Tanks with Tesla weapons and time-shifting legionnaires: the weapons of Red Alert
In Command & Conquer: Red Alert (1996), Albert Einstein travels back in time and kills Adolf Hitler. He prevents the emergence of Nazi Germany, but this clears the way for a Soviet invasion of Europe in 1946.
The Soviets are defeated, but they get their revenge three decades later in Red Alert 2 (2000) by attacking the continental United States.
In the third game (2008), it are the Soviets…
In 1946, the United States Air Force began to study the feasibility of nuclear-powered aircraft. Only one plane, built by Convair, was ever tested. The problem, as Steve Weintz puts it in The National Interest, was that leaders “couldn’t figure out how to pay for it or why they needed it.”
The Convair B-36 Peacemaker had been designed as a long-range bomber to be able to reach Nazi Germany from America and fly back.
It was arguably obsolete from the start. The B-36 was piston-powered at a time when the Germans were pioneering jet technology.
However, the Peacemaker, which was about twice the size of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, was the only aircraft America had in the late 1940s that was both big enough to carry the hydrogen bomb and long-range enough to reach Russia.
Convair modified two B-36s, designed NB-36Hs, to carry air-cooled nuclear reactors in their bombing bays. Shields were installed in the middle of the aircraft to protect the pilots from radiation. The cockpit was further encased in lead and rubber.
None of the reactors was ever used to power the aircraft. Test flights were carried out to investigate the effect of radiation on aircraft systems, nothing more.
The XB-70 Valkyrie was originally conceived as a nuclear-powered bomber before North American Aviation put a jet engine in it.
Cruising at Mach 3+, the Valkyrie was thought to be immune to interceptor aircraft, which were the only effective weapon against bombers at the time.
But when the Soviets unveiled surface-to-air missiles in the late 1950s, it called the XB-70’s invulnerability into question. The advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles later that decade also made manned bomber aircraft less relevant. The Air Force eventually canceled the plane in 1961.
Popular Mechanics reported in April 1957 that Lee A. Ohlinger, a radiation expert and the head of the computer center at Northrop Aircraft, proposed powering aircraft with interchangeable nuclear reactors.
The crew would have piloted the aircraft from a detachable cockpit in the tail assembly that could fly away in case of emergency. The people on the ground from such an emergency would have been less fortunate, which may be why Ohlinger’s suggestion was never studied seriously.
Cold War America seriously considered powering aircraft with nuclear reactors In 1946, the United States Air Force began to study the feasibility of nuclear-powered aircraft. Only one plane, built by Convair, was ever tested.As the Allies closed in on Hitler’s Germany in late 1944 and early 1945, a desperate Nazi regime turned to “wonder weapons” in a final effort to turn the tide in the war.
The best-known as the V-1 and V-2 rockets, which rained down on London by the hundreds but failed to demoralize the British. Others, such as the V-3 cannon and Schwerer Gustav railway gun, were barely used. Others yet, like the German atomic bomb and Die Glocke, either barely advanced beyond the drawing board or never existed at all.
The V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket (also known as the A4 in the Aggregat series) were the two best-known Vergeltungswaffen.
V-1s were hurled at London from France. The V-2 was launched from Holland. It was the first successful long-range guided ballistic missile.
Both were developed at Peenemünde under Walter Dornberger and Wernher von Braun. Neither was successful in its aim: to demoralize the British.
Report in Popular Science (October 1947)
The A9/A10 Amerika Rakete would have been at least twice the size of the V-2. Because engineers feared existing guidance systems would not be accurate enough over long distances, it was decided to make the A9 piloted. (The A10 was the booster rocket.)
Popular Science reported in October 1947 that German “robot missiles and piloted rocket bombers” would have been hurling across the Atlantic if the invasion of Europe had been delayed by as few as six months. “Rocket bombing of New York was scheduled for early 1946.”
Cutaway of the Fortress of Mimoyecques, where the V-3 cannons were meant to be housed (Wikimedia Commons)
The V-3 was a supergun designed to hit London from across the Channel. Attempts to build an underground bunker for the weapons, in what is now called the Fortress of Mimoyecques, were thwarted by the Royal Air Force.
Smaller versions of the weapons, sited at Lampaden in southwest Germany, were used during the Battle of the Bulge.
Artwork of a nuclear explosion in New York from Zack Parsons’ My Tank Is Fight! (2006)
Most historians believe the German atomic bomb project was a failure, but Geoffrey Michael Brooks and Rainer Karlsch claim in Hitler’s Terror Weapons (2002) and Hitler’s Bomb (2005), respectively, that a team led by Kurt Diebner managed to detonate a nuclear device near Ohrdruf in Thuringia in March 1945.
