How Effective A Weapon Was the V-2 Rocket?

Great Debates
21

Thanks for the added illumination, Kevbo. I figured I may have conflated some of my mom’s buzzbomb recollections with my own, likely incomplete, understanding of how it worked. So, I went back to my source (not difficult, my parents live next door) and asked for additional clarification. Result: the MOA of the V-1, as you describe, was indeed more complicated than it simply running out of fuel and dropping. However, at least in my parent’s experience, they didn’t glide very far *after *the engine sound stopped.

Dad (364 Fighter Group, 383rd Fighter Squadron, 8th Air Force): *“We saw a number of doodlebugs fly over Honington airfield, and a couple of explosions. They made a woo woo woo sound as they approached; when the engine sound stopped, they’d dive and explode. The ones I saw didn’t come straight down, but they almost did—it was a pretty steep nose dive. Anybody suggesting they’d glide a long distance after the engine cut off is a horses’ petootie" *(just kidding, he didn’t say that :D). *“Yeah, you’d be nervous until it passed by, it was a real terror bomb. The V-2, a true rocket, was more powerful, but not as bad—it went up and came straight down, you didn’t know it was coming and you wouldn’t know what hit you.” *

Mom: *“The buzzbombs *(“buzzbomb” to mom; “doodlebug” to dad)*were dreadful; we knew we weren’t safe until we heard them pass overhead. It was a buzzbomb that killed our neighbor, the mailman. I never watched one dive to the ground, but when the whir whir whir sound stopped, the explosion came pretty quick afterward.When we were staying with family on Kynaston Road (this story’s new to me, but verified by dad), a V-2 rocket hit close by, killing our chickens and a neighbor girl. It cracked our house completely in half, top and bottom *(I think this article refers to the incident mom recalls).

Learned another telling tidbit from my dad today, too: “The worst part of the war for your mother was when she was hit in the head with shrapnel and they had to shave off her hair.” Mom: “I was really embarrassed about losing my hair, but at least it grew back before our wedding.”

Here’s a pamphlet that I scanned from my dad’s “His Service Record” memorabilia book, describing the V-1 in good detail:
Cover
Cutaway (click to enlarge)
Description

22

There’s no question that the V-1 and V-2 caused meaningful death and destruction to the civilian population. But I think it can be questioned whether these made it an effective weapon. I’ve read plenty that said the result was to further harden the attitudes of the British citizenry and make it less likely that the war would end short of absolute German defeat.

23

Maybe spending the resources on this would have been more to the point. (I’ve probably seen more takes on this in radio-control magazines than actually flew during WW2…)

24

The rockets may have been fine examples of terror weapons, but since when have terror weapons ever been effective? Indiscriminate submarine warfare had a non-negligible impact on the quantity of goods shipped, sure, but the primary goal was to scare away all shipping. Due to its inaccuracy and inability to really do otherwise, the large bulk of the strategic bombing of WW2 on both sides was aimed at population centers, supposedly to demoralize the people. Dresden was burned to the ground. Rolling Thunder in Vietnam, terrorists in Munich, terrorists in Ireland, terrorists in Israel, terrorists in the USA, all completely unsuccessful at doing anything but hardening the will of the targets against those perpetrating the attacks.

Terror attacks are a dead-end from a strategic perspective with one single distinct exception. Terror worked just once, when cities were bathed in nuclear fire and the threat of terror escalated to the threat of total annihilation. This was the real purpose of the Vergeltungswaffe, for an eventual V3 or V4 to turn London & Moscow into mushroom clouds. The V1 and V2 as they were, were inconsequential nothings in the strategic view, not worth their resources, but give them a few more years, or a slight rearranging of scientific progress, and they’d have changed the outcome of history entirely.

25

nm

26

I disagree. If you scaled up the production of the V1 it was the perfect stand-off weapon to wipe a city off the map. It’s just a matter of numbers and better allocation of resources. Take the labor that goes into building a bomber that carrys 8,000 lbs of bombs and convert it to building an 1800 lb bomb with wings on it. The engine in a V1 was vastly simpler in construction in comparison to a single radial engine for a bomber. It could be made using unskilled labor. The wings of the V1 only had to be engineered for a single use and were made out of plywood. The fuel used to deliver it is far less than what it would take to deliver the same tonnage of bombs in one direction and that is more than halved by the lack of a need for a return trip.

27

Given enough production, they could V1 London into a pile of rubble. What would that achieve, though? It would be a symbolic victory, but it would be unlikely to kill any critical leadership, since there’s plenty of warning of inbounds. It wouldn’t affect war production much, and it would be unlikely to cause any capitulation by the populace, instead inspiring an even greater desire for revenge and justice. Even producing the enormous amount of V1s to wipe out several specific cities wouldn’t be enough on its own. The atomic bombs weren’t successful because they gutted two cities, they were successful because they conveyed the threat of gutting EVERY city. V1s don’t do that, even in vast quantities.

It’s not that a V1 is notably worse of a weapon than WW2 era bombers, it’s that the bombers weren’t particularly effective either.

28

they had a range of 150 miles which I’m sure could have been extended without much effort so the effective range is 100 miles inland without modification. It was also a weapon that could be launched from bombers so they could drive them along the coast and release them without engaging fighters.

It’s not the end-all of weapons but it could have been used more effectively given he simplicity of construction. It was so ridiculously easy to make compared to any other weapon.

29

I wouldn’t say completely unsuccessful in the Irish context, but that it is too much of a hijack to get into here.

30

When the war was finished numerous senior German Generals were collected together at a British internment camp in the British isles. Unknown to them the entire camp was bugged with hidden microphones to gather evidence for use in the Nuremberg trials. Such camps were known by the acronym CSDIC and Maj General Dornberger was sent to CSDIC camp 11.

There he was recorded between 2-7 August 1945 discussing with other Generals, German work to develop the atomic bomb. He also disclosed that Hitler told him he had always intended the V-2 to carry more than just a ton of high explosives.

A factory in Breslau was said by a former forced labourer who worked there, to be converting both V-1 and V-2 rockets for special warheads including nuclear and nerve gas. The odd thing is that by October 1944 Germany had a vast stockpile of Tabun-b nerve gas but this was never used by the V-2.

On another topic

Twelve dismantled V-2 rockets were shipped to Djakarta by U-219 arriving in November 1944. A doctor Yamada travelling with the rockets created a V-2 production plant at the Mukden Arsenal in the city now called Shenyang in Manchuria. This factory was overrun by the Soviets in September 1944.

Another interesting

31

This thread brings to mind something I read by Arthur C. Clark. He was writing about how at one point during the war he was in New York for some reason and hapened to be with another author who had just written an essay for Analog? about how the V bombs were just German propaganda and couldn’t exist because they would be a massive waste of resources for the Nazis. Before he’d traveled Mr. Clark had been told that he wasn’t allowed to talk about the bombing for morale reasons (I belive he was an army officer at the time), so the best he could do was suggest that his friend recheck his assumptions.

32

Would you please explain that?

Thanks.

33

Amazing.

34

Since your claims, without corroboration, of Germany’s nuclear development has been called into serious question in another thread, I think we can mostly ignore what you say here. I know I will.

35

Just one thread? You’ve (luckily) missed out. His 10 posts to this message board have been bumping no less than 4 zombie threads with the same nonsense about the Nazis having nukes.

36

Read this thread.

It does not end well.

37

This is Be Kind to Zombies Week, isn’t it? :slight_smile:

38

According to the wiki article, more forced labourers died producing the V2 than the number of people killed by the 3,000 rockets fired. It also says that the V weapons programs were more expensive than the Manhatten Project.

39

I had heard that Germany was also working on an anti-aircraft missile(Wasserfall?) that used similar design principles as the V-1 and V-2. Some people speculated that if the Germans focused on developing reliable AA missiles it would have had a bigger impact on them in the war.

Sure V-2s were terrifying- the ability to level a city block in an enemy city with no warning. But missiles used to destroy actual military assets (bombers, in this case) just seems more practical. Look at how devastating SAMs were to the US air force in Vietnam- they accounted for a huge number of aircraft shot down. I wonder how much more difficult the bombing campaign of Germany would have been if they had the technology to shoot down our bombers with missiles?

40

In the book Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson, he talks about this. Basically, the Western Allies were prohibited from using chemical weapons until the Germans used them…and the Western Allies accumulated large stockpiles ready to use in case the Germans did use them.

The Germans knew this and so didn’t use these weapons.