The V2 rocket was pointless, and here's why
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ก.ย. 2023
- In September 1944, Germany launched its brand-new wonder weapon for the first time - the V2. Designed to destroy Allied morale the so-called vengeance weapon was an awesome technological achievement. Hitler genuinely believed it could turn the war back in his favour. Instead, the first V2 crashed soon after liftoff - a preview of things to come.
The V2 was expensive, resource intensive and had little strategic value. Few weapons better exemplify Germanys fixation with the wonder weapon, a fictional magic bullet for a war they had already lost. In this video, IWM's Ian Kikuchi takes a closer look at the V2, how it worked, why it was built and what impact it had on the Second World War.
With grateful thanks to Eric Horne, for his kind donation, and to Colin Welch of Research Resource Archaeology, for his expertise and assistance.
Find out more about Hitler's vengeance weapons: www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-te...
Find out more about the V1 Flying Bomb: www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-v1...
View and licence the archive films used in this video here: film.iwmcollections.org.uk/my...
Follow IWM on social media:
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Facebook: / iwm.london
Attributions:
Wernher von Braun at Peenemünde. Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1978-Anh.023-02. CC-BY-SA 3.0. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Wernher von Braun at Peenemünde. Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1978-Anh.024-03. CC-BY-SA 3.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/...
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The V2 rocket was definitely not pointless, you only have to look at it to see it has a point.
Exactly, Maybe we watched a different vid :)
That is not the Point!
(Sitcom laughter)
Thank you Mario
given enough time and investment the rocket could’ve lead germany to get rocket machines such as the ones in the cold war much before the allies
Ba dum tss
It may have been overly expensive and ineffective as a weapon, but it was definitely useful for advancing rocket science.
Yeah and honestly it's design is sexy
Same can be said of the R-7. I've always thought von Braun and Korolev were some of the greatest con men/proposal writers in history for that.
As if Robert H. Goddard hadn’t figured it all out way before Braun
@@danielmolinar8669 He never shot a rocket into space. There is a lot of engineering, not just principles.
@@vast634 But his works were used for such, and if he wasn't antisocial and had the resources from the US and other teams, there would be no contest. Hell, his name was feared enough that the Nazis told Hitler had to focus on the V2 because they didn't know what he was cookin.
Aged 82, I am a survivor of a V2. November 22nd, 1944, just after 4 p.m.there was an almighty flash followed moments later by a huge bang. The window opposite me shattered and I got a cut on my knee. A V2 had come down a few hundred yards away killing five. We were fortunate in that our house was sheltered by the line of adjacent houses.
My mother lived in Chiswick. A V2 landed a few streets away. Germany's main mistake was targeting civilian areas.
@@peterinns5136 Same mistake a certain war-hungry lunatic is making today. If anything, he's making the attacked country more willing to fight back.
Please take advantage of modern technology and record your life's experiences for your family. Future generations will appreciate it very much. 😊
@@peterinns5136What degree of accuracy do you think they could achieve?
@@Coltnz1 Nothing special. But Hitler attacked civilian areas in retribution for the bombing of German cities. He could, and should have attacked military targets. He could have attacked ports and military bases. Putin is making the same mistake in Ukraine.
Reminder that the V2 only killed 6,000 people, but the production of V2s caused the deaths of 9,000 (mostly enslaved) workers. I really don’t know of any other weapon that killed more of the people manufacturing it than people it targeted.
Very good point.
The first successful use of a submarine in combat, during the American civil war, killed more confederate soldiers than union both because the entire crew died because it was a suicide attack, and because the previous two attempts to make a working submarine failed at the loss of all crew. That would be second instance of a weapon that killed more people in the design and use of the weapon than it killed
@@Ryno-hf9tj true, I’d forgotten about the hunley when writing this
They died from allied bombers and from cramped living quarters to protect from bombers. Probably a lot of weapons made by germany would qualify as killing more of the makers in that sense. But weapons don''t have killing people as a goal but winning or extending the war. V2 was not going to win it but it did extend it and was cheap to make just not to develop, And with guidance technology that was fast developing it would be many times more effective.
To be fair to the V2, I'm pretty sure there'd still be 9,000 deaths if the nazis had forced them to make spoons.
There's also one more thing to remember when we talk about V-2 and its influence on the German war effort: its fuel was ethanol-water mixture, and that ethanol was made just like vodka is made: by fermenting potatos.
So, basically, they turned tons and tons od food into rocket fuel, in a situation when that food wasn't really abundant in the first place. A single launch required about 30 tonnes of potatos turnet into alcohol; Germans launched 3,225 V-2 rockets, you can do the math.
How often did the fuel get stolen for use as drinking alcohol by bored soldiers? I know the U.S. sometimes had that problem with ethanol-fueled torpedos in the pacific theatre
The Russian air force's ground crew used to drink the alcohol coolant used in the MiG 25, and it got the nickname "the Flying Restaurant"
hear me out ..."The Flying Potato"
@@drewgehringer7813interesting i guess covered up for morale reasons and as we won it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things
Fermented potatoes was one source of ethanol but it was also easy to make the ethanol in the synthetic coal to oil plants. Rather easy in fact. So this is pretty much a myth. Fischer-Tospch started with catalysts that made alcohols. Low grade potatoes were used.
