"Where, Oh WHERE have all the Axis Analog Computers gone?"

It really is amazing how websites such as this and the many others have managed to drag out of the ‘vapo-sphere’ so much otherwise ‘lost’ information about some of the most obscure technical developments of WW2. Yet for all this, there is still a murky black hole on the subject of Axis Analog Computers that would have been employed in Axis country research laboratories and facilities be they German, Italian, Japanese and even the lesser Axis partners. I refer to such devices as, for example, differential analysers, integrators, scalers, etc… They would surely have been used in aircraft airflow analysis, artillery/munitions development and testing, electronic component design, etc, etc. “Yes, yes, yes”, I’m perfectly well aware of the German Zuse Z3 computer (not admissible in this discussion; it’s Digital), the German KommandoGerat (very interesting and now, widely known), the V-2 guidance control computer - a first-rank qualifier! But surely, this can’t be all that there is to discover - where are all the rest, lurking behind the veil of secret military research?? How many were ‘souvenired’ by the victors and carried off as the ‘spoils of war’? Please post your offerings, include pictures, documents, links, etc. I’m looking forward to the torrent!

oldben August 7, 2026, 8:06am 2

They may have been bombed out of existence, any research lab would be a major secondary target
is my thought.

If you haven’t yet, do a search on the IPM-OTT integrator. Ask AI for photos and drawings because if you use the Deutch’s museum link and archive you may end up in a parse tree loop like I did. In a nutshell, when searching for its intended WWII use, Ballistics and Rocketry calculations are the main mention.
So, I remember having a picture in a book or magazine that showed an electromechanical analog computer used at the Vickers Aircraft establishment, and it looks like it used metal tape rather than gears to couple the synchros and servomechanisms. I spent days searching online but still couldn’t find anything about this machine that was obviously a real, physical device used after WWII. This history we are passionate about has so many holes left to fill. Good Luck and I’ll take a look through my reference collection.

Yes, the IPM-OTT integrator intended for German WWII ballistic and rocketry calculations was unable to be completed during the war due to bombing of Darmstatt. It was finally completed in 1948.

Xylstra August 12, 2026, 3:40am 5

Well done Pau!! Thanks so much for that and you’re so right: after the end of any war, the victors get to write the history and that often means ‘writing-out’ the achievements of the vanquished which, unfortunately, creates an ‘information vacuum’ which is quickly filled by the conspiracy cranks and various other mythologists! Your information on Vickers is almost certainly correct, many such mechanical differentiators/integrators were in regular use - we have one here in Auckland’s Museum of Transport and technology made from Meccano (GHOOGLE it)! Post-war, ELLIOT Automation in the UK specialised in Electronic Analog computing, ROTOL, for instance, employed one of their’s for calculating the complex propeller blade profiles. All the best.