Poll. Germany or USA - Which country has the more advanced technology

Am I really talking with somebody who claims to be from Germany? How can you know so little about the Berlin Blockade?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_airlift#The_start_of_the_Berlin_Airlift

Interesting, because here is the very first sentence:

The day after the 18 June 1948 announcement of the new Deutsche Mark, Soviet guards halted all passenger trains and traffic on the autobahn to Berlin, delayed Western and German freight shipments and required that all water transport secure special Soviet permission.

Then here is a bit further down:

On 24 June, the Soviets severed land and water communications between the non-Soviet zones and Berlin. That same day, they halted all rail and barge traffic in and out of Berlin. On 25 June, the Soviets stopped supplying food to the civilian population in the non-Soviet sectors of Berlin. Motor traffic from Berlin to the western zones was permitted, but this required a 23 kilometer detour to a ferry crossing because of alleged "repairs" to a bridge. They also cut off the electricity relied on by Berlin, using their control over the generating plants in the Soviet zone.

Oh, I can give you tons of references to this, and the Berlin Airlift which supplied things like coal and food to West Berlin for almost a year.

But there is one, Wikipedia. Can you kindly give me a reference that states that the Soviets never cut off any services or traffic to the city of West Berlin in 1948?

Come on, please. Give me one that is honest and can prove that the rest of the world has been lied to for over half a century.

Come on, one little reference?

Oh, and it was not the Western Powers that cut off East Germany. That was the Soviet Union. Of course, they also had to put up that big mean nasty wall, to keep out all the Western Spies, and to keep their workers paradise from being over-run by the people trying to flee West Germany into East Germany, right?

 

Who did not meanwhile?

 

Yes I am talking about Ballistic Missiles that turned a new space leaf of the humankind. All space programs based upon successful launches ot te V1/V11.


What do the british rockets have to do with it?
Chinese used their rockets 1000 years ago but I can't say the started a cosmic era!

 

You keep talking about experiments in 1925 but the Soviets and the Germans experimented with rockets at the same years!

Seems strange you keep thinking you were the first in rocket and missile building!

Colonel Holger N. Toftoy, at the time the chief of the Ordnance Technical Intelligence team in Paris, commanded the transfer of rocket hardware and documents to the U.S. Toftoy was subsequently named chief of the Rocket Branch in the Research and Development Division of Army Ordnance.

Toftoy recommended to his superiors that the von Braun group as well as its hardware and paperwork were VITAL to U.S. interests and should be transferred to the U.S. as well. On July 23, 1945 Toftoy met with von Braun. In August, 1945 von Braun and his associates were offered one-year contracts with the U.S. Army

Why not vital but important?

I think if the Americans had everything ready at hand and needed only to straighten up something Toftoy would have said important. However he said vital that leads to think Americans came across somethung the they didn't have themselves!

 

I know about it, you seem to have problems here. This is understandably, because you are not from Germany, but you should not try to make things up.

English Wikipedia seems to be not so clear about it, probably on purpose. There were no long distance rails, but there were city trains going. People could simply walk from one part of the city to another one, too. This was not like Gaza or so.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin-Blockade

Translation: The blockade prevented the transport of goods between West Berlin and the Western occupation zones, but not the transport of passengers. The Berlin S-Bahn went without further restrictions. During the blockade of West Berlin's population and businesses could continue shopping in East Berlin and the Soviet occupation zone and providing themselves with food, fuel and other things.

Check these tons of references to find out, what actually happened.

Strawman argument.

The world has not been lied to, only because you don't know about things, this doesn't mean, the world does not. You are not "the world".

This is wrong. Western powers did have a blockade to East Germany at the same time. It worked both ways. East Germany only did not make so buzz about it. The Western powers had a blockade against East Germany and they were working on dividing Germany.

The Berlin Wall was built for economical reasons, it would not have been necessary if there would have been no separate West Berlin.

 

Yes. the Soviet Union has reaped its parts of documents.

However although the U.S. received the lion's share of knowledgeable German rocket scientists, other nations secured German scientists of their own. Primarily, the Soviet Union reaped some benefits from these scientists.

Upon assuming jurisdiction of the Mittelwerk plant in June, 1945 Soviet forces quickly began rounding up and interrogating German rocket personnel. About 3,500 people were secured, but these were generally more unskilled lower echelon workers of limited value.

About 5,000 people involved in the German rocket industry had already fled the Mittelwerk area with von Braun before the end of the war, and yet another 1,000 had fled the area after the Soviets assumed jurisdiction. This left the Soviets with slim pickings.

 

The Army Air Corps developed its JB-1 guided bomb beginning in 1944. The JB-1 design was based largely upon the analysis of German V-1 buzz bombs recovered during the war. Test launches of the JB-1 from both the air and from the ground proved largely unsuccessful.

A follow-up guided bomb was called the JB-2, nicknamed the Loon. The JB-2 was nearly identical to the German V-1 buzz bomb both in design and appearance, and several hundred were manufactured before the end of the war. The JB-2 had been destined for use against Japan, but this never happened.

The JB-2 did, however, yield valuable research data. Follow-up vehicles included the JB-4 and JB-10, all based upon the principles of the German V-1 buzz bomb. All V-1 based programs were abandoned by the Army Air Corps in 1946.


As you see all American devices were based on the German V-1 bomb.
Why if the US hd at that time its own ready, well developed missile program?

As you see the Americans built an identical to the V-1 bomb to damage Japan so the reason not to develop missiles because you don't bomb friendly countries seems a bit slim at this angle. The Americans wanted and tried to do such missiles but something went wrong, so they refused the idea!

