manufacturing firm or service group needs to know their customers and how they can best be serviced. Though strategic futuring may yield glimpses of what may keep the customer happy in the future, this is the stage that asks what will keep him happy now. Note that a military supplier needs to understand the requirements of the general staffs which set tactical doctrine and the end-user (the soldiers) who will physically use the weapons ? both groups are the firm's customers. Functional futuring specifically, is an extension of present day customer research that forces you to ask for the limitations and likely near term developments of any weapon system. An example is when the US Navy performed studies in the early part of last century on how large battleships could conceivably grow. The Germans also displayed awareness of the needs for functional futuring as they clearly anticipated the needs for tank growth throughout the war - though they probably took growth beyond usable limits with some of their proposals.

3. Competitive Analysis:
This is simply the phase where you rationalize your proposed strategies with what you know of your enemy's capabilities. While it is true that the Germans let their master race philosophy get in the way of understanding their competitors from a psychological standpoint, that doesn?t mean that the Germans didn?t know the general technological capabilities of the hardware they would be facing. But, while it is clear that the Germans had a good assessment of their enemy?s product technology, they had at best only a fair understanding of how fast the US, for example, could gear up for the conflict (and how production technology would support the shift from economic power to military might).

4. Budget & Metrics development:
At this point in the strategic development process, you have a good understanding of your potential threats, your needs to counter those threats, and what weaponry/technology you will likely face in the near future. Budget & Metrics development is where you broadly assess your financial requirements to achieve your grand strategy, your production requirements, and where you set your broad hardware requirements. Much of the budget debates will center on tradeoffs between funding for basic and applied R&D (for both product and production technology), and mass production. If you are planning a short war, do you have the need to fund long term projects that will yield benefits beyond the time frame of the conflict or do you focus on near term production? Metrics development is also never static. The Germans failed this test in late 1941 when it became evident that the war would be longer than originally anticipated (with the toughening Soviet front and the entry of the Americans) and they did not shift their funding allocations to support a total war. All basic research and applied research which would not yield definite results (in either improved weaponry or increased production) within specified timing should have been dropped. Though not specifically related to this topic of technology development, the size of the military will also have an effect on the national economy as well and is a key element of the overall budget debate. Germany?s economy in the late 1930s was overheated due to their vast military expenditures. This non-sustainable situation put them in a "use it or lose it" position.

5. Technology identification:
Having set your broad financial targets, and your general product requirements, this next step is using your nation?s technology capabilities so as to develop lists of projects to work on that are broadly consistent with the strategic goals identified above. Each of the technologies would have a clear assessment of the estimated costs and timing to bring the project to bear on the strategic situation. The Germans, Americans, British, (and for that matter - although less so - the French, Italians, Soviets, & Japanese) all had the ability to conceptualize high technology for their war efforts. The Germans, American, and British more so probably due to their culture's larger emphasis on higher education and the research that occurs at the university level.

6. Advanced project selection/Incremental analysis:
This phase of technology development is how specific programs actually get approved for funding. The list of technologies is examined on a relative cost/benefit basis AND on an incremental basis. Relative cost/benefit analysis is a good way to assess comparative projects in the same state of development. Incremental analysis becomes more important when deciding if a new project is more worthwhile to approve than an existing project. As an example of incremental analysis, a newly proposed weapon may be more efficient than its predecessor, but the earlier weapon does not need funding for engineering, launch costs, tooling costs, or new facilities. Would the funding be better spent on increasing production capacity of the old weapon or on fewer examples of the newer version? Could the necessary technology be incorporated into the older platform without causing too much modification to the production lines? Here the Germans failed by not providing an adequate tradeoff process. This led to frequent costly re-designs for minimal incremental benefit to their war effort. The situation improved vastly when Albert Speer took control of procurement and production by the Reich, but by then, it was too late to cope with Soviet, American, and British armament production.

