For example, did it mean that they had overly complicated designs or electronics that were hard to fix or replace? Were there handmade parts that weren't standardized? I've heard that claim many times and just wanted to get a better idea of what it meant on a case by case basis.
I apologize if this has been asked before but a quick search didn't turn anything up.
I wouldn't necessarily say "Quality" here but rather "Complexity."
Some of the best quality tanks in the war were the M4 Sherman and later model T-34's.
An M4 Sherman that landed at Normandy and wasn't destroyed in combat had a real chance of driving all the way to Germany without ever needing major maintenance performed. The T-34 was a bit rougher around the edges, especially when it came to road driving, the battery system, engine noise and general ergonomics, but still enjoyed a fantastic reliability figure. The 75mm gun on the M4 Sherman was more than adequate till the US landed in Normandy, and even then the tank was purpose built as an infantry support tank, while Tank Hunting doctrine was left to dedicated vehicles like the M10 Wolverine, the M18 Hellcat and the M36 Jackson. By the time the Soviets needed to introduce their 85mm gun on the T-34 chassis they'd actually found a way to make the tanks even less expensive to produce.
For reference, the Panzer 4 and the Panther- the two tanks which basically occupied the same role as the previous tanks- were absolute maintenance fiends. The panzer 4 wasn't bad by German standards, but it was bad when compared role to role with anyone else.
The Panther couldn't even drive 150km without needing it's final drive replaced. The panther was a tank initially intended to weigh 30 tons, and the prototypes generally demonstrated that Germany knew what it needed to be pushing out- where previously Germany had forgone well sloped armor in favor of cabin room (the radios the Germans were so proud of were also big) the Panther had sloped armor, it cost only a little more than the Panzer 4 to produce, and had some great stats on paper.
But then the tank got so much armor piled on that it weighed 45 tons when they were done with it- what a Tiger was supposed to weigh- they stuck a tiger engine on it without the realized logistics and maintenance program that the Tiger had, and it's transmission simply could not tolerate the weight of the tank very well. Were it the case that it'd only ever need to be a marksman vehicle, the Panther would have been acceptable, but it needed to be a tank which it really wasn't. You can't perform basic tank maneuvers in a vehicle that needs to stop ever 150 km to replace critical transmission parts.
Furthermore because of the nature of the gun- a high velocity 75mm gun- and how it was designed, while the Panther was extremely accurate and could deliver rounds that'd pose a threat for most vehicles, it also had to forgo a capable high explosive round. When a tank took an AP round it might burst into flames, the crew might die, what have you, but the tank would be salvageable. Weld up the hole, replace parts as needed, new paint and a new crew. Meanwhile when a Soviet IS-2 or a US P-51 mustang (or whatever was convenient. A P-47?) drops a high explosive ordinance on a German target, no amount of welding will change the fact that the ammo rack in the tank just exploded, the turret literally flew off the tank, and the rest of it kind of resembles a dessicated carcass.
The Tiger wasn't much better. Yes, granted, they were difficult to deal with, but they also had a fantastically awful reputation. For a tank it was generally accepted that mobility and a small profile was more important than piling on admittedly massive amounts of armor. Because of it's awful fuel economy it needed to be transported basically everywhere by rail, it weighed so much that it needed special rails laid to transport it by train (this wasn't as much of a problem as you might think) and because of the nature of the engine it was particularly maintenance (not necessarily *reliability) hungry. Oh, and when they were first introduced, the Tiger had no good way of being moved if it couldn't move under it's own power. The only vehicle capable of hauling it was another tiger, and because of the added weight it was common enough for two tigers to be lost in the attempt that German High Command outright banned the practice. Tigers literally had dedicated maintenance companies for each regiment issued them (a lack of this for the Panther was one of the reasons they had a reputation for poor reliability.)
In terms of the worst examples of overly complex German vehicles you'd probably want to look at Tiger variants (like the Sturmtiger and the Elephant, which was built off the ~140 Porsche designed Tigers that he built before he even had the contract, which ended up going to Henshel anyways, along with the King Tiger) but if you wanted to look at quality German tanks you're basically looking at the Panzer 3 and it's variants, particularly the Stug 3.
Man hour for man hour you basically had an unreal amount of time spent on most German equipment making sure it could do the same job that a less expensive Soviet or American vehicle could do.
For example, did it mean that they had overly complicated designs or electronics that were hard to fix or replace?
In a lot of cases yes. Looking for example at the developments in radar technology you will find that British technology in a lot of cases was far easier (to produce and repair) but also got the job done. Watson-Watt, one of the key persons involved in Britains Chain Home radar network once said:
“Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes.”