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
Do you think that is the reason why Germany dwarfs Britain's economy nowadays in a way that Kaiser and Führer could only dream about? lol I wonder who committed the biggest mistakes in hindsight.
One problem with the V2 was it hit the ground and buried itself before it exploded, most of the blast went upwards and was wasted. They needed a proximity fuse similar to what the Americans had developed for their anti aircraft shells. A ton of explosive detonated 100 feet or so above ground level would have devastated a much wider area.
They didn't even need a proximity fuse either - a barometric one could have had the rocket detonating above the ground, although not with great precision.
@@nigeldepledge3790 Or a fuse on a 5' stick on the nose - daisy cutter, baby!
Hackney in London has maps of bomb damage in WWII. V1 and V2 impacts are denoted by circles; the V1 circles are a lot larger than the V2 circles. (Hackney Libraries)
The Atomic Bomb was detonated above the ground to cause massive damage.
The Proximity Fuse was a BRITISH invention and handed to the US as a sweetener to persuade them to enter WW2. It trundled over the Atlantic along with our Nuclear research and centimetric radar.
My dad returned to London in 1943 when he had turned 16. He got a job as a copy taker with the London Evening News. It was the start of a long career in newspapers. He'd been in this menial job for about ten months when the paper's Editor called him in to his office one afternoon in September 1944 and told him that there were reports of a large explosion in Chiswick. No air raid alert had been given however so it was all a bit mysterious. No senior journalists were available in the office at that exact time so my dad was told to get on a bus and go to west London and see what he could find out.
He arrived in Chiswick to find that a huge explosion had caused a deep crater and that the Police and ARP were mystified about what had caused it.
My dad wrote all this down, returned to the paper's office and got told to write it all into a story for the next edition. It was his first ever published story and the first report of a V2 strike in the UK.
As a wonder weapon it was a disaster. However it was America’s first step to the moon
And ICBM's
@@CathodeRayNipplez If the Germans has a Atomic Bomb, but in other case, is only a High Explosive shell
@@uranus.tlatoaniICBM just refers to the delivery system, as in intercontinental ballistic missile. ICBMs don’t necessarily have to be carrying a nuclear warhead. That’s what they would almost certainly be carrying however. Otherwise it wouldn’t be “worth it” to the country of its origin.
Another clueless netizen. It was such a "disaster" weapon that there was no defence against it and the entire world wanted to know how it worked and how they were made.
More on.
No it wasn’t a disaster. Barely ten years later it WAS the basis of defence for the west and Russia. That’s hardly a disaster. And it was that due to German development.
My father was from Bristol, and was either there or in the London area throughout the war. He said that the V-2 was the worst: no warning, and a city block blew up....
Imagine carrying a tiny piece of a German rocket around in your face for 80 years or so and not even knowing it...
That blew me away. (pun not intended)
Garbage to add to the total fraud it all is
You know those British with their “stiff upper lip”.
Great overview of the V2 and I'm glad you mentioned the production cost, both human and monetary vs its effectiveness as a weapon.
A story I had read about the development. The rocket kept breaking up on descent. The engineers wanted to see it and decided to aim for an open field and stand directly at the target location thinking “we’re not that accurate “.
That day they were and the rocket came down just over 100 meters from the engineers nearly killing them.
I thought that story amusing.
The observer was von Braun himself. From that observation additional heat shielding was added to the fuel and oxidizer tank.
It was his team right?
@@wcg19891 von Braun put his own life at risk. He was very charismatic and had fantastic leadership qualities. They got rid of the Germans after Apollo. They ran things very well and their communication and engineering style would have avoided a challenger style disaster.
I worked at Marshall space flight center in the late 80s. Some of the old guys there knew the German engineers and had met von Braun. One story that a tech told me was that von Braun was walking the labs and came up behind him. He casually asked him why he was bolting the plate one or two turns on each bolt moving from one to another. The tech was impressed. I know that center directors don’t now just walk through the labs without an entourage.
" 'Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down ?
That's not my department' , says Wehrner von Braun "
Well, maybe that day, he gave it a bit of thought.......
Several decades ago, I spoke to several people who lived through WW2 in East London. The general opinion was that the shift of impact to the East was not to 'less populated areas', but to predominantly working class areas, rather than the expensive and fashionable West London. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the opinions, but they seemed widespread.
The elites in West London did not live near the factories and shops which produced the supplies needed for the war effort. Nor did they need the port facilities to dock their yachts. But perhaps the Nazis wished to spare the nice real estate and places like Harrods to enjoy after they had conquered the country??-or not....
that's probably because the "rich" were donating to Hitler ... Just like some "rich" Americans - Ford and a bunch of bankers, who thought the Nazis could actually win.
Sadly typical of this badly effed-up world.
From the timespan of the first V-1 to the last V-2
Every single week the Allies delivered more tons of explosives than the V- weapons did in total.
Good point. The V2 was really just desperation by the Germans
And even today, both Germans and British EOD technicians get calls to disarm bombs unearthed by construction crews. Far too frequently, unsuccessfully, killing the EOD team.
