"Technology sharing between the Axis powers" Topic

Or lack thereof. I'm thinking mainly of the relationship between Germany and Japan. I understand some technology around U Boats was shared and Germany also was due to send a Tiger 1, a Panther and 2 x Panzer III's to Japan but as far as I recall, only the Panzer III's made it.
Was there any further tech sharing or was this perhaps reduced due to reluctance on Hitlers part. I am not convinced he viewed the Japanese as equal partners by any stretch of the imagination.
I cannot understand why the Panzerfaust for instance, wasn't shared with the Japanese. It probably wouldn't have made any difference whatsoever to the outcome of the Pacific or Burma campaigns but it would have been a better option than using a pole charge or sitting in a hole with an artillery shell and a hammer waiting for an allied tank to roll over! It would certainly have made advancing in a Sherman or an M3 Lee a little more dangerous.
Just intersted in views on this.

The Japanese did develop a jet aircraft similar to the Me-262, based on rudimentary information acquired from Germany.

Before the US was directly involved, Italy walked into the US Embassy and copied their code books. That was all shared with Germany.

Japanese tanks come in for a lot of scorn, but if you're poor in iron ore, fuel, and automotive nous, it doesn't make much sense to try and build Tigers -- heck even the Germans could barely keep them running.

The Japanese did use license-built DB-601 engines in the Tony.

Should they have shipped the blueprints and samples through the Soviet Union, or through India? Or just used a secure fax for blueprints? (Yeah, I know about using submarines. You'll notice stuff didn't actually get delivered much.)

But apart from technical issues, there are inherent difficulties in getting fanatical nationalists to cooperate even without racial issues. None of Hitler's European allies get much by way of German technical support, and the plan to get tanks out of Vichy France kept stalling. You might almost think Hitler didn't trust Petain.

Maybe Hitler figured he would be fighting the Japanese eventually.

They also shared the ME-163 info and the Japanese built two, one resides at the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, CA. link

I would think shipping a Panther let alone a Tiger by sub would not be too practical.

Yet the Japanese did buy a Tiger Tank. It was shipped to the port of Bordeaux in February of 1944 with the intent of ultimately being shipped to Japan, most likely using one of the larger Japanese submarines designed to carry aircraft. Worsening conditions prevented the shipment and ultimately, apparently, the Tiger was "requisitioned" for use by the Germans shortly after the Normandy landings.

Not sure it would have gotten very far. The Japanese rail network in those days was built to 42" gauge, so the clearances were far narrower than the 56.5" of the German/Western European network (and I think the Burmese and Indonesian systems were similar). It doesn't seem like that would have accommodated a Tiger.

Because of the undoubted quality of some of their technologies (Mitsubishi Zero, 88mm PAK 36, etc) it is very easy to overrate the degree of organization and skillful management in the Axis powers. Both Japan and Germany were chaotic messes when it came to systems development and procurement. They might not have been able to reverse the outcome of the war, but better management of weapons development and procurement might easily have lengthened it, and possibly produced an outcome short of the defeat and occupation both actually suffered.

Agree with Nine Pound. German and Japanese design was better than industrial organization--thank Heaven! Might say as much about the French in the runup to the 1940 campaign, while the Italians had troubles with both design and production. Great Britain almost has to be approached one industry or weapon system at a time. Of the WWII majors, only the US and the USSR seem to do a consistently good job of delivering adequate weapons in quantity.

All interesting points. Thank you. It's as well the Axis powers weren't quite the joined up thinkers the Allies seemed to be!

The Fuhrerprinzip leads you straight to the core of the problem: what kind of damage can an erratic amateur artist whose word is law do to the productivity of the world's most advanced (and probably organized) economy? Turns out, a lot! The sheer scale of waste and misallocation in the German war effort is staggering. It's a wonder they held on as long as they did.

For Japan, the core problems are different: too many wars in too many theaters, demanding wildly different weapons and forces. Add in a military caste that doesn't really understand the economic and production challenges, and a culture of violence that terrifies dissenting voices into silence, and your strong start degenerates rapidly as the attrition effects compound themselves.

That money the US Army and Navy spent in the 1920s and 1930s preparing for industrial mobilization may have been the best investment of the war.