Product Development

The prior strategy and technology selection steps focus on the relationship between products. Once a product/technology is approved for development and production the focus becomes the effort to bring the project to completion achieving the functional, timing, cost, and quality targets previously set during the selection process. How does the product development process work once a project is approved? It is assumed at this point that the development engineers have a clear understanding of the technology goals and the program targets that are required for the final product. What then are the product development steps that American producers employed that would afford such improvements versus the Axis countries (or for that matter our other Allies)? Here are some of the steps that the Americans had taken in their pre-production processes:

7. Advanced Engineering studies
8. Preliminary Engineering prototypes
9. Systems Engineering/ Calibration Studies
10. Prototype prove-out/evaluation

7. Advanced Engineering Studies
The idea behind this phase is to prove out the general concept of the new technologies. A new aircraft engine advanced engineering study may be nothing more than a study of power improvement based on single cylinder laboratory bench studies. Other examples might include wind tunnel testing new aircraft proposals to evaluate wing loading. Here the Germans were very efficient. This phase in product development requires very little in the way of resources and is usually the phase most associated with such people as Werner von Braun, Kelly Johnson, Willy Messerschmidt, etc.

8. Preliminary Engineering prototypes
This phase focuses on how efficiently the proposed technologies can be incorporated into working full size prototypes. There is usually no expectation for integrated systems and the prototypes are typically quite rough. This is where Germany started to fall down. Primary reasons (compared with the US) were lack of materials, lack of specialized machine tooling firms (who have the technology to spit out prototype parts efficiently for design evaluation), lack of highly trained operators who could conceptualize the designs.

9. Systems Engineering/Calibrations Studies
This was a major failing of the Germans and was a key reason many of their products failed in battle. Very little was studied in terms of interaction between systems. This is the phase in product development which allows design engineers to understand, for example, the "human factors" that would allow for easy repair of Sherman tanks versus unnecessarily complex and impossible to fix in the field Panther tanks. Calibrations studies will also tell you how your product will fare in a variety of environments. One Allied failure that was somewhat famous was the British Mosquito that performed fabulously in Europe, but miserably in Asia where the humidity and rain would undo the glue that held the wood construction together. Proper calibration studies would have identified that problem.

10. Prototype prove-out/evaluation
Once the systems interactions are understood, the first "final" non-production tooling prototypes are produced. All product requirements (which could be a book's worth of requirements) are evaluated to see if the final prototypes meet expectations. The Germans typically did not even bother with this process step.

Manufacturing

The following process steps are what Americans typically used as they effectively transitioned from design engineering to mass production:

11. Design/Production engineering evaluation
12. Production process design
13. Early production line verification (production line prototypes)
14. Statistical control of production output

11. Design/Production Engineering evaluations
This is the design stage where the production engineer asks; "You want me to make WHAT"? This is critical as it allows the production engineering staffs to comment on the design of the product to see where cost can be reduced with out hurting functionality. It is also the phase where proper variable cost versus investment tradeoffs are made that affect the final design of the production factory. This phase usually occurred concurrent with phase 9 before final prototypes were available. The Germans understood the concept of variable cost versus investment tradeoffs but often did not have the funding (or experience) to support a plant that would minimize the products total cost. The Germans also typically did not mess with designs at the factory because of the rigid hierarchy that gave the initial designers such power. I can assure you that once the basic design of the B24 was in place, any changes in the design at Willow Run that would improve production (again without compromising function) which would have been led by men such as Charles Sorensen (who in my mind had a greater grasp of real technology integration than the men in the initial design phases like von Braun who were perhaps more theoretically focused) would not have been questioned. Ask yourself, what is a greater technological feat, producing a great wonder weapon, or a production facility to manufacture millions of that weapon efficiently?

12. Production process design
simply put, this is where you design your production process flow. Again, because the Germans couldn't put that much funding into the plant facilities, it led to more human labor, more production design variability, lower quality, and lower quantity.