Precisely! A single Lancaster carried approximately three tons of bombs to Germany - and by 1944, Harris was sending 500 of them to a single target, so 1500 tons of bombs per raid. The V2 delivered one ton, with similar accuracy.
@@dafyddllewellyn6636 not really, the Lancaster was more accurate, as it was piloted and guided toward the target. The V2 had a crude INS guidance, which was largely dead reckoning, with only a gyrocompass for guidance, so could be miles off in its CEP.
Of course, the Nagasaki device detonated 3 miles off target as well, thanks to the Norden bombsight.
@@spvillanoThat's not actually true. One EOD team was killed in Germany recently. One team. Singular. There has not been a single EOD death in Britain in this century caused by WW2 munitions.
kindly note that the V2 was not called in Germany a Wunderwaffe (wonder weapon) as stated at the beginning of the video. It is called a venging weapon. (vergeltungswaffe).
Awesome
3:57
With grateful thanks to Eric Horne, for his kind donation, and to Colin Welch of Research Resource Archaeology, for his expertise and assistance.
Just in case anyone else was curious about the credits that were quickly covered up by a thumbnail.
When the editor and your digital media staff don't talk to each other
I thought that it was a bit rude to be covering up a thank you acknowledgement.
@@markfryer9880 they didn't cover it up?
30 minutes from Calais ( so technically speaking only two hours drive from London ) is the biggest bunker in the world (wwii). This bunker is still intact and was used as a V2 assembly and refuelling plant as well as a fuel factory. The bunker is so big that the V2 could be erected in the bunker and than wheeled out to be launched.
You can still go in to the bunker where you still find a V2 ready to be launched it looks. The bunker and museum are called Blockhaus. It’s 20 minutes from Le coupole which also has to be seen. One hour from London. Go and see!
Thanks
30 mins drive london to a channel port ? 😂
V-1 was cheap bomb delivery. V-2 was expensive bomb delivery.
Against the V1 there is a defence, against the V2 there is no defence.
nice!
But a bargain for the US.
I wonder if they were when you consider that considerable concrete infrastructure required to launch them which was easily seen and destroyed by bombing from aeroplanes
Cheers
As usual cost and value
@@vernepavreal7296 BoB Nazis lost 10% of bombers (lose AV gas and Aluminum). V1 was wood and steel running on kerosene. Launcher is catapult or an airplane. There have been amateur pulse jet planes that take off themselves. V-1 self takeoff requires guidance, wheels. V-1
Thumbnail : 'Pointless Wonder Weapon'
The V2: *is pointy at the top*
🤣
At least it prevented the chief scientists from being executed by their dictator.
The main failure of the the V2 was too little too late. Yes it was optimistic to think it could change the war at this late stage but by then with the Allies advancing on all fronts, the decimated Luftwaffe running out of fuel and the U-boat campaign contained, Germany had no other way to hit back. They were devastating weapons - my grandmother was fatally injured by the blast of one that fell 2 streets away. My father was convinced that only the knowledge that the end was in sight got Londoners through.
I suspect that the wanton destruction of Dresden was revenge for Nazi bombing of London. Trump supporters should take a lesson from Germany electing a boastful narcissist.
If they had started with the V2 it still wouldn't have made a big difference; it was an effectively untargetable weapon that was just pointed at civilian centers because those targets were big enough that despite being hugely inaccurate (50% within 4.5km, 100% within 18km is not a useful weapon) they'd still probably hit something. But... blind terror bombing like that has never been shown to be an effective tactic.
The V2 killed on average two people per rocket - it wasn't "too little too late", it helped speed the collapse of the Nazis because it was a wasteful use of resources.
as already stated, it never would have made a real difference in WW2. Germany lost WW2 on Dec 11, 1941.
I believe the V-2 was more "too much, too soon". The V-2 took resources away from Nazi Germany that could have been better spent somewhere else such as the Luftwaffe's fighter force. Nevertheless, the V-2 was a technological marvel that provided the first steps for the Space Age.
I don't think NASA agrees the V2 was a mistake.
@CathodeRayNipplez
My point of view, exactly !
As a scientist, I think about half of NASA is a mistake.
The US was very appreciative of Germany's efforts in WW2, both in shortening the war through wasted effort, and for the free research and development.
It was worth of for the reford of first in space alone
But it was built to help Germany win the war. It did n't
To be fair, there had never been a long-range hypersonic ballistic missile before V2, so nobody could have known whether or not it would be a worthwhile weapon until it was actually used in combat. It would have been considered a risk well worth taking in the absence of having any other means of striking at an enemy's homeland. Not a "huge mistake" at all, as proven by the race that immediately ensued by the victors to exploit it for their own purposes.
In terms of "wunderwaffen" The V2 is probably one of the only ones that was actually worthwhile its effort. Not for the war effort of course, but for engineering as whole.
It's not some stupid fighter model solely coming out of deperation or a multistaged cannon or a Tank that can't even cross a bridge because it's so heavy.
It's really just a proper ICBM. The first one.
It would have been far more cost effective to have built heavy bombers in large numbers.
If you say so Wehraboo.
@@alanjm1234Heavy bombers guided by an early form of GPS. Wanting a rocket right now is no use if its effectively a dumb weapon. Of course there is also the fact that the Nazi atomic weapons program was a failure. Which is what happens when you force all your scientists to flee their home. Making the V2 useless.
In fact, it was "obvious" that the V-2 could not significantly affect the outcome of the war. Even if the V-2 worked "perfectly", it would only damage British morale. By late 1944, Germany's enemies were the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., who could cae less how the Brits were suffering. And, no matter how unhappy the Brits were, Churchill had to see the war through or let Rossevelt/Truman and Stalin divide up the world between them.
I used to enjoy visiting the IWM on my lunch break as I worked up by the South Bank University. That was in the early 2000's. I lived out past Lewisham for a spell too and remembered talking to some of the OAP's who were living there when that V2 landed, there are a series of markers laid out around the blast zone denoting just how big of an area was demolished by the blast, its sobering to consider.
The RC convent and church at Dockhead in Bermondsey were wiped out in March 1945. It was a month after the [now-demonised] raid on Dresden.
People died in both places and it was just a matter of numbers by that stage, but modern sensibilities conveniently forget such reality.
I remember being told that V2 combustion chambers ended up being used as garden planters in the east end of London. They had clearly survived being blown clear when the warhead detonated at 100 metres.
Very good video. I´m pleasantly surprised that you talked about Antwerp. English language media usually only mention London.
What a powerful, emotive story, Eric carried with him….
There's no doubt that most of these projects were more of a hindrance than a help in winning the war. I would draw the line at things like the Me 262 and the StG44 which could've made a larger impact if they had been introduced a bit earlier. Neither were particularly expensive compared to contemporary tech - the StG was all metal stampings for the most part and the 262's engines were actually less complex and cheaper and easier to produce than a contemporary piston engine.
However: It still strikes me as remarkable that lots of the types of "wonder weapons" that were either in development or saw actual service during the war are still in use today. Like SAMs ("Wasserfall"), ICBMs/medium-range ballistic missiles (V-2), Cruise Missiles (V-1), all-wing design aircraft (Ho-229) or guided munitions (X-4 A2A missile among others).
I wonder should the Germans have our a disposable jet engine in missiles fired at England.
Hard to make a jet that ran for hundred hours.
Easier to make one that ran for an hour. Especially if it never had to cool down
The irony of that was that the ME 262 could have been mass produced and ready a whole years sooner and been effective in turning the air war (at least for a time) but the reason that the jets were not developed faster was that the Germans were still building Stukas simply because "Hitler liked them" as terror weapons.
Yet here we are in the 21st century and everyone has guided missiles - automatic rifles and jet engines. Saying it’s pointless sort of misses the point - if it was such a bad idea why did we take them and reverse engineer them or make something better based on those early concepts.
@@xmasinpacific it’s really more like Germany didn’t get to the point, while post-war powers certainly did.
The big leap forward of the A-4 (or V-2) was in scale. At the time, it was the largest liquid-fuelled rocket to have ever been launched. This was mostly made possible by the development of the turbo-pump, which is still the heart of any modern liquid-fuelled rocket.
Interestingly, one of the developments in which the V-2 project had a hand was metallurgy. Each V-2 used 32 different types of steel. When the Soviet Union took captured German scientists and rocket parts back home after the war, one of their first challenges was to replicate the rocket using a more limited range of materials. In the immediate post-war period, the USSR produced only 20 different types of steel.
My German husband's father always used to say, "Why did the Americans get to the moon before the Soviets? Because they took the better Germans." Operation Paperclip stuff. War always drives innovation. The real tragedy here is the Shoah.
Those German scientists knew they would have a better life in the USA than in the USSR.
the Germans also fled to the US, and avoided the Soviet Union. And even Russians fled Russia for the US (e.g. Sikorsky).
Yet the Soviets beat us to space with their Germans
@@tomhenry897Well, they were a bit more risk friendly sending a human in space with a good chance of not getting him back in one piece. To the moon, America was lucky the Soviets had a few technical mishaps with their moon rocket. In general it's fair to say US and USSR were quite on par for space travel well until the end of the Cold War and German know-how was boosting both in the beginning.
@@tomhenry897 The Russian spacecraft were really iffy. Just read about it some time. Cutting corners really saves time.
Fantastic video as usual. Well presented, good detail, and nice clips to show what you're talking about. 😀
Solid video with keen detail about the origins of this rocket and its impact on the war (little) and on the future of rocketry (immense).
As a weapon of terror I personally think the V1 was more terrifying as the sound told everyone that something bad was about to happen. The V2 was so fast there was no lead up, just a sudden explosion. I live in a small area of London and we had 42 of these "wonder weapons" land in our neighbourhood. With each explosion, a street of houses would be left in rubble. My own home had to be totally rebuilt after a V2 landed up the road. Still, without them, we wouldn't have landed on the moon etc.
Odd that I never heard of that capacitor fragment until today, as I tend to track such things. Thanks for that information!