Brooks speculates that the Ardennes Offensive was driven by Germany’s need to maintain launch sites for V-2 rockets in the Low Countries that could target London. The idea was to equip the rockets with uranium bombs and try to force the British out of the war at the last moment.
The Karl-Gerät and Schwerer Gustav were both designed to break the French Maginot Line. When it turned out they weren’t needed, they were sent to the East. Both were used during the Battle of Sevastopol. Karl-Gerät bombarded Polish resistance fighters in Warsaw in 1944.
Karl was the largest self-propelled mortar ever deployed, Gustav the largest piece of artillery ever used in war.
A second version of Gustav, called Dora, was built. It briefly saw action in Stalingrad, but, like the other two guns, it just wasn’t very practical.
An abandoned Gustav can be seen in Stuart Jennett’s concept art for the horror movie Panzer 88, which appears to have been canceled.
The Landkreuzer (“Land Cruiser”) was a self-propelled platform for Gustav, which could otherwise only be mounted on trains. Hitler was keen on the idea. His more sober-minded armaments minister, Albert Speer, canceled the project in 1943, seeing how it was completely impractical.
Artwork of the German Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte super tank (TIGΞΓ)
The Monster, for its part, was a bigger version of the proposed Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte, another Hitler favorite that Speer realized was nuts.
The enormous Hydra tank in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) was inspired by the Ratte.
Artist’s impression of the Bell (Discovery Channel)
Die Glocke (“The Bell”) is an alleged Nazi anti-gravity project. It was popularized by the Polish journalist Igor Witkowski and investigated by the British military journalist Nick Cook. Neither was able to produce evidence to substantiate the outlandish claims made about it.
The story is that the Nazis built the Bell in a giant underground factory in Lower Silesia known as Riese. When powered by red mercury, it would kill everything within a 150- to 200-meter radius.
Conspiracy theories usually tie the Bell to Nazi occultism. The Bell myth inspired the 2008 horror movie Outpost.
Artwork of the German sun gun from Life magazine, July 23, 1945
Life magazine reported in July 1945 that German scientists had designed a “sun gun”. They calculated that a huge mirror in space, made of metallic sodium, could produce enough heat to burn a city or boil part of an ocean.
Needless to say, this wasn’t exactly feasible.
Flying bombs, superguns and a mysterious anti-gravity bell: Wonder weapons of the Third Reich #dieselpunk #ww2 #history As the Allies closed in on Hitler’s Germany in late 1944 and early 1945, a desperate Nazi regime turned to “wonder weapons” in a final effort to turn the tide in the war.Did you know many of the strange German warplanes we see in dieselpunk are based on real designs?
As World War II drew to a close in Europe, Nazi Germany rushed the development of advanced bombers and fighter jets in a final effort to stop the Allies. From the world’s first operational turbojet fighter to a flying wing, some of these technologies were so far ahead of their time that Allied commanders speculated the Germans could have turned the tide of the war if only they had managed to prolong it by a few months.
The best-known of Germany’s strange aircraft must be the Horten brothers’ flying wing.
Walter (1913-98) and Reimar Horten (1915-94) had virtually no formal training in aeronautics, yet they came up with some of the most innovative aircraft designs of the twentieth century.
The Horten Ho IX (also known as the Ho 229 and as the Gotha Go 229 after the Gothaer Waggonfabrik where it was built) was a favorite of Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring. Originally construed as a bomber, his Air Ministry ordered the addition of two 30 mm cannons so it could be used as a fighter as well.
The first Ho IX flew on March 1, 1944, followed by another test flight in December 1944. Göring ordered forty aircraft built at Gotha. The program was accelerated after the Allies crossed the Rhine in March 1945, but production was too slow. The only flying wing ever readied for combat was promptly captured by the Americans. It is now stored at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Paul E. Garber Restoration Facility in Suitland, Maryland.
Of course, that doesn’t stop dieselpunk from imagining what could have been.
Various alternate World War II video games feature Horten-style flying wings, including War Front: Turning Point (2007), Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions of WWII (2007) and Wolfenstein: The New Order (2014).
Revell sells model kits of the Ho IX with amazing box cover artwork by Egbert Friedl.
Stuart Jennett’s concept art for the horror movie Panzer 88 features a similar flying wing. Not sure if that movie will get made, though, it appears to have been in development hell for years.
Messerschmitt, one of the largest aircraft builders of the Third Reich, designed their own flying wing, the Me P.08.01, in 1941. It never made it off the drawing table.
