We know. The title sounds like a bad newsreel from 1942. Turns out, though, that the Nazis were really good at pouring money into military research and developing — or trying to develop — what they called “wunderwaffe” — wonder weapons. While we think of rockets and jets today as reasonably commonplace, they were state-of-the-art when Germany deployed them during WWII. While the rockets were reasonably successful, the jets were too few and too late to matter. However, those were just the tip of the iceberg. The German war industry had plenty of plans ranging from giant construction to secret weapons that seem to be out of the pages of a pulp science fiction magazine.
Size Matters
Part of the plans included huge ships including one aircraft carrier displacing 56,500 tons. Many of these were never completed and, in some cases, were never actually started. In contrast, the Essex-class USS Hornet displaces 31,300 tons and the Lexington was 37,000 tons. The H-class battleships would have had as much as 140,000 tons of displacement dwarfing the Yamato class (73,000 tons) and the Iowa class (53,000 tons).
Below the water, there were plans for a ballistic missile submarine that never took off. Type XXI U-boats had all-electric propulsion so they could operate completely submerged for long periods. While 118 were being built, only four were completed. There were several other submarines planned with air-independent propulsion.
Gustav railway gun
One of the more interesting designs that didn’t make it to reality was the Type XI — a submarine that could carry a collapsible airplane. There were four being built before the program was canceled. While it might sound far-fetched, the Japanese launched four I-400 submarines that could carry three planes.
There were also huge ..
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