WW2 German Mod

[Marcello]

Originally Posted by troopie

You chrome the insides of the engines and short your ground forces. Your gun barrels wear out faster. Then the Sovs eat you alive on the ground.

Dunno about that. Chromium is used to extend barrel life, which is obviously a bonus in peacetime when weapons have to last as long as possible to cope with training needs without needing frequent expensive replacements. But wartime attrition make that less of an issue: how long was the average life of a PAK gun or a Hetzer at the front before being destroyed anyway ?
I am not saying that it weasn't a factor but no worse than Tungsten shortage (which basically made high end AP rounds such as APCR or APCNR impossible to produce during late war) or Molybdenum shortage (which made armor plates in tanks more prone to spalling). Petrol shortage was really critial.

[troopie]

Chromed metal is more heat resistant. You don't have to chrome your gun barrels, and they will still function, until they burn out. And according to Murphy's laws of combat, they will burn out when you most need them. That is, when you are facing two Front armies, and you need everything that can shoot. That is no time to have barrels burn out.

Chromium is essential for jet engines. Jets operate at a much higher temperature than piston engines. And again Murphy's laws apply. Your unchromed jet engine will burn out when you most need it to function.

And then there are the other shortages, petroleum, molybdenum, tungsten. And power. You have the British busting your dams, the Americans blasting your power plants, and the Russians burning everything else.

troopie

[Akmatov]

All the gee-whiz Nazi waste-of-time Wunder-Waffen projects would have been of no consequence

Certainly, had the Germans not collapsed a bit ahead of schedule, the Berlin Bomb would have been dropped.

However, any simulation that allows the deployment of any number of Mauses is into the 'what if' space. Some of the almost deployed late war weapons were not a waste of time and effort. The Panther II and the Panther Uhu would have been useful, as was the Stg44. (And the wunderwaffe programs served a very useful purpose for the draftable engineers wanting to avoid the Eastern Front.)

Also, there is some slender speculation that the Germans might have had the capability of deploying a 'dirty nuc' HE warhead/bomb. One could imagine a 1945/46 MAD scenario with the Germans that would have been impossible US vs. Japan. Here we are into Turtledove territory, but Panzer46 is not beyond the bounds of the possible.

Hence, I am delighted to have the new OOB.