This Day In History March 27 1945 Germans launch last of their V-2s

On this day, in a last-ditch effort to deploy their remaining V-2 missiles against the Allies, the Germans launch their long-range rockets from their only remaining launch site, in the Netherlands. Almost 200 civilians in England and Belgium were added to the V-2 casualty toll.

German scientists had been working on the development of a long-range missile since the 1930s. In October 3, 1942, victory was achieved with the successful trial launch of the V-2, a 12-ton rocket capable of carrying a one-ton warhead. The missile, fired from Peenemunde, an island off Germany's Baltic coast, traveled 118 miles in that first test.

The brainchild of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, the V-2 was unique in several ways. First, it was virtually impossible to intercept. Upon launching, the missile rises six miles vertically; it then proceeds on an arced course, cutting off its own fuel according to the range desired. The missile then tips over and falls on its target at a speed of almost 4,000 mph. It hits with such force that the missile burrows itself into the ground several feet before exploding. The V-2 had the potential of flying a distance of 200 miles, and the launch pads were portable, making them impossible to detect before firing.

The first launches as part of an offensive occurred on September 6, 1944, when two missiles were fired at Paris. On September 8, two more were fired at England, which would be followed by over 1,100 more during the next six months. On March 27, 1945, taking advantage of their one remaining V-2 launch site, near The Hague, the Germans fired their V-2s for the last time. At 7 a.m., London awoke to a blast-one of the bombs had landed on a block of flats at Valance Road, killing 134 people. Twenty-seven Belgian civilians were killed in Antwerp when another of the rockets landed there. And that afternoon, one more V-2 landed in Kent, England, causing the very last British civilian casualty of the war.

By the end of the war, more than 2,700 Brits had died because of the rocket attacks, as well as another 4,483 deaths in Belgium. After the war, both the United States and the Soviet Union captured samples of the rockets for reproduction. Having proved so extraordinarily deadly during the war, the V-2 became the precursor of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) of the postwar era.

For that matter, the same can be said about jet fighters. The Nazis could have been utilizing jets and rockets in 1941, if Hiter had funded their programs earlier.

The jet engined He-176 first flew in 1939; even the British Gloster-Whittle E.28/39 was successfully flown on May 15, 1941.

It'd be even more interesting if Hitler's panzer troops had been used on the British forces struggling to evacuate at Dieppe, buying the Germans somewhere between six more months to two more years for development of their air war Vergeltungswaffen.

That, and a more successful U-boat campaign not depending on the penetrated Enigma coding device, could have made things particularly dicy for the Brits...and forestalled the use of Britain for any Allied pre-Eorope invasion plans.

The first test of a jet-driven airplane took place at Rechlin on July 3, 1939, when test pilot Erich Warsitz flew the Heinkel He-176 jet plane for Hitler, Goring, Udet, and the entire Luftwaffe High Command. The test went swimmingly—so well, in fact, that the Nazi hierarchy thought the device was a hoax or a joke.
When Warsitz landed perfectly and climbed out of the aircraft beaming, Hitler and the generals looked at him stone-faced, turned on their heels and left. The Luftwaffe, Heinkel understood, was not inclined to sponsor further research. (Heinkel and Messerschmitt, both astute judges of technology, pursued the research on their own.)

As it was:

What might have been:

I've heard that the V2 was basically too inaccurate to be usefull but I've changed my mind.

The maximum scatter at the end of its maximum 240 mile flight was about 7 miles. (About 5% of range) using the LEV-3 guidence system. This was a pair of gyroscopes that kept the missile pointing in the correct direction plus a PIGA (Pendulating Integrating Gyroscopic Accelerometer) that counted of acceleration, speed and distance travelled to initiate the various tiltover sequences and the motor cut of sequences. However the Germans had two other guidence systems: the SC-66 which was only tested 3 times but latter developed at the US Redstone Arsenal and by the Soviets. This had 3 gyroscopes and the accelerometers in a stable platform to improve accuracy. Seems to have gotten the scatter down to about 1% of range in the developed US and Soviet Versions used on early Redstone and SCUD missiles and finally in the Drapper based PIGA guidence systems for the MX missile the error of this air bearing mechanical inertial guidence was down to only 1 and a half feet after an intercontinental flight of 8000nm. (errors in gravitational maps extended the error to 100m).

The Germans were using also the 'Viktoria Leitstrahle' (Victoria Guidence-Beam) that kept the V2 missile on track for the first 70 seconds of flight when most inaccuracies occured. It was used in about 25% of launches and improved accuracy 5-10 times. They put great effort at keeping this secret as there was the possibillity of using this period of transmission to locate the launch sites and to possibly jam them. (albit difficult considering the short transmission time, range and upward trajectory). A more advanced version with improved jam resistence and accuracy opperating on higher frequencies was under development.

With the Viktoria system the maximum scatter would appear to get down to 1.4 miles. Guided weapons normally exhibit a 'normal' or Gausian distribution. This means they are more likely to cluster their hits near the aimpoint than distribute randomly in a Poisons distribution. My rough calculations suggest a probabillity of geting within 50 meters of the aimpoint of 2.5% (i.e. 97.5% miss rate). If some 2^6 or 64 missiles are fired then the chances of a hit within 50 meters is 80% and virtually 96% of getting a hit within 100 meters. Raise the missiles fired to 128 and the chances of a 50 meter hit goes to 96%. If the V2 was fired at closer targets its accuracy went up proportionatly.

Now the cost was about Reichs Mark 47,000 if mass produced at 5000 year. This is about the same as a single engined fighter and probably about 1/3rd that of a 4 engined bomber. Original production plans were for 5000 per year (410 month) though Hitler demanded 3000 per month at some point. The one tone warhead was small but on the otherhand quite detructive because of the kinetic energy of the missile and residual fuel. While a V2 was a single use weapon it didn't require an expensively trained pilot or crew to be placed at risk nor an extensively defended airfield nor did it in theory suffer from attrition. At production rates of 410 a month the German could send 200 towards a single target every fortnight and completely devastate an area.

The terrorism aspect of it was that there was no warning and could thus make working in an area unbearable.

There was also a winged version with a range of 600 miles which needed a more developed guidence system.

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