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German over-engineering in World War II.
Why did the Germans tend to over-engineer their military equipment in World War II? Most German equipment tended to be focused on aesthetics or just over-engineered beyond practical means. Was it a result of leadership? Delusion? Chaotic bureaucracy? Out of control industrial military complexes?
G41 - Had semi-automatic and bolt-action features (phased out).
1956 Stahlhelm helmet (East German helmet), originally designed in World War II, had better ballistic protection than original helmets (rejected because Hitler thought it was not aesthetic enough).
Panther - Meant to replace non-sloping armoured tanks. Went through many redesigns (combat effective but had too many complex part, insufficient engine power, needed high quality gasoline, etc.)
Why couldn't the Germans find practical answers to the mainstay of their weapons. Most of their effective solutions just ended up being copying other countries (like sloped armour or the G43). Seems the only thing they did right was replacing the MG-34 with the MG-42, with firepower and reliability in mind.
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Autism
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>>2381249
A lot of their over-engineering stems from deficiencies in access to resources. They had to come up with ways to make do with the resources they had.
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>>2381249
different people in different places working on the same problem/task find different solutions..
Browning and Maxim both made their mgs around the same time with no knowledge of he other.
Maxim made a water cooled recoil op mg and Browning made an air cooled gas operated lever action mg (basically)
as for emphasis on aesthetic, Hitler always placed stupid reqs. on new weapons because he was propaganda oriented, not logistic oriented.
instead of building 5,000 more pzivs or stugiiis, he kept pushing bigger scarier tanks..
tiger
tiger ii
jagdtiger
panther
panther ii
jagdpanther
ferdinand
lowe
maus
to him, developing the latest n greatest, bigger n better was proof to his troops that they were years ahead of everyone else
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>over-engineering
That's called bad engineering as engineers are supposed to make something as cheap and simple as possible.
Why are their weapons overly complicated? Likely due to their military industrial complex with systemic corruption across the weapon procurement offices.
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I don't think the Gerät-06H was overengineered. Wasn't it meant to be a fairly simple alternative to the StG-44? A bit too late to get to the war, but it was fairly inexpensive compared to the other automatics in Germany.
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