While the Germans always seemed to work towards the best one. This way they did a lot of important research, but science doesn't win you the war. They had revolutionary projects but it's a long way from the scientists laboratory to the battlefield, so a lot of equipment came way too late for WW2. They tried to use a lot of the cutting edge things but as with everything, newly developed equipment is very fragile and not fit for heavy combat usage (see the gearbox in the Panther tank). But you could say the first era of the Cold War was fought with a lot of German technology. Russians, British and Americans captured many of those "best solutions that never come" and with another few years of engineering used them themselves (missiles, MCLOS, some parts of night vision, jet engines). Also see Operation Paperclip for this.
A lot of their planes and tanks suffered from over-engineering. I don't know exactly why that happened, but it could be a cultural thing ("German Perfectionism"). One major reason sure was that Germany never planned for long wars and therefore thought they can win without huge changes in their economy. Only late did they recognize that the war would last longer than anticipated, so only in mid 1943 they finally started to switch to a full war economy. By late 1944 this change was completed, however by then bombing raids and the overall situation (shortages: metalls, chemicals, workers, electricity) didn't allow the German economy to recover. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany#The_war_effort)
Another reason sure was the ongoing feature creep mainly driven by Hitler himself. The more the war progressed the more Hitler took over direct control and pushed people who actually knew what they were doing out of higher positions. For example he replaced technical experts in the Heereswaffenamt (Army Ordnance Department) with his "friends". Replacing military experts with nazis wasn't a good idea. But Hitler thought it would allow him to better fullfil the needs of the soldiers (obviously he knew exactly what kind of euipment was needed :D ).
A short explanation of the industrial landscape: There really we're a lot of arms manufacturers in Germany and nearly all of those we're privately owned (=focused on making money, not winning the war in the first place). This meant that when the Army needed a new vehicle it worked out some basic characteristics the final result should have and then gave contracts to multiple manufacturers (those who still had free capacities). This could lead to very complicated situations. For example Henschel and Porsche were tasked with producing a new tank, but neither one had the capabilities (don't only think of production capabilities but also of technicians who need to design the stuff first) to build a turret. So Krupp was selected to build turrets for both tank companies (and most often also the gun). Now it was up to the companies to get to good results as fast as possible. So far so good. Now when Porsche and Henschel both created a promising design, they sent the plans to Krupp so they could built, let's say, 50 turrets for each. Somewhere in this process Hitler suddenly becomes interested in this process. So he has a look at the plans and deciedes: "This is unacceptable! Needs more armor, more speed, more everything!". So now the designers can start over again. At some point someone calls Krupp to tell them that the plans have been changed 7 times since they started producing the turrets, so they need to change every single one or throw them away. (Krupp once actually sent an angry letter to the Army Ordnance Department explaining that it's a total chaos when he has to incorporate changes into the running production all the time)
So this goes on for a few iterations and in the end you have 2 tank designs (Porsche and Henschel) whose inner parts were also built by a countless number of different manufacturers (which is a reason for mechanical failure in itself because back then the industry didn't have the required precision for everything to match perfectly, also see the problems with sectional design for the Type XXI u-boat). Now both prototypes were tested to see which one has the best characteristics. The problem here was: Hitler had the last word in the decision which tank will be produced. So sometimes he accepted inferior tanks because he was friends with the manufacturer...
That would lead to situation like this: Krupp produced a lot of turrets for a tank that didn't get accepted. They didn't want to waste those so they strapped them onto some old tanks and basically created new tanks like this. But they would not continue to produce that turret. So they created logistical nightmares. If something broke, there were no spare parts.
The logistics was a huge problem anyway. During the war the German Army tried to standardize their tanks but they weren't successful. There were Panzer 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 driving around, also Czech vehicles like the Pz 38(t) and French vehicels they captured. And now imagine each tank I just mentioned also had an assault gun or tank destroyer version, an ammunition carrier version, a vehicle recovery version, an anti-aircraft version and so on. The manufacturers simply couldn't keep up with the demand for so many different spare parts. Not to mention the availability of trained technicians for the vehicle in question. The "final solution" to this problem should have been the heavily standardized E series of tanks. The concept was good, but came too late.
and that this hurt their war effort?
As you can see the huge process involved in building military equipment in Germany was a waste of precious time and resources. But the statement "focused on quality over quantity" kind of implies that it would have been better for Germany if they had focused on quantity. But you have to ask yourself what would've happened if Germany built a lot more worse tanks and planes. They already had shortages in tank drivers and pilots. Building more equipment doesn't mean much if you don't have enough soldiers. So as i see it quality over quantity was the only way to go for Germany.
After reading the other answers i think i will try to give a different input.
First of all i want to comment on another post from /u/crassbar regarding T-34 and Tigers and tanks in general, which in my opinion circulates one of the biggest myths of WWII.
