This is coolbert:
Conclusion!
It being acknowledged that the German "Vee" missiles [V-1 and V-2] both those bombardments of first London and then Antwerp having negligible military applicability the entire "Vee" program questionable, even it can be reasonably inferred highly COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE!!
From a variety of sources some amazing stuff:
"those of us who were seriously engaged in the war were very grateful to Wernher von Braun. We knew that each V-2 cost as much to produce as a high-performance fighter airplane. We knew that German forces on the fighting fronts were in desperate need of airplanes, and that the V-2 rockets were doing us no military damage. From our point of view, the V-2 program was almost as good as if Hitler had adopted a policy of unilateral disarmament." - - Freeman Dyson."
Dyson at the time a young British physicist involved in the effort to stymie and defeat the German night fighter defenses using a variety of approaches.
Indeed, even some allied efforts and plans to destroy the launching sites of the V-2 OR a missile actually in flight either counter-productive or as potentially counter-productive, "friendly fire" not always so "friendly":
"On 3 March 1945 the Allies attempted to destroy V-2s and launching equipment in the "Haagse Bos" in The Hague by a large-scale bombardment but due to navigational errors the Bezuidenhout quarter was destroyed, killing 511 Dutch civilians."
"Unlike the V-1, the V-2's speed and trajectory made it practically invulnerable to anti-aircraft guns and fighters, as it dropped from an altitude of 100–110 km (62–68 mi) at up to four times the speed of sound (approximately 3550 km/h). A plan was proposed whereby the missile would be detected by radar, its terminal trajectory calculated, and the area along that trajectory saturated by large-caliber anti-aircraft guns. The plan was dropped after operations research indicated that the likely number of malfunctioning artillery shells falling to the ground would do more damage than the V-2 itself."
That German "Vee" weapons program [both for V-1 and V-2] very expensive, even beyond that for the American Manhattan Project.
"The German V-weapons (V-1 and V-2) cost $3 billion (wartime dollars) and was more costly than the Manhattan Project that produced the atomic bomb ($1.9 billion).in the last 12 months of the war alone resources expended on the V-1 and V-2 missiles might have been sufficient to produce 24,000 addition fighter aircraft. Further problems were an increasing shortage of materials, the loss of manpower to the fighting forces, to be replaced by less-efficient slave laborers, and, of course, the continuing attention of Allied strategic bombers."
"6,048 V-2s were built, at a cost of approximately 100,000 Reichsmarks (GB£2,370,000 (2011)) each [British pounds as of 2011]; 3,225 were launched. SS General Hans Kammler who as an engineer had constructed several concentration camps including Auschwitz had a reputation for brutality and had originated the idea of using concentration camp prisoners as slave laborers in the rocket program. The V-2 is perhaps the only weapon system to have caused more deaths by its production than its deployment."
The American Manhattan Project [a-bomb] AND the B-29 program each costing $2 billion American.
Those V-1 and V-2 constructed under the most harshest of conditions, using forced labor to do so. I have often wondered about quality control for those various components, as rigorous as a methodology as employed by the German I would have to think the laborers [slaves] being worked to death would NOT find any incentive at all to do good work and even be most desirous to sabotage anything they could.
Kammler the SS man in charge of missile manufacture the HIGHEST RANKING NAZI NOT ACCOUNTED FOR IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE WAR!!
Just one item an indication of the enormous expenditure of scarce resources as was needed by the "Vee" program that amount of fuel alcohol a necessity
"The V-2 consumed a third of Germany fuel alcohol production and major portions of other critical technologies: one V-2 launch required 30 tonnes of potatoes at a time when food was becoming scarce."
Potatoes as used to distill the fuel alcohol. That German citizenry including soldiers doing without food and unable to perform in an adequate fashion, debilitating hunger and malnutrition as result of the "Vee" program!!
This reminiscent of the Great War when the English population going hungry when so much land devoted to the growing of fodder for the never-used cavalry!
It has been suggested too that IF the German had begun their V-1 bombardment of English coastal towns prior to 6 June or even directed a barrage of "buzzbombs" on the landing beaches of Normandy
that Battle of France [1944] might NOT have resulted in inevitable Nazi defeat!
V-1 and V-2 counter-productive and NOT an asset? Devoted readers to the blog can decide for themselves and comment.
coolbert.
German raw material shortages of all. Only lignite was enough throughout the war.
ReplyDeleteAll German raw materials had to be imported from somewhere.
German innovatio was great. Many of the machines, such as the Junkers 88 and ME 262 Production was delayed for months, and their production started slowly as the Ju88 was to change the dive. Previously it was a horizontal plane bomber. In this case, a weight gain of over 30% achieved a similar benefit. Similarly, the ME 262 wide introduction of delayed almost a year, when Hitler demanded the machine portable 2x500 kg bombs in the UK.
The same lack of material related to engines. The Allies built a light (weight) engines when there was a lot of materials. When the German built by the same power, the engine became very heavy, due to lack of materials, the structure became thick (strong) as the FW-190 BMW engine models, etc ...
The biggest deficiency was by German (1 ball-bearings) a mixture of metals, which are needed for hard and tough steels manufacture.
Nickel was one of the crucial material, as many of you know the purpose of
1943 Finland sent to Germany from using 85% of its nickel, 23% molybdenum. In addition, copper and delivered, and vanadium.
Pechenga mine 1943/7899 tons, 151 tons of Mätäsvaara.
Similarly, Finland was entirely dependent on the German food supply.
1942 Finnish imports 93% came from Germany.
The Polish campaign take Germany to half (50%) of the airplane bombs, so the German's own warehouses were really small, the scale of all war.
ReplyDeleteLT F Torbedo weight 750kg.
Torbedon airplane as raw material usage.
51.3 kg of chromium, aluminum, 114 kg, 78.6 kg of lead, tin 55 kg, 374 kg of copper
Repair JU-88 weight gain of the original.
Horizontal Bomber weight of 7000 kg
Scuba diving bomber version of 12.000 kg.
There is so much nonsense here that one hardly knows where to begin.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, the wartime Reichsmark was not a convertible currency, it was for internal accounting only and worthless outside of Germany, therefore cost comparisons between national currencies using nominal expenditure are meaningless. When the Reich needed to buy raw materials, for example, from neutral countries, the payment was in gold and only gold.
The Luftwaffe did not lack for combat aircraft, nearly thirty thousand were produced in 1944, what was missing as with all the service branches was the fuel to train and conduct missions. After the devastating Leuna and Ploesti raids in the first half of 1944, the Reich simply ran out of gas, a fact that has been confirmed by every scholar and participant since the war.
Finally, the whole V1/V2 narrative has been completely distorted by post-war commentators with an agenda other than historical accuracy. “V” stands for Vergeltung, “revenge”, these were psychological weapons first and foremost, a means, however insignificant, for Germany to strike back at the Allies after, for example, the conventional bombing of Great Britain had ceased years before while the round-the-clock pounding of the Reich continued and intensified.
As for the oft-repeated death toll of the “slave” workers engaged in the production of the V2, how is it that these sophisticated weapons, arguably the most complex machines produced by any nation ever up to that point, were built not only at gunpoint but by presumably skilled workers who were then murdered after the tasks were completed? The fact that such questions are never asked by respectable historians speaks to the neo-Soviet climate of opinion under which we labor.
Forced to correct ME 262 bomb weight.
ReplyDeleteA bomb by weight of 2 x 250 kg.
Hitler said this will be my new vengeance weapon, the flash bomber.
This Swalbe (swallow) became Sturm Vogel (Storm Bird)