 

The Army Air Corps, Army Ordnance already possessed German V-2 hardware captured during the war and had contracted the services of lead German rocket scientists. The immediate goal was to use this hardware to support high-altitude research, weapons development and assist U.S. forces in becoming more accustomed to the handling and performance of advanced ballistic missile weapons.


So if German scientists were not as big of a leap in boosting the American missile and space programs why the Americans used the German hardware to become more accustomed to the handling and performance of advanced ballistic missile weapons?

Suffice were to mke use of the own hardware without attracting German scientists!

 

So, to say Germans had not contributed much in the American missile and space programs is not a bit too hard on things you don't seem are ready to accept?

 

*scratches head*

Blockade of East Germany?

Funny, I just typed in "Blockade of East Germany" into Google, to see what came back. Nothing at all about the Western Powers blockading East Germany. But a lot for the Soviet blockade of West Berlin.

And I am curious. How did this blockade work? Were there Western fleets surrounding Rostock and stopping all shipping from comming in and out?

Or did they force their way into Poland and Czechoslovakia and forbid them from trafficking across their border into East Germany?

Obviously they must have, but I never heard of them. Please tell me how they did this "East German Blockade".

 

Maybe it's a language problem, English sources may focus on the Western side.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessup-Malik-Abkommen

Translation:
The Jessup-Malik Agreement is a four-power agreement on ending the blockade of West Berlin from 4 May 1949.

The Jessup-Malik Agreement was signed by Philip Jessup in the U.S. and Yakov Alexandrovich Malik for the USSR. It contained a commitment to lift all restrictions on the USSR as well as economic sanctions against East Germany imposed of the Western powers after the blockade.

Only Western powers were part of it. They stopped deliveries to East Germany.

 

Yeah, the V2s were weapons of terror. Not weapons of war.

 

The fact remains that his point is valid...if they could do it as well as we can, they would have their own product to compete with ours. There would be a Chinese alternative to Windows 7.

Obviously there is a big difference from producing someone else's technology and actually designing your own. Inferior does not mean worthless. You can be really smart and still be inferior to someone who is smarter than you.

That is skill, not technology.

Castle technology is no longer relevant in the modern era.

Germany would need us a lot more than we would need Germany. Just sayin.

 

I agree it is not fair; other nations can copy our technology and use it for their own advancement. Would they really have advanced to where they are now without the US as a template?

But that is the price you pay for having the best. Development is expensive.

 

It's not like they can not do it, it simply makes no sense for them from an economically point of view. Chinese authorities use mainly Linux as far as I know, it would not take them so long to develop an own operating system, probably there is simply no need or potential market for it.

It can be even smarter to produce someone else's technology. The market risk is lower for the 2nd one or for someone, who uses known technology. It all depends on how people do it. It's about strategy and marketing, it's not about technology in the first place. IBM may have been 20 years ahead in computer technology back in the eightees, but nowadays the differences are lower.

Where is the difference in this context? Both is Know How.

 

That is an internal embargo, and it is completely legal. Any nation is free to trade or not trade with any other nation.

What happened to West Berlin was a blockade, which is rarely legal. One is to choose or not choose to trade with another nation. The other is to prevent a third nation from trading with any other.

Although it did have one good side effect. It convinced the Western powers to combine their sectors and create what became known as West Germany. And of the "Two Germany's", guess which one is still around?

 

Germany was one nation at this time.

West Berlin has never been a nation.

You call the division of Germany a good side effect?

Germany got unified some time ago.

 

LOL

Hey, I could also make a great competitor to Windows 7 too in my garage. It just doesnt make financial sense for me to do so. But if I wanted to, I could.

In other words, they could not match or improve upon Windows 7.

No one uses someone else's technology unless they dont have a choice. That is why China is still engaged in R&D...if they believed what you just said, they would have no R&D...they would just buy other people's technology completely.

Because the tankers are not better because their technology is better. I thought that was obvious.

I thought we went over this earlier in the thread. If I have a machine gun, but have really bad aim, and you have a rock with really good aim, that doesnt mean the rock is superior technology to the machine gun. Technology remains independent of the person that uses it.

 

Believe me, anything in your garage is better than Windows 7.

 

Maybe you could write an own operating system in your garage.

This is something else from what I said.

No. These are different business ideas. Some companies develop their own technologies, some do not. Some have mixes. Not developing an own technology does not necessarly mean not having R&D.

I have read this, but I have no idea, how it matches this context.

 

Another good example would be the Vietnamese victory over China in 1979:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVknZ4YVG9U"]YouTube - ‪Bành Trướng Bắc Kinh - 1979‬‏[/ame]

 

The Checkoslovakian Army was a well equipped Army in 1938 and military complex produced many efficient and good things even selling it abroad.

So what?

The German Army was better from the technological point of view than the Soviet Army in the beginning of the 1941.

So what ?

The technological abyss between the Vietnamese and US Armies was so huge that the American Army had to finish the Vietnamese Army within a few weeks.

So what?

The technological advance is a subtle thing to be so sure that 1 country leads the world and other stands behind because the last one has not built a few gadgets that are easy to purchase abroad.

 

A difficult question to answer, but i voted for a tie.
It really comes down to money really, as if the Germans were allowed to, and had the political will to do so, then they could have a very advanced military, probably more so than the US.
Germany thorughout history has had great scientists and engineers, just look at their developments throughout WW2.........and remember it was the Germans who helped get the American space program off the ground.
I being British, think we are technically very advanced, and we have contribued to many military inventions, but we have always been held back in our developments by a lack of funds, and our ideas being nicked by the Americans.

 

When the technological advance is too big, then it matters, see the Spanish conquests in America or the Opium wars from the British against China.

 

According to that poll....Todays Americans are in denial.

Truth is Germany is more advance.....Even more than Japan or China combined.

America today is just a fine service concept nation.

FACT.​