Vapor Trails - An alternate timeline

Intro

December 17, 1933 (1): Wehrmacht officers assembly at Kummersdorf to view a test of the A1, a new rocket designed by engineer Werner von Braun. The design hasn’t had all of the kinks worked out yet, and the rocket’s alcohol / liquid oxygen engine explodes on the pad. (2) There is one casualty, von Braun himself, who is tragically killed by a flying piece of shrapnel. Following this disaster, the German high command concludes that rockets such as the A1, and others that von Braun had supposedly designed (3), will be impractical as weapons of war, and almost entirely eliminate funding for this area of research. The failure of the A1 is also noted by the team of Soviet observers at the site.

May 1934: Austrian aerospace engineer Eugen Sanger emigrates to the US.

October 6, 1939: Soviet engineer Sergei Korolev, