U-Boat + V2

[Nashwan]

Here you are again! Please stop spouting bullchit everywhere you post!

The A4 (V2) had an inertial navigation system. This missile had a top speed of mach 5, flew in space, re-entered the atmosphere, and regularly hit London all the way from Germany.

The V-2 didn't have the range to hit London from Germany, the ones fired at London were from launch sites in Belgium and the Netherlands.

As to the accuracy, the Germans launched 1,190 V-2s against London, the London air defence area, which was about 40 km by 50km, was hit by 501 of them.

That's just about good enough for a nuke, if you are prepared to waste about 50% of the bombs you build, but an absolute waste of a conventional ballistic missile.

I'm confused -- that beast was a pain to prelaunch, and the fuel wasnt exactly the most stable stuff around. How did they load fuel, go through the prelaunch check, and keep everything OK while the missile was towed?

Are the photos operational, or were they done 20ft away from some off camera dock?

No V-2s were test launched from U-boats or towed containers during the war. The photos at the start of this thread show the test firing of unguided 15cm artillery rockets from the deck of a U-boat, and have nothing to do with the plan to use them to launch V-2s, which never got further than a paper study.

[GScholz]

Originally posted by Cobra412
So are you saying because of its INS this particular sea launch system was feasible?

If the U-boat knew its own exact position when launching I see no reason for the missile to be any less acurate than a land launced one. Without an A-bomb however it is pointless.

Originally posted by Cobra412
Since you also bring up the A Bomb when exactly did Germany use their advanced atomic technology?

I think you missed the point.

[Kurfürst]

Originally posted by BUG_EAF322
Also what country gave the opportunity and technology to make the bomb.

I`d say it was the country of origin which allowed these geniuses to become what they were, a large part is also due to the research institutes and universities, as if you look all of these gentleman spent considerable time in Germany. And then of course the third one are the American value to grab the opportunity and sort out the problems with the vast resources that country can provide.

Its the Germans fault to terrorize and haunt the jewish scientists like Einstein out of the country either. [/B]

Indeed it was great loss for them, even though I doubt they would lack the intellectual capacity to make the bomb, there were dozens of German nuclear scientists still around, and the very basics were developed there. I think their setback was the leadership`s attitude to the programme, which never got the resources, nor the urge to get out something practical instead of theoretical research.

[Kurfürst]

Originally posted by Nashwan
As to the accuracy, the Germans launched 1,190 V-2s against London, the London air defence area, which was about 40 km by 50km, was hit by 501 of them.

That's just about good enough for a nuke, if you are prepared to waste about 50% of the bombs you build, but an absolute waste of a conventional ballistic missile.

Not quite, though the material damage was small, the effect on morale was huge. People could get use to the V-1s that you could as they approached, but the V-2 was a kind of evil, at 5 Mach it exploded in your garden and you were long dead before it gave any notice. People don`t like that, Churchill had to consider the evacuation of London due to the V-2 raids.
OTOH, the V-1 had the advantage of bogging down huge allied resources at a very cheap prize.

[Angus]

Oh dear.
The V-1 as well as the V-2 were completely pointless weapons for anything but urban bombings.
I can dig up some data on the V-1's, but it turned out to be a thing quite defendable. Off some hundreds launced over the north sea by he-111's (the launch sites in Holland were either being attacked or overrun) the ones hitting the London area actually were fewer than the launch aircraft lost! So, who's resources was it bogging down in that equation?
On the flip-side, the missions to strafe and bomb launch sites were very costly.
(hope I'm right, - from memory)
The V-2 was of course unstoppable. Since it had a very bad effect on morale in the UK, I think you could say that the Brits had little sympathy with the German urban areas as a return.
They bombed Germany very mercilessly in the last years of the war, the existence of these weapons only added to the toughness. Come to think of it, the Brits could have bombed urban areas very much more, had they started early enough.

[Angus]

Then Scholzie:
"Well ... how many of the A-bomb's designers were actually American by birth? How many were German?"

