V2: The Nazi rocket that launched the space age

[Gerald]

This week marks the 70th anniversary of the first V2 rocket attack on London. As our space correspondent Richard Hollingham discovers, the legacy of the missile lives on in today’s spacecraft.

The beginnings of an arms race in outer space and the regular military forces.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2014...ace-age-rocket

Note: 8 September 2014

[Bilge_Rat]

interesting, currently reading "Wages of Destruction" on the WW2 Nazi economy (fascinating book btw).

Turns out the entire V2 program was aggressivily pushed by Speer as a political ploy to increase his control over the economy/arms production/Luftwaffe since the V2 was an "Army" program and therefore under his initial jurisdiction.

While technically interesting, the V2 Rocket program was prohibitively expensive and tied up valuable raw materials while contributing very little to the German war effort. Classic Boondoggle.

[Wolferz]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

interesting, currently reading "Wages of Destruction" on the WW2 Nazi economy (fascinating book btw).

Turns out the entire V2 program was aggressivily pushed by Speer as a political ploy to increase his control over the economy/arms production/Luftwaffe since the V2 was an "Army" program and therefore under his initial jurisdiction.

While technically interesting, the V2 Rocket program was prohibitively expensive and tied up valuable raw materials while contributing very little to the German war effort. Classic Boondoggle.

Not to mention, it was an indiscriminant weapon of terror like the buzz bomb. With no guidance system it was a fire and forget weapon of mediocre destruction. Hardly worth the expense.

[vanjast]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

Not to mention, it was an indiscriminant weapon of terror like the buzz bomb. With no guidance system it was a fire and forget weapon of mediocre destruction. Hardly worth the expense.

You are both wrong to the extreme, and are forgetting a more recent example in the Iraq Ver1 war... Scud missiles.

These, as the V1's and V2's, became priority targets that superseded everything else, and the expenses and manpower employed to counteract this threat ??

Ultimately against vastly superior forces the threat looks down scaled, but it you look at the production/effect costs.... it looks very good.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

Not to mention, it was an indiscriminant weapon of terror like the buzz bomb. With no guidance system it was a fire and forget weapon of mediocre destruction. Hardly worth the expense.

It did have a gyroscopic guidance system and the accuracy improved as it was used. I would not consider the deaths of 2,754 UK civilians and the injuring or 6,523 to be mediocre that is not even counting the deaths to military personal nor deaths at other target locations. If you compare a V2 to what a single bomber can do the V2 is about equal in accuracy and effect with the advantage of being much harder to defend against of course it cost more than a bomber. The only way it could truly have been a game changer during the war is if the Germans had developed an atomic bomb(not likely as a bomb that size was not developed until the mid 50's) or perhaps more likely a form of dirty bomb to arm it either of those would have caused serious losses. Or just popping into my head a chemical or biological weapon. Even then the war was lost for Germany.

I agree that it was expensive and the money and man power could have been used to better effect elsewhere. Of course in wars nations takes risks the US spent a huge sum on the Manhattan Project without even knowing if an atomic bomb was 100% achievable until July 1945 and the Trinity test it could have been all bust even the head folks took bets as to weather it would explode or be a fizzle or set the atmosphere on fire.

The V2 is more important as a stepping stone towards more advanced rockets and missiles had it not been developed the process would have easily been delayed 10 or 15 years perhaps more.

[Aktungbby]

WOLFERTZ: it was a fire and forget weapon of mediocre destruction. Hardly worth the expense

Beginning in September 1944, over 3,000 V-2s were launched by the German Wehrmacht against Allied targets during the war, mostly London and later Antwerp and Liège. According to a BBC documentary in 2011, the attacks resulted in the deaths of an estimated 9,000 civilians and military personnel, while 12,000 forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners were killed producing the weapons.
For the war the 8th AF lost about 2000 heavy bombers - each with a ten man crew. Not all were killed of course - some bailed out. For the entire war the 8th AF, out of two million men, had 27,000 killed.
RAF Bombing Sorties & Losses 1939–45 Sorties Losses Night: 7,449; Day: 876. After the war, the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey reviewed the available records in Germany, and concluded that official German statistics of casualties from air attack had been too low. The survey estimated that at a minimum 305,000 were killed in German cities due to bombing and estimated a minimum of 780,000 wounded. Roughly 7,500,000 German civilians were also rendered homeless. In addition to the minimum figure given in the Strategic bombing survey, the number of people killed by Allied bombing in Germany has been estimated at between 400,000 and 600,000 In the UK, 60,595 British were killed by German bombing and in France, 67,078 French were killed by US-UK bombing Belgrade was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe on 6 April 1941, when more than 17,000 people were killed. According to The Oxford companion to World War II, "After Italy's surrender the Allies kept up the bombing of the northern part occupied by the Germans and more than 50,000 Italians were killed in these raids." Thankyou Wikipedia:
Ballpark math: British and American bombers lost: 10,325! vs estimated civilian bombing raid fatalities of Germans, French, and Italians -not counting 'dehoused persons- 422,070+-; comes to 41 people killed per bomber lost. 9,000 casualties, not including 'dehoused people (and the 12,000 slave laborers killed making the weapon) from 3000 V-2's comes to 3 people killed per V-2, all of which were lost. Each V-2 cost 20 times more money to manufacture than a V-1, and yet their warheads were almost the same size.(1900 vs 2000 lbs.) The final V-2 attacks of the war occurred on March 27, 1945 -- one on Antwerp, which killed 27 people, and one on England, which seriously injured 23 and killed Ivy Mildred Millichamp, the last person to be killed in Britain by enemy action during World War II. If rule 1 of war is true: 'war must pay for itself', V-2's were mediocre at best and a total failure at worst-little return for investment IMHO...round one to Wolfertz.