The more conventional bombs of WWII are still killing people on occasion today, either construction crews or if the infernal thing didn't blow, responding EOD teams.
And even today, farmers pile up unexploded WWI shells for collection by EOD teams.
Fantastic video, absolutely perfect length and level of detail!
Best production I've seen for a while. Thank you.
Outstanding presentation. Informative and well-balanced. Thank you for your hard work on this project.
The story about the V-2 fragment is beyond fascinating. Thank you for sharing!
Regarding the V-2 itself: it's crazy how apparently the Germans did not think much about the costs or weapon efficiency. Sure it was an impressive program, but all in all it was a fancy toy that could be used in a very limited numbers, with no way to upscale the production to the point where it could have made a real impact.
What is - IMO - perhaps even more crazy is the fact that the V-1, on the other hand, was very cost effective and while it could be intercepted it required quite a lot of resources to achieve just that.
I'm always excited to see a new video from you guys ..very good content 💯
Great vid as always.
I think Von Braun had higher ambitions and V2 was a means to get his work funded and supported. Eventually it was the US that funded and supported him.
Thats his take on it too, read "rocket man". Jewish labour was the blemish on his record.
@@mrwolsy3696 The majority of impressed labor was not Jewish. It's best to remember that. von Braun worked mainly on the Island O Penemunde which had a 100% German population and workforce for security reasons.
@@mrwolsy3696 Why was it a blemish?
@@mrwolsy3696 Most of the labor slaves forced to work in the V2 project weren't jewish. They were interred for all sorts of racist reasons.
I remember reading that for each V-2 made, Germany used enough resources to produce 3.5 fighter planes. Given that 6,000 were made, that's 20,000 aircraft. Whether Germany had the fuel for them is another story however. Some sources noted that the total cost of the v-weapons program approached the cost of the Manhattan project. Considering that only about 3,000 hit targets, with one ton of explosives each, all that effort and money delivered the same amount of high explosives as a large late-war allied bombing mission. Interestingly enough, the V-1 was probably the more cost-effective weapon. The V-2 could not be stopped so no anti-aircraft defenses were put in place to defend against it (suspected V-2 sites were bombed but they were hard to find). Over 250,000 people were used for air defenses against the V-1 however, which could be shot down.
Fantastic videos as always learn something new.
Excellent video, well done.
This was a good and informative video. However, it was difficult to read the dedication at the end because of the video options. Perhaps, I need to change my settings, but would it be possible to cut the video a little longer?
I knew about the V2 attacks on London, but had no idea about Paris and Antwerp. Thanks.
Thank you for posting.
Hi IWM. Love your work 👍
'Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down, that's not my department, says Werner Von Braun' - Tom Lehrer
Interestingly, when you think about all of the resources which were diverted away from things which could have helped Germany win the war, WVB did the allies a huge favor.
O I remember the song well. Xx
@@rockets4kidsI believe he is making a cultural joke. Tom lehrer was a satirical musician and physicist. He is the source of the elements song.
In Huntsville, Alabama there's the von Braun auditorium. In the late 90s The Moody Blues were to play there. The members being born during ww2 on the receiving end of von Braun's devices. Seemed a weird convergence.
And a couple German restaurants with the really angled roofs in "German" stylings IIRC.
First Rate Content. Technological progress in the social and historical context. Something often lacking on TH-cam. Well done.
The dubious strategic value of the Vengeance weapons is seen in the British appellation for the V1: doodlebugs. Nuisances and occasional sources of grief, they were still a miserable failure in delivering "vengeance."
We must never forget the appalling human cost of the V2: 20,000 slave labourers worked to death.
🙏
If you watched the video you would see it was spoken about.
I didn't suggest that it wasn't. I was reiterating an extremely important point, which I personally feel is worth dwelling on.
@@Mr-fe5ng
20,000?? It was 50,000. Stop disrespecting the 2 millions slave labourers that died.
America didn't forget; they just didn't care, other than grabbing ever Nazi rocket scientist they could.
Technically informative without sacrificing empathy or human experience. Very well done video.
It's the "lucky punch" syndrome. When you are being battered try anything, a head butt, a bitten ear, a kick in the nuts. One in a thousand it will work. This was just one of those 999 efforts...
The V2 descended vertically at supersonic velocity and usually took out a single house in a London street.
A good weapon for excavating a deep hole.
If you enjoyed this video, and would like a detailed first-hand account of the backstory from the point of view of British intelligence, go and read “Most Secret War” by the late R. V. Jones. His account of how the Allies learned of both V1 and V2 - and our efforts to disrupt and counter them - add a lot of extra detail to this story.
I read many years ago, that the plan was to deliver a nuclear warhead on the V2 but the allies destroyed the capabilities and materials sources required to make a nuclear device. In this scenario the V2 makes perfect sense. If Germany had done this, it would have indeed ended the war
The Germans were never actually near creating a nuclear device. Yes the allies hampered their efforts by destroying the heavy water which the Germans were going to use as an nuclear reactor moderator, but in reality the Germans were going down the wrong route (partly due to some bad calculations and assumptions) and their atomic programme was fractured and disorganised. Of course it also didn't help that they persecuted the very atomic physicists that they needed to develop an atomic bomb.