13. Early production line verification (production line prototypes)
Once the product is being produced from production tooling, there is typically an evaluation phase that allows for correlation with the prototype evaluations. These "production prototypes" typically were evaluated by the Germans "at the Front". This is why so many early designs by the Germans failed in the hands of the soldiers whose lives depended upon them. Most of the early versions of ME262s or Panthers were in fact little more than unproven production line prototypes. Americans were more concerned that the end-user soldiers had a fully developed and quality produced weapon system.

14. Statistical control of production output
This is where you design the production feedback loops that protect the integrity of the design AS production continues. There were few designed production feedback loops in German production facilities.

Other/Summary

Other factors that led to better production in the US versus Germany included a better workforce that was more educated and more familiar with high technology than its counterparts in Germany. The bottom line from my perspective is that Germany had many technological wizards (again as did the US and UK) at the top of their production development pyramid, but the lower layers of that pyramid responsible for efficiently producing high quality weapons were just not in place and the strategic analysis of the plethora of projects worked upon during the war was disjointed and not tied to the overall national strategic goals. Germany as a country was not as up to the challenge technologically as the US and could not have hoped to compete with America in the late 1930s and 1940s.

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Germany WWII weapons development and armed forces feedback

DocMartyn
Posts: 3332
(06/02/08 03:08:50)


Just how did information from the fighting front feed back into German weapons production?

I am thinking about the development of German tanks.

Did the German Army and SS, really demand larger and larger tanks, in smaller and smaller numbers?

How were requests from junior officers at the sharp end, become transformed into weapons systems and production runs?

Was there a formalized system of reading recommendations, analysis, planning and prioritizing production; or was everything done ad hoc?

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Nik aka Speaker To Cats
Posts: 809
(06/02/08 04:48:41)

Um, when your tanks' and anti-tanks' guns just bounce off opponent, survivors will so scream for upgrades until noticed.

Snag is *LOGISTICS*.

IIRC, the German industry was in habit of making superb equipment that was often too good for purpose. This was fine when tooling up for blitzkrieg, but when they needed *lots* in a hurry, it was counter-productive. Then, when they needed rapid change, they were unable to shed the 'perfect' urge. Either they turned out too few, superb items, or a lot of stuff that was rushed and flawed...

Um, also, wasn't the German industry fragmented until quite late in WW2 ?

Where-as UK & US organised their production much earlier...

Um, IMHO, the Germans' use of forced labour can't have helped either productivity or innovation...

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MBecker01
(06/02/08 05:33:16)

Um, also, wasn't the German industry fragmented until quite late in WW2 ? Where-as UK & US organised their production much earlier...

It wasn´t on a total war footing until 43 if that´s what you mean.

Um, IMHO, the Germans' use of forced labour can't have helped either productivity or innovation...

Acutally the numbers kept going up until late 44 and lack of innovation wasn´t the problem, rather too much of it too quickly.

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Seer Stuart - The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 6851
(06/02/08 08:54:38)

DocMartyn wrote:
Just how did information from the fighting front feed back into German weapons production? I am thinking about the development of German tanks. Did the German Army and SS, really demand larger and larger tanks, in smaller and smaller numbers? How were requests from junior officers at the sharp end, become transformed into weapons systems and production runs? Was there a formalized system of reading recommendations, analysis, planning and prioritizing production; or was everything done ad hoc?

I did read a book on this a long time ago and I can't remember who wrote it or what the title was. It was basically about systems analysis and how the Germans didn't do it. AFAIR, the situation was that there was no organized system for finding out how equipment behaved in the field or what actual requirements were. In its place there was far too much reliance on the "Um, when your tanks' and anti-tanks' guns just bounce off opponent, survivors will so scream for upgrades until noticed" line and no organized investigation into what was needed and why. As a result, they developed all the wrong things and responded to all the wrong ideas. And, of course, they kept responding which resulted in small, incompatible production batches.

Nations do not survive by setting examples for others.
Nations survive by making examples of others

Last Edited By: Seer Stuart 06/02/08 08:57:29. Edited 1 times.

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WarshipAdmin
Posts: 3396
(06/03/08 17:55:30)

An example of this was the V2 development program. There were more ECOs in the system than there were parts in the rocket, at one point, from memory.