[eddie]

Its war record aside, the V2 was the stepping stone to further rocket development by both sides. With von Braun in the States after the war, what was learned from the technology of the V2 would lead in the end, to rockets like the Atlas, Titan and finally the Saturn V.

[Mush Martin]

Originally Posted by eddie

Its war record aside, the V2 was the stepping stone to further rocket development by both sides. With von Braun in the States after the war, what was learned from the technology of the V2 would lead in the end, to rockets like the Atlas, Titan and finally the Saturn V.

Lets not forget the innerworkings that did lead to more,
the basic technology of the gyros evolved into classic
cold war inertial navigation systems.
(Note: a device still used heavily by submarine simulators
world wide, )
also the Graphite steering fins in the exhaust were the
progenitors of modern advanced carbon fiber composites.
Itself a remarkable enabling technology.
Further the principle of the fuel system ran through many generations
of liquid fueled rockets, and has landed several things on other planets
and brought a few things back to this one.

Mush

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by eddie

Its war record aside, the V2 was the stepping stone to further rocket development by both sides. With von Braun in the States after the war, what was learned from the technology of the V2 would lead in the end, to rockets like the Atlas, Titan and finally the Saturn V.

He was a criminal that should have been executed, but we needed him so he got a get out of jail free card. It really bothers me our space program has such large amounts of blood on it's hands.

[eddie]

So did the Russians. I'm not saying von Braun was innocent, far from it, but rather him in the States then in Russia.

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

He was a criminal that should have been executed, but we needed him so he got a get out of jail free card. It really bothers me our space program has such large amounts of blood on it's hands.

Well, there's the sad irony that our space program might have had more self-inflicted blood on our hands without von Braun. Almost all of those rockets that ignominously blew up on the pad in the early days of the space race were the non-von Braun models, such as the Thor, Atlas, Titan, Navaho, and the infamous Vanguard, which Eisenhower designated as the "civilian project' rocket that would get the US into space, satellite-wise.

On the other hand, von Braun's Redstone based Jupiter-C/Juno 1 vehicle rarely had problems. Even the Jupiter-based Juno II only had one failure attributable to its first stage, the others being due to the solid upper stages misfiring. Every one of the Saturns lifted off fine and performed within operational tolerances.

So, you have to give the devil his due. The man knew his rockets.

People often ask why von Braun didn't try to defect instead of going along with the Nazis and their atrocities.

He did, at the first possible occasion!

When the Allies were close enough, Wernher sent his brother secretly to contact the Allies and arrange for the rocket team to surrender at Oberammergau. In defiance of Nazi orders to destroy V-2 research, von Braun packed it up and trucked it across Germany to deliver to the Allies. Not the most ardent Nazi he. More of an opportunist.

Von Braun displayed a similar lack of loyalty to NASA. According to astronaut Ed Mitchell, once von Braun saw that NASA wasn't going to keep funding his vision, he left NASA and went to private industry.

[Buddahaid]

Opportunist is likely the best description since he certainly seized the opportunity to use slave labor to death to advance his ambitions. I doubt he cared a wit about who he worked for, or what means he used, to further them. He just chose what looked to be the best offer and gloated all the way to the bank.

[Mush Martin]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

He was a criminal that should have been executed, but we needed him so he got a get out of jail free card. It really bothers me our space program has such large amounts of blood on it's hands.

No one anywhere is any different, all humans no exceptions are opportunists,
really Von Braun lived his dream at any expense. Many do!.
Who is to say they are wrong history remembers them not us?
What is a war crime?.
What is a crime against humanity?

On balance, was Von Brauns contribution greater than his detriment?.


Mush!

[Dread Knot]

Personally, I think that no-one who has not lived in a dictatorship like the Nazi regime (so basically all of us) has no business condemning von Braun for his actions. To vilify him because when push came to shove he wasn't a martyr to our ideals and worked with a corrupt regime rather than risk getting shot or worse is a bit arrogant.

Along those lines, should we doubt that Leonardo da Vinci did the work he is credited with, or lessen the importance of that work, because he worked for Medici, who was basically a dictator (and for all I know a very nice one, but it wasn't a democracy) And what about the fact that a lot of da Vinci's time was spent on developing weapons? Weapons way ahead of their time...but in many ways so was the V-2.

Interestingly, Von Braun did have his run-ins with the Gestapo. He was arrested in March 1944 on order of Heinrich von Himmler. He was accused of treason and disruptiveness of the German Reich as well as undertaking preparation to flee to England. This would have normaly been punished with the death penalty. He was freed only because of the direct intervention by Albert Speer and Walter Robert Dornberger. Adolf Hitler himself personally ordered him set free because of his importance within the A4 project. Of course, that sense of self-importance in his younger years could also explain why American colleagues in his later career often found him "pompous and arrogant."

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Mush Martin

No one anywhere is any different, all humans no exceptions are opportunists,
really Von Braun lived his dream at any expense. Many do!.
Who is to say they are wrong history remembers them not us?
What is a war crime?.
What is a crime against humanity?

On balance, was Von Brauns contribution greater than his detriment?.


Mush!

I am not sure all that many people went to the extent that Von Braun did.Of course his goals where for space flight he got in bed with some nasty people. That being said it was the military not Von Braun that had the V2 made by slave labor. History should record all of the good and bad a person did.

Plenty of people pursue their dreams with out making the kinds of morale compromise that Von Braun did.