They were mostly of Jewish origin.
And then you must add Niels Bohr

[Cobra412]

So was the launching of V2s on London pointless also because they didn't have the A-Bomb on them?

I really don't care if the Germans were the first to put ink on a piece of paper thinking this up. The fact remains they never used one so it really doesn't matter if they were the original designers or not. If you can't deploy it then it's nothing more then a huge paper weight. You can brag all day about how bright they were but even with their highly advanced technology they still lost.

[eddiek]

Amen, Cobra.

Just like all the "wonder" weapons of the Luftwaffe posted all over the Net, it was nothing more than an idea.
What I love to see are the "what if" websites that try to portray how "lucky" Allied airmen are that the war ended when it did.  
Most show an artist's painting of some Ta-183's or other German jets just pillaging Allied bomber formations, with the caption somewhere on the page "This is what the Allies would have faced had the war continued into 1946..." or some other rubbish.
Wanna take a guess what the Allied would have faced had the war lingered into 1946?
Mostly empty skies, as the Luftwaffe was so short of fuel they would have been able to offer only token resistance.
Berlin?  A wasteland.  Nagasaki and Hiroshima would not have been the first cities to meet the atomic bombs had the European war dragged on.  On second thought, I doubt the Allies would have dropped the A-bomb on Berlin, but you can bet one or two German cities would have gotten the "first nuked" honors.
The Germans did have a very basic understanding of how to make an atomic bomb, but.........that is one area in which they lagged far behind the Americans.......I seem to recall reading a book about their program, and they were anywhere from 6 to 10 years away from producing a workable weapon.

Yup, the Germans had no shortage of ideas, but unless you can take that idea from the drawings on paper and make it a reality, a working weapon, what good is it?

[GScholz]

Originally posted by Cobra412
So was the launching of V2s on London pointless also because they didn't have the A-Bomb on them?

I really don't care if the Germans were the first to put ink on a piece of paper thinking this up. The fact remains they never used one so it really doesn't matter if they were the original designers or not. If you can't deploy it then it's nothing more then a huge paper weight. You can brag all day about how bright they were but even with their highly advanced technology they still lost.

You keep missing the point. The "German" bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[MiloMorai]

You keep missing the point. The "German" bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

German????

More like a sub-human Jewish bomb. The uber German Arayan race could not make THEE bomb but the sub-human Jews could.

[Kurfürst]

Originally posted by Cobra412
So was the launching of V2s on London pointless also because they didn't have the A-Bomb on them?

I wouldn`t say so. The V-2s were creating a huge panic in London, Chuchill lied for a while that all those explosions during the day were caused by accidents with the household gas systems... yeah, 20-40 house exploded into nothing because of this. Then he had to admit the enemy possess a weapon that they have absolutely no means of defense against. Public morale was such they even considered evacuating London - something they wouldn`t do in 1940... So I think even with a conventional warhead, the V-2s had unproportionally great effect on British morale. They could have outfitted them and the V-1s with other weapons of mass destruction, such as Tabun nerve gas, which would have devastating results, if the war goes ugly.

[GScholz]

Originally posted by MiloMorai
German????

More like a sub-human Jewish bomb. The uber German Arayan race could not make THEE bomb but the sub-human Jews could.

Correct

[BUG_EAF322]

did the morale dropped when those citys in germany where bombed.
i guess not the only downside on V2 is that it is not interceptable.

Call it panic but the allied warmachine didnt suffer a little bit.

V1s and V2 where the last chicken attempts to hit england.

They just lacked an airforce strong enough to bomb england.

Even if they had wonder weapons the USA would hit back with more numbers and better weapons. Why just because they could develop them quite in a  non attacked country.

Not to mention the feul problems and many more probs.

Oh and nice to tell Churchill had to lay down for a moment.

While that lunatic Hitler already digged himself into a Bunker.

[Kurfürst]

Thank you for your very intelligent contribution. We all learned much.

[BUG_EAF322]

1+1 = 2 not 5
i Hate ur totally tubular attitude