The Manhattan Project was driven originally by the fear of a German atomic bomb, but ironically in retrospect that fear was discovered to be unfounded.
Thank You for posting this interesting and informative film
Channelling the late Tom Lehrer: "Vonce ze rockets are up, who cares vere zey come down, Zat not is my department, says Werner von Braun"
Fascinating story about Eric Horne, what an amazing find!
Correction @4:45: The A4 reached an altitude of 176 kilometers, or 109 miles. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MW_18014
It was brilliant. The resources wasted on this weapon helped shorten the war.
On the other hand had it been on time it would have greatly complicated the war for the allies. The V2 used the interim LEV-3 guidance system which gave an accuracy in German tests of CEP 4.5km. The SG-66 guidance system was test flying at wars end to reduce this to only CEP 500m and the vollzirkel beam riding system 300m.
If you bring forward the V2 to the original plan of 1943 the ability to drop 1000 missiles into a circle diameter 500m/ month would be devastating. The winged long range A4b was to be radar guided to within 80m cross range and 20m range.
So it could have been a deadly weapon. It needed maybe 6 months to achieve this level of accuracy given the SG-66 was flight testing at wars end.
Had the Germans developed the nuclear warhead they were working on it would have been a very different story, I don’t think they spent all those resources on the V2 just to deliver a few tonnes of explosive on London etc but with a nuclear warhead could have been a war winner !
@@AJ-qn6gd nope the V2 was incapable of lifting a nuclear warhead
@@RawbLV The Germans were working on much smaller nuclear warheads than the American weapons that were dropped on Japan and may have actually detonated a prototype in the final weeks of the war. It would make sense to jointly develop the bomb and its delivery system in tandem as one without the other is pretty useless.
I just realized: Werner von Braun was a very young man, barely in his twenties when he began Germany's rocket program and only in his fifties when he developed the Saturn rocket. A true wunderkind, to coin a phrase.
Excellent documentary that contradicts its inaccurate title. The V2 was developed as a last ditch attempt to reverse the course of the war. It wasn't a mistake, it was desperation.
Yummy mini documentary, small and satisfying
I worked on Pershing II missiles in the US Army and it's amazing to me how similar the V2's design was to the Pershing.
Pershings, I and II, were both solid fuel. Exterior does look somewhat similar.
By outer shape, basically all rockets look the same.
7:25 *We Lived next to Mr & Mrs Duesenberg who when asked said if a V1 has your name on it you've had it - Never felt safe after that !*
The enthusiasm with which the Germans approached all things technological in those days was really something- a 1920's German flapper girl helping launch a rocket on the beach! (Not to mention the guy on skates with a rocket pack on his back). The freedom to do these things is precious.
The V-2 could carry a 1 ton warhead. A B-17's standard bomb load was 4 tons, and a Lancaster could carry up to 6 tons. The Germans had a choice of developing the V-2 or putting their efforts into developing SAM missiles that with infrared guidance could have knocked those allied bombers out of the sky, day or night. But Hitler preferred offence to defense so they concentrated on the V-2.
Neither bomber carried these sorts of loads except in rare cases. About 4000lbs for the B-17 and 8000lbs for the Lancaster. The B-17 flying much higher out of reach of the 8.8cm FLAK 37 with far more Armour and armament. Both those bombers needed 7-10 crew members, enormous airfields, expensive training facilitates and years to train pilots..
@@williamzk9083 And don't forget, zillions of gallons of high octane aviation fuel, that only the US with it's immense crude oil production and refinery capacity could deliver, at that time.
Radar guidance probably would have been easier to develop in that time.
B-17 standard load was 2 tons for a typical mission over Germany in WW2. That's a very well-know fact. The Lancaster had a much great load however.
@@alkers372 Put the same Armour and armament and levels of redundancy on the Lancaster and try and make it fly as high and as fast and the Lancaster can't do it. Maybe with Merlin 66 engines.
As far as launch crews were concerned, the V2 had the big advantage of mobile launches. It could be launched within a city, afterwards the crew could leave the area. On the other hand, The V1 launching sites could be detected by their launching ramps which the Allies became very good identifying in aerial reconnaissance photos then sending a fleet of bombers to plaster those sites.
The downside is that it took a minimum of an hour to prep a V2 for launch. They couldn't move it with its tanks full of propellant, so it had to be set up for launch, then fuelled, and then launched.
Agreed.Also the platform and rocket had to be perfectly level.
But if they launched from a city in Belgium,France or the Netherlands their launch site was unlikely to be carpet-bombed.
No V2 launch site was ever detected or interrupted. It was very cost effective compared to having an airfield and airfield defenses.
@@williamzk9083 No they just bombed the factory.
Good docu, nice footage.
Hitler in his warped thinking thought its "diameter" was impressive. He thought it was the "biggest caliber". Well its bigger than a shell from a battleship and bigger than a torpedo, but that does not mean much. It lands many miles away where it cannot be directly seen. The chance of errors is great. It has little purpose or accuracy.
Had the warhead been filled with Germany's stockpiles of Tabun or Sarin it could have been an immense success as a strategic weapon. However the high explosive warhead rendered it just as a costly nuisance .
Exactly. They had no balls to put Tabun in it.
Von Braun’s biography is not what you might expect
Thank you. Great video.
IIRC, most of the V2s were directed at the Belgian port of Antwerp. I don't think he mentioned that.
If anything the German high command were consistent in their adherence to doctrine, no matter how much territory they lost.
Just enjoying the Comment section before the Wehraboos show up
🤣👍
Many thanks for correctly pronouncing von Braun's name. In the US, even the German company, Braun, gave up and started mispronouncing its own name as something like "brawn."
A "correct" pronunciation depends on where you are and who you are with. Nothing wrong with "Brawn" in the US. Do you say Vienna or "Wien"? Cologne or Koeln? Loss Anjeles or Los Anheles? I lived in Germany for a number of years and my last name as pronounced in English is nearly impossible to reproduce for most Germans. Guess what? I adapted and would introduce myself using the most common German pronunciation of that collection of letters. I never corrected anyone unless they specifically asked how to pronounce my name in English.
Great video...👍
It cost about the same as the manhattan project. that is amazing and sums it very well.
And the US got it for free (sort of).
I read somewhere that the B29 bomber (the plane that delivered the A bomb) cost more to develop than the A bomb itself.
@@philiphumphrey1548 it did, and the development of the B-29 also began before the US entry into WW2, way back in 1939, with the first design being ready on paper in 1940 and first prototype flying in 1942.
It had things like advanced fire control computers for remote turrets. these turrets were so good that gunners could shoot down fighters at longer ranges than the fighters could shoot down bombers, and B-29 gunners scored a higher kill ratio than even aircraft like the P-51.
Also true. I had the pleasure of being in a B-29. There is one that still flies and goes on tour in the U.S. I believe it was $1500 for a ride in it, but that was out of my budget.@@philiphumphrey1548
It was a masterpiece and caused panic because it could not be heard arriving unlike the V1 - it was unstoppable.
Shortly after WW1, von Braun had joined a private rocket society that rented space from an abandoned airfield to make small chemical rockets. Even then they dreamed of taking rockets to the moon. What is funny is how primitive they were. To measure thrust they would turn one upside down on a stand with a scale. Then some guy would literally get close to the rocket with a rag on fire and throw it on the nozzle that was spewing out fuel/air vapor.
The German army took notice and offered von Braun support.
So from a young age von Braun started developing basically toy rockets and finally the incredible Saturn V.
That’s what I call an amazing career for an engineer.
My uncle Ken was in charge of building advanced landing grounds for the Canadian army on its march through Belgium. He had an interesting encounter with a V2. It came down very close to his jeep, but fortunately it came down in a marsh. So instead of going "Boom", it went "Sloop"! A close call.
By itself it may have been insignificant, but if Germany had a successful nuclear weapons program, then in combination it would have been massively relevant
2 The first V2's produced took 16,000 man hours to build each but it was expected that at about 12000 the cost would be down to 4000 hours each. That means a Work force of 100 could produce 1 per week and a work force of 10,000 about 400/week or 1600 month. That amount of warheads hammering British cities would be devastating as the accuracy was expected to increase from 4.5km CEP to 500m.
3 Because the V2 went into production earlier than intended and before accurate and advanced guidance systems were ready it was to be used as 'reprisal weapon' to act as a counter terror to RAF "Area Bombardment" of German cities. Politically idea being to so damage British cities that enough negotiating leverage that a mutual end to city bombing could be negotiated.
4 The V2 was put into production earlier than von Braun wanted as he had promised 1 mil accuracy (about 300m error at 300km range). The Interim LEV-3 guidance system using a single accelerometer along the thrust had an error of about 4.5km. This could be reduced by 10% in range by a Doppler speed measuring system and 50% in cross-range by a 2D beam system during boost phase. The far more accurate SG-66 inertial guidance system with 3 gyros and 2 accelerometers was to have gotten the error down to 500m CEP. Another beam riding system called vollzirkel used 9cm beam riding radar was expected to have a dispersion of only 300m. Both systems were in the flight testing stage..
5 The winged V2 called the A4b was test flown twice with one quite successful. Apart from extending range to nearly 600km its accuracy was planed to be 80m at 600km using the Wasserpiegel system. The missile was guided near reentry using a giant radar.
All up the V2 was on track to be a cost effective weapons system that was much cheaper than maintaining air field and air superiority.
@@williamzk9083 Not to mention that as the programmes developed, smaller, more mobile and accurate weapons systems may have resulted for tactical and even battlefield use.
It is all too easy, with the benefit of hindsight, to dismiss the programmes as expensive white elephants. I'm with you - the potential was there and they were on the right track, but there simply wasn't the time nor resources to fully realise it.
@@robertstallard7836 I think there was preliminary work on beam riding guidance for the Rheinbote (Rhine Messenger, or V4) a 4 stage missile with 160km range with a 50kg warhead. This stage as we used if the full range wasn’t required. In any case, the guidance system is developed for surface to air missiles evidently lead to cost-effective precision guidance. In general, the idea was to mass produce these missiles and then refine their precision latter
The v2 had a more psychological effect than a destructive as people didn't know they were coming and couldn't initially do anything to stop them.