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) has a flying wing, but it’s smaller than the Horten brothers’. Given that the movie is set in (an alternate) 1936, it must be a different plane altogether.
Hydra’s flying wing in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) clearly takes its inspiration from the real thing, but it is many times larger. It has two massive jet engines as well as eight flying bombs stuck in the back, whose propellers help lift the plane.
The designer, Daniel Simon, has more at his website.
For the Amerika Bomber (more on that later), the Arado company proposed the Arado E.555. It came in several versions, the most notable of which mounted six jet engines on top of a flying wing. Revell sells a model kit of this version.
A similar plane appears in the 2008 video game Turning Point: Fall of Liberty. it is set in a world where Winston Churchill died in 1931, Britain is defeated and the Nazis have launched an invasion of the continental United States.
Another weapon the Germans bring to America in Turning Point: Fall of Liberty is the Messerschmitt Me 270, a successor to the real-world Messerschmitt Me 262. It was the first operational jet-powered fighter aircraft in history.
Engine problems prevented the Me 262 from entering World War II until 1944. Although it was faster and better armed that its American and British counterparts, by that point it was too late to have an impact on the war.
The Henschel Hs 132 was designed as a dive bomber and interceptor to counter the Allied invasion of Europe. Its unique design featured a top-mounted jet engine and a cockpit completely faired into the fuselage contour, with the pilot in a prone position, bearing a remarkable resemblance to the contemporary Heinkel He 162.
The Luftwaffe ordered six prototypes. Only three were built before the war’s end.
The Amerika Bomber project was one of the most ambitious advanced aviation initiatives of the Third Reich. It sought to obtain a long-range bomber for the Luftwaffe that could strike the continental United States.
Messerschmitt submitted the Me 264.
The Horten brothers proposed a bigger version of their flying wing, called the H.XVIII, with six turbojets.
The most exotic design by far was the Silbervogel (“Silver Bird”), a rocket-powered sub-orbital bomber dreamed up by Eugen Sänger and his wife, Irene Bredt. It would have been shot into the stratosphere, cross the Atlantic at a speed of 5,000 kilometers per hour, drop its bombs over America and then land in Japan.
The design that was ultimately chosen was a more conventional one: the Junkers Ju 390.
But it has an interesting story! It is claimed — and disputed — that at some point in 1944, one of the prototypes made a transatlantic flight to within twenty kilometers of the American East Coast.
The Triebflügel was designed by Focke-Wulf as a vertical takeoff and landing interceptor to defend important industrial sites that had no or only small airfields.
Rather than wings, the Triebflügel had a rotor/propeller assembly that functioned much like a helicopter on liftoff and like a propeller in horizontal flight.
The Triebflügel was never built, but something like it appears in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), called a “Parasit”. The designer, Daniel Simon, has more at his website.
Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle features a German supersonic jet that is similar to the Anglo-French Concorde, which first flew in 1969. (The Man in the High Castle is set in 1962.)
In the Amazon TV series, the airliner is only a little different from the real plane. The cockpit windows are larger, the tail is straight, not curved, and the German version appears to have only two doors in the front. The real Concorde had two in the back as well.
Strange aircraft of the Third Reich: real and imagined Did you know many of the strange German warplanes we see in dieselpunk are based on real designs?Rooftop Airports Revisited: An Even Scarier Proposal – but great #dieselpunk inspiration!
Proposed rooftop airport for major cities, from Modern Mechanix, July 1938 Remember those skyscraper-based runways we highlighted here a few years ago? Turns out it can always get worse. From the same magazine — Modern Mechanix — comes this idea by “a French engineer”: Proposed as a solution to the problem of locating an airport in the heart of any big city, a design for a long orientable runway,…
Trailblazer: America’s Forgotten Monorail
America’s first commercially operated monorail was called Trailblazer. Built in Fair Park in Dallas, Texas, this suspended monorail operated from 1956 to 1964. The ride didn’t amount to much. The line ran for just 1,600 feet, which, at a speed of around ten miles per hour, took a couple of minutes. Trailblazer’s purpose was to attract interest in the technology — which, sadly, it didn’t. Few…
Battlefield 1 is a 2016 video game that takes place in a somewhat steampunk’ed World War I. There are battlecruisers, the first tanks, biplanes and zeppelins — all pretty historically accurate, from the looks of it, although these technologies were super modern at the time and not used as spectacularly as in the game.
Still, great pictures to look at. Enjoy!
Battlefield 1: Alternate First World War Concept Art Battlefield 1 is a 2016 video game that takes place in a somewhat steampunk'ed World War I.
steampunkd