Some of the best quality tanks in the war were the M4 Sherman and later model T-34's
No. The T-34 was not one of the best quality tanks of WWII it was a very bad tank in many regards.
For some reason unknown there is the common misconception that the T-34 was a good tank when it comes down to the battlefield. Thats just not true. People list all the alleged strenghts off the tank and then use this as a method to declare the soviet tank doctrine as superior. T-34 strenghts are mostly given as:
Here begins the problem. Assuming these points are indeed correct this in itself doesn't make a good tank. The quality of tank in retroperspectiv is basically defined by its impact on the battlefield in a proportion to its cost in ressources (* cost is not about money, money in WWII was not like it was today, what mattered is what you could have done elsewhere with the used ressources+labour*). The t-34 was not a good tank design if we keep this mind. Let me explain why.
Without going into too much detail. The "strenghts" of the T-34 didn't have the impact people believe. While the sloped armor was indeed a good new design (in 1941) which helped the tank, it didn't matter in the long run. Germans upgunned their tanks ( mainly Pz IV ) and made them able to destroy T-34 even frontal. The KwK40 had no issues with the armor of T-34 sloped or not. When tanks like the Panther and Tiger arrived the T-34 was done. He could not fight them at all. This were not only uneven matches it was nearly impossible for a T-34 to engage a Tiger or Panther ( see below for further infos).
People praise the mobility of the T-34. Iam blunt here, who cares? Nobody cares if you have a fast tank when you get knocked out as soon as you meet a german tank or a PAK. Until 1944 the red army had never achieved significant breakthroughs so why is the mobility of the T-34 praised so much ? For deep raid operations lighter tanks were sufficient, both the T-34 and BT series will blow up when they meet resistance so why put more armor on a tank if it doesn't withstand a major fight german armor anyways?
Combat performance. Here now people will list all the disadvantages, like radio no designated commander bad interior weak effective combat range, and advantages of the T-34 but their is just no need for this every time. We dont want to know why the T-34 performed how he performed we rather want to know how exactly he performed on the battlefield what was the impact of the tank? Because here is the biggest disparity in opinions.
It performed bad in many aspects. Tank versus Tank was abmysal for most part of the war. Raiding; he was fine i guess but the soviets problem with achieving real breakthroughs didn't let it do these jobs anyways. Thats why about 45.000 of them were lost out of a total of 96.000 lost tanks.
Yes the T-34 was easy and cheap to build. Does this help ? This boils down to mathematical issues. What is the cost of a crew training. The number of expert T-34 crews was low just because the propability to become an expert was very low. The soviet tank doctrine therefore asked for weak tanks with inferior crews. German superior tanks than were manned by tank crews who became better and better since they didn't die. Was it worth to build a weak tank in big quantities instead of a strong tank in lower quantities? No in my opinion. Later more.
***Anecdotes Tiger vs T-34***
I want to list some anecdotes to illustrate the relation between Tiger and T-34. This exactly leads to the OPs question of the value of the "overly complicated german designs". The Tiger is a very interesting issue and their are plenty of myths regarding the Tiger and its real combat value but it would take to long to go into detail
Some combat examples:
The first bigger engagement of Tigers was around Leningrad. 160 kills were reported for the loss of 6 ( 3 due to enemy action ).
Next big engagement was at Kursk. At the first day a battalion of Tiger tanks were engaged by a force of 90 T-34. 42 T-34 were destroyed for the loss of two Tigers to enemy fire.
The 503rd heavy panzer battlion reported the destruction of 385 tanks during zitadelle for the loss of 8 ( 3 due to enemy action 5 while retreating )
All tiger units reported about 9.800 tank kills during the war ( this includes Tiger II ) for the loss of 1.700
Lets take a closer look at these figures. This is interesting for the overall quesiton of OP and the suggested inferiority of the german high quality approach.
1700 lost TigerI and Tiger II tanks. Does this help? Yes a bit but we need to know how they performed versus enemy armor.
Of these 1.700 losses 650 were destroyed by their own crew. This was likely the result of a retreat without neccessary fuel or imminent capture and so on. About 200 were destroyed by other causes outside of combat like motor burns or falling through a bridge. This means less than 50% of Tiger tanks were destroyed in combat. The combat ratio was about 12. A Tiger destroyed 12 enemy tanks before beeing lost. Subtracting 30% of the claims we get roughly 10:1 combat ratio. This includes the western front where german ratios were lower for several reasons also italian front with very weak ratios caused by terrain. This ratio of 10:1 also includes every destruction by aircraft, mines, infantery and artillery. This also includes better soviet tanks and tank hunters equiped to destroy Tigers. Considering these facts its pretty safe to assume that the average tiger knocks out 20+ T-34 before getting destroyed by one ( feel free to challange these facts or my interpretation). Sounds wrong? Well dozen of combat examples suggest even higher ratios on the eastern front for heavy tank battalions. Keep in mind, Tiger tanks were the focus of the enemy. Their appearance on the battle field resulted in being the major target.
