I remember seeing footage of saucers with US markings hovering and going over some terrain, but I also remember most of them being tethered lol.

Agreed that for WWII technology there was never anything even close to functional and such things are better left to arcade type games.

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe was a great game even it didn't go as far as to include saucers lol.

Splitter

Oh my, large questions maybe not suited to this forum.

RADAR was used during WWII. The Germans were developing the Horten bomber which was less visible to RADAR with it's design that was, surprise, not unlike the B2 Stealth bomber (which was not unlike the YB-49 right down to the wing span).

RADAR was a HUGE reason that the Brits won the Battle of Britain. The Germans knew this eventually and even employed their own RADAR systems. It is only logical that they would have been aware of the advantages of avoiding/delaying detection by RADAR.

Why would the Canadians, Americans, and Brits have put resources into saucer research after WWII if they did not think their were some advantages to the shape? would it be advantageous for an airship to be able to take off vertically? I guess so, we got the Harrier eventually. Would there be an advantage to an aircraft with a very low stall speed? I guess, many aircraft have that as a design element. Ability to rapidly change directions important? I guess, we even throw in vectored thrust these days.

If you do not know about the race to capture German scientists, it would be an interesting research project for you. No offense to the Russians on this board, but I am sure they are aware that there was a special antipathy between the Soviets and Germans in WWII. If any two sides fought an all out, no holds barred war, those two nations did. It would be an understatement to say that there was no love lost.

German scientists (and soldiers and many of importance) did everything they could to surrender to American or British forces rather than to Soviet forces. Quite frankly, they were afraid of what might befall them under the Soviets....probably because of the way the Germans had treated the Soviets during the war.

One of the biggest "prizes" that the Soviets garnered from the German technology and scientists/technicians they captured was their aircraft designs. There was a reason the Soviets beat the Americans to the punch in fielding the Mig 15 in Korea. It went back to what they captured in WWII from Germany. The Americans copied the soviet design later just like the Soviets copied the American nuclear and rocket technology (the rocket technology for the Americans was greatly enhanced by the Germans as you know).

Understand that the Americans and soviets did not trust each other. The Brits trusted the Soviets even less. The future Cold War was already brewing. Some Americans (and Brits) wanted to take the war all the way into the Soviet Union and get rid of Stalin. In Europe, the Brits and Americans raced the Soviets for the prizes of war at the end. The Soviets got to Berlin first....and then we had the Berlin airlift as a direct result a few years later.

There was real competition at the end of the war, once it was decided, to procure the best prizes in preparing for the future.

I'm an American and of course proud of my country over all. But, that doesn't mean that I can discount the effectiveness of the Axis powers in certain areas, like scientific advances. They weren't dummies and we were not ahead in all areas. The victors did all they could to reap the rewards.

Splitter

Did they? Can you actually give any evidence that they did?

Erm, is this the reason we (the Brits) supplied them with early jet engines...

True. If they'd tried it, the armed forces would have mutinied though. This 'continuation of war' was largely a fantasy at the time, and most popular amongst those who would rather have joined the Axis anyway. It has little to do with the military/political realities of the period.

Churchill and Roosevelt were largely in agreement on many things (oh, that's after the US finally decided to get into the war after leaving Churchill to deal with the Nazis by himself for a while). They both came from basically democratic countries with largely capitalist economies. Stalin was a communist and socialist. The two ideologies could not co-exist except in the presence of a bigger enemy: Hitler.

Churchill and Roosevelt/Truman listened to what Stalin espoused and understood his "purges". Therefore, they saw him as a threat going into the future. However, Churchill clearly saw the military potential of the Soviets post war. He could not be their friend but did not want to be their enemy. He attempted on several occasions to "make nice", but he was rather staunchly anti-communist.

WWII showed the old axiom that the enemy of my enemy is my friend on several occasions.

As to saucer research (BTW, no reason to debate this for this game other than as a curiosity, yes?), check out these links for a start. Wikpedia is NOT the end all and be all of research, but some of the important terms and names are there that can be used in further research:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militar...haped_aircraft

http://www.crystalinks.com/silverbug.html

http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/...o/avrocar.html

Their attempts at creating these craft seem absurd now in retrospect given their technology at the time. But they certainly thought there was enough there to be explored. All I can think is that at one time the world was flat and man could not fly, but science moves forward.

And yes, if the US and Brits tried to take the war to the Soviets as some wanted, they would probably have been as soundly defeated as Germany had been. History has shown that it is just about impossible to invade Russia and win.

The differing political and economic ideologies between the three "super powers" of the time were never resolved at the end of WWII. The West and East were too different and too distrustful of one another. The two factions (US and Britain vs. Soviet Union) deferred the coming inevitable fight. So over the next few decades, they fought proxy wars against one another and tried to intimidate the other side through military and economic advances. IE, the Cold War.

It's fascinating how allies during WWII would just a few years later become dire enemies.

Splitter

See the Sack AS-6 and XF5U

I thought disc-shaped craft experiments (especially during the 40's and 50's) were common knowledge. Heck, I think every conceivable shape has been tried at one point or another, think of all the flying contraptions that were built before aeronautics was fully understood

Splitter, are you not aware that Churchill lost the general election in July 1945? What he would have liked to have done at that point is of little consequence.

Adman, from what I can find (not a lot), the Sack AS-6 was a 'An extremely unconventional 1944 design with a saucer-shaped wing and a tractor propeller' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_..._World_War_Two. The Vought XF5U was an unusual design, but hardly a 'flying saucer' in the sense that the phrase is usually used. It was a propeller-driven aircraft, taking off and flying in the normal manner. The concept dates back to the late 1930s (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m.../ai_n13498090/), and was first tried in the US. It therefore has little significance to 'Nazi flying saucers' either.

This then leaves the Avrocar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_VZ-9_Avrocar
Effectively an early, very inefficient, hovercraft.

It appears then that all this supposed 'research' resulted in nothing resembling a 'flying saucer' except the Avrocar, which could hardly fly at all.

I don't think I have ever understood why Churchill was shoved to the side. He had been such an effective and popular leader during the war, even a hero to those of us not from Britain. Maybe he was just one of those people who were sent for a special purpose.

And yes, the research into saucer shapes seems to have been fruitless. I am not sure what was learned from it. I would only say that for 40+ years, the flying wing bomber concept was abandoned (to the best of my knowledge). Then the technologies and needs came together to give us the B-2 Stealth bomber.

So I have learned not to say "impossible" but rather "probably impossible right now" :). Another interesting thing I have noticed is that during the Cold War there were many "UFO" sightings around the world and now those seem to have gone way down. Maybe someone somewhere was playing around with government funds that have now dried up? I dunno, it's just a thought.

BTW, from what I understand, one of the criticisms of the AvroCar program was that they didn't develop the hover craft aspect and salvage something from the program so good observation!

Splitter

Bringing those planes into BATTLE OF BRITAIN would´t be appropriate I think, it was far too early in the war to have them flying along. Of course fantasy planes are cool because they never existed, but because they did not exist there is no way an accurate flight model can be simulated, right? after all it´s still a simulator, not a fantasy game.

there were some weird and disgusting things going on in the last years of the war, maybe it´s better not to dig up old bodies.
A note to the Hanaeubu III though, I dont think it would ever have flown, to get such thing up in the air would acquire a huge engine, which design had to be all new as well, the Hanaeubu would also be fitted with lots of protective armor adding to its weight.

Seconded.

some people really need to go anyway and brush up on their History...btw Oleg are can we have x-wing fighters with hyper-drives. I heard the Germans were working on them towards the end of the war ;)