>Recently some liberal newsman was bashing German WWII technology. He
>was interviewing a high ranking German veteran, and was bad mouthing the
>Jumo jet engine, pointing out that it only had a life of 25 hours. The
>general replied, "Well, yes, but at that point in the war, the life
>expectancy of the average fighter aircraft was two hours."
Very true. Besides the practical life expectancy (this General was, of
course, overstating the facts to make a point), the big reason for poorer
quality was that fancy alloys and manufacturing processes were hard to
come by by the time the technologies got to the practical stage of
production. Meaning, the guys in the lab new how to make an engine like
this last a lot longer, but the guys in production said "sorry, we don't
have that material/process, figure out a substitue". This resulted in
much of the technology itself being superior to what was actually
produced (thankfully for the Allies). And that is why we were so busy
snapping up German scientists as the war ended. We had plenty of stuff
for them to play with back in the States ;-)
Steve
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