I was in London at the time on the receiving end of V2 rockets, there was never any warning, the first you knew was when the V2 dropped though the cloud, and you only had seconds to spare of the impending explosion.
Very interesting video. Well presented.
I was told that if he just gave the V2 to the army it would of been very useful, to target fortifications, trenches, armored vehicle convoys and bridges etc. Could really win a battle or break a stalemate with a handful of those. But Hitler himself insisted it was to be used in their bombing of England campaign instead. By this stage it was just too late anyway, they were surrounded and had lost many of their good troops.
... it would have* been. "Would of" does not make any sense, even less so to put it in writing.
The V2 was way to overpowered and unprecise to hit specific targets. At that stage it was only usable as a ballistic missile into a general region ... and a platform to develop space flight.
Von Brown and alot of the German rocket scientists were fan boys of Robert Goodard's rocketry work.
It's not pointless, if it developed before entering the war, we screwed. It's just like other wonder weapons, too little too late. But not pointless.
Yes, it was pointless to put all that effort into a weapon that is so new that would always have a very limited effect.
Hitler should have put the time into fighting a war rather than playing with toys. If you need to play with time lines to justify something then something is wrong.
If it had been developed before the war Germany would have been beaten sooner. It took an enormous amount of resources, had a very limited range and delivered a tiny payload at random places because it couldn't be aimed accurately.
@@Poliss95 in just short amount of time and very limited resources they did it, the V2 can reach London or any UK cities albeit it's a random target but a target nontheless, the main purpose of it demoralized UK citizens for entering the war. Don't forget in earlier stages of war German had an agreement with Soviet for raw materials. Imagine V2 launched in 1941 or ME-262 we (or allied to be precise ) didn't have any weapons to contest it.
Excellent bite sized documentary!
An interesting side note is how the final launch of the V-2, at least in terms of variants and rockets that are directly derived from the V-2 like the Russian R-2 rocket or similar American designs like the Redstone rocket was surprisingly in the 1975 with the launch of the Apollo spacecraft used in the Apollo-Soyuz mission on the Saturn IB rocket. The first stage of that rocket was essentially seven V-2 rockets and the engines strapped together and the other stages on top including an Apollo spacecraft with three people.
Any effort, big or small, that helped the Allies to win World War 2, is not a mistake.
Unfortunately, that Person (He who shall not be named) was his own worst enemy, cause death/misery?hardship for many people.
Silver lining to V2 project, allow Human to get to space, giving us GPS. and now Starlink (internet access).
Lets try to co-exist together. Remember that Democracy and the way of life we have today, was earned through blood sweat and tears.
Voldemort?
Well said sir.
Westerners try not to make Hitler a religion challenge
yeah, huge mistake...that's why all the scientists were scooped up and pardoned by the allied forces
Big ups to the homie Von Braun. He did a good job on these.
Von Braun was a war criminal. He should have spent the rest of his life in jail, not being feted by the USA.
NASA agrees with your comment.
Excellent history lesson, thabnk you.
The V2 was much too expensive for what It was Intended to do. It needed to deliver a very high level of destruction conventional weapons just were not capable of delivering. Had they delivered atomic warheads it’s a very different story.
Even if they did have a nuclear weapon, the state of nuclear weaons in 1945 menat that it did not have the payload caacity to carry one - they weighed multiple tons.
@@profpepexactly.
The first atomic bombs were so big even the B29 had to be modified to fit them.
@@profpep Some theories suggest that the missile slamming into the ground was fast enough to assemble the critical mass without the complexity of a gun type system,
The A4/V2 was no mistake, not even a huge, but a big step toward Space.
It actually reached space in 1944 already, reaching a 170 km height. Just not an orbit, wich takes a lot more energy.
This is one of the most outstandingly presented subjects I've come across on TH-cam. Very well done! Thank You.
I was born in London in 1944, almost
80 now. Glad the young man had a
long life too after surviving the V2
rocket hit.
My Mother told me about the Buzz
Bombs, V1, the V2's and the Battle
of Britain too.
After the war ended, returned well
known RAF pilot, Douglas Bader,
who was a neighbor in our apt
Bldg, at 251 Park West, last seen
in 2013 on a trip back to London,
and other places in the UK.
I saw the V1 and V2 at the Smith-
Soriano in Washington, DC in 1984.
I have also seen the ME-262, jet at an
Air Museum either at Wright Pat.,
or the RAF museum in Herndon
just north of London, while there.
We immigrated to the US on the
Queen Mary, which I saw again
in Long Beach, CA in 2009, to NYC
in Feb 1949, and settled in a NYC
suburb where my parents had a
youngsters clothing store, and grew
up there.
After University, and Air Force ROTC,
and some grad school, I was active
1969 to 1973, when Vietnam War
ended and am now a 100% Disabled
Veteran, and a life DAV member for
50 years.
So I began my life in war and 25 years
later was in another war, as we live
with still today, with the older relatives
passed away and our generation being
today's seniors. 😢