The Fuhrerprinzip leads you straight to the core of the problem: what kind of damage can an erratic amateur artist whose word is law do to the productivity of the world's most advanced (and probably organized) economy? Turns out, a lot! The sheer scale of waste and misallocation in the German war effort is staggering. It's a wonder they held on as long as they did.

A more accurate summation of the core of the German uberwaffe has never before appeared on TMP. Well said, sir!

It is a by-product of totalitarianism in almost all cases since the industrial revolution, that when you replace mid-level leadership based on experience or skill with mid-level leadership based on loyalty or political reliability, you mash things up at a dramatically accelerating rate. The one stand-out case is the Soviet Union in WW2. Stalin managed to mash up the Red Army to an extraordinary extent in the run-up to the war and the opening stages. But once his failings were obvious, he had the good (extraordinary?) sense to recognize it. He became progressively less inclined to interfere, beyond promoting those who demonstrated competence, and he let "the pros" handle things. Hitler took the exact opposite approach, becoming ever MORE involved as the rate and magnitude of failures grew.

For Japan …. Add in a military caste that doesn't really understand the economic and production challenges…

I would add, not only did they not understand, but they were disinterested in even trying to understand economic and production challenges. They were of the "warrior class", and applying any effort to issues of the "merchant class" was simply beneath them.

That money the US Army and Navy spent in the 1920s and 1930s preparing for industrial mobilization may have been the best investment of the war.

Money and brainpower.

Organizations tend to succeed on the questions they ask themselves. It is a harder task, intellectually, to come up with good questions than to answer the questions put to you.

The Germans never asked themselves how they could build 3,000 tanks per month. Or 2,000 tanks per month. Or any number of tanks per month. They asked who can build this order for 1,350 tanks? Oh, Krupp can do it -- good. Now who can build this order for 650 tanks? OK, MANN can do this one. Now who can ….

You get answers to the questions you ask. You seldom get answers to the questions you never ask.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Yes, and this raises another important point, one that bedevils the historiography of WWII to this day: some of the most enduring successes the Germans had were propaganda successes. Some of the messages the regime and its legatees put out (everything German is best; the totalitarian regime has a controlling, monolithic solidity; Hitler had a monomaniacal desire to pick a course and stick to it, the fighting qualities of the SS were extraordinary; the Wehrmacht behaved better) managed to gain enough acceptance that they are still widely believed, and make the actual events harder to interpret and understand. Most people think of Hitler as a "dictator" in exactly the sense he wanted to be thought of: a lone figure making all of the key decisions, served by the party and people, willingly following every order right to the end of the road.

This is not only the view he wanted the world to have: it's also the view the survivors wanted the world to have, both because it concealed the chaotic reality of the regime and (more importantly) it made it easier to rationalize their crimes. A lot of general history implicitly accepts it, and by doing so, makes it harder to appreciate exactly why and how Germany lost the war. It also makes it very hard to understand what actually happened. For example, a lot of historians stress Hitler's rigidity and refusal to countenance retreats as an example of his determination to cling obstinately to fixed positions. This view of his character is widely accepted- but when it came to weapons procurement and priority allocation, he was all over the map- constantly assigning and re-assigning responsibilities, changing priorities to reflect the events of the past week, creating new organizations to duplicate work done elsewhere. These are all well documented, but it's often the case that the preexisting narrative somehow supersedes these facts, and their significance is not fully appreciated- certainly by many laymen, but even by professional historians.

The Axis was always more of a political than a military alliance. The idea of direct military support was never really considered and technical support even less so, especially as it was all going to be one way. Japan had nothing technical that Germany needed. Her role in the alliance was to tie down allied forces. So why help the little non-Aryan b@stards? Such was the German view.

Here's a PDF of strategic shipments to Japan.
link
The special optical glass was important enough to be included in strategic shipments to Japan.
Particularly suitable for submarine cargo (Oct. 41 to Sept. 1944 3,069 tons delivered), optical glass was a high priority for transport to Japan.
Also, lens production methods. During the war Japan had better naval night fighting capabilities because the sights were clearer and better quality. After the war Japan could produce lens for quality cameras like Nikon and Canon.