Some informations regarding German kill claims to build your own opinion.
Most historians i have read agree that german claims on tank kills are pretty accurate
Historians like Glantz, Frieser and Zetterling for example quote these number a lot when writing about these battles and the tanks therefore add some credibility to said claims
Frieser goes on and points out in quite some detail that german tanker claims were found to be very accurate by Wehrmacht units counting enemy armor when the Germans kept the battlefield
German intelligence service took tanker claims and reduced them by 30% AFAIK, to derive at an realistic estimation of enemy tank losses. For the purpose of guessing the enemy strenght
The real losses for the red army will always be lower than the claims for a variety of reasons. For example: recovering damaged vehicles, misinterpreting the impact of your shots, two tanks engaging the same enemy etc
TL:DR The tiger tanks impact on the battlefield was far bigger than the T-34. He would destroy a lot of T-34 before he would go down.
This is sadly only a oversimplification. The tiger tanks value was not only and destroying enemy armor, it forced the enemy to react to it. It was able to force breakthroughs against extreme odds.
Back to OPs question. I guess nobody can answer this with certainty. Just to many factors. It is obvious Germany wasted a lot of ressources. Sometimes because the war ended "early" or just plain dumb mismanagment of ressources. Some examples:
The V1 program was in retroperspective a big waste of ressources. The achieved effects were just to little to justify the programm. But programs like that would have brought big advantages in the long run. The V1 as ballistic rocked obviously had many potential uses. So while beeing a waste of ressources it wasn't that bad of an idea.
Examples for pure waste of money are things like rail road guns 800 mm. The amount of ressources which has gone into these guns had pretty much no effect on the war and more importantly had no potential future use in contrast to the V1 porgramm.
Problem with your question is that you ask for no specific field like tanks planes or infantry weapons or rockets. Was the german way off desigining and building weapons better or worse than the allied strategy?
I propose the following approach.
The GDP of the allied was about 3 times that of the axis per average during the war. The commodity production was even more loopsided with Germany having only 7% of the world total while the US alone had 22%.
Maximum length of post....
One of the interesting things about the Me-109 was that the engine mounting was designed in such a way that the engine cowling folded down to make a platform for ground-crew to work from and that the engine could be replaced be a skilled ground crew in as little as 15 minutes.
So there is at least one example of a simple design?
*Edit: error removed
Other people have made good points about tanks, but someone should also point out that the V-2s were not particularly effective weapons of war. The V-1 was cost-effective, but the V-2, the "miracle weapon" that was going to win the war... didn't.
The V-2s were expensive: "6,048 V-2s were built, at a cost of approximately 100,000 Reichsmarks (GB£2,370,000 (2011)) each; 3,225 were launched" (source). However, only about 9,000 civilians were killed -- you can do the math. Each civilian death due to V-2 cost the Reich about 66,000 Reichsmarks, or adjusted for inflation, about 1.5 million 2011 GBP.
Wikipedia also provides a helpful comparison: "in one 24-hour period during Operation Hurricane, the RAF dropped over 10,000 long tons of bombs on Brunswick and Duisburg, roughly equivalent to the amount of explosives that could be delivered by 10,000 V-2 rockets."
This really cool US Army document from 1945 evaluates the effectiveness of V-2 attacks in Belgium: "the effect on the flow of supplies through both of these targets [Antwerp and Liege] was practically negligible. Therefore, the V-2 attack failed in its primary objective".
To quote Freeman Dyson, a British scientist working for the RAF during the war, "… those of us who were seriously engaged in the war were very grateful to Wernher von Braun. We knew that each V-2 cost as much to produce as a high-performance fighter airplane. We knew that German forces on the fighting fronts were in desperate need of airplanes, and that the V-2 rockets were doing us no military damage. From our point of view, the V-2 program was almost as good as if Hitler had adopted a policy of unilateral disarmament."
They're an incredibly cool piece of technology -- there's a reason the US wanted Werner von Braun after the war, and they were incredibly important to the development of ICBMs and the space race. However, they weren't particularly effective weapons, and they were a large drain on German resources. It would have been far more effective to stick with bombers and V-1s than develop V-2s.
(One could also argue that they were effective as instruments of terror -- more so than V-1s, which you could hear approaching -- but quantifying terror is a difficult procedure, and I would argue, linked to the number of civilian deaths one causes.)
Edit: but look at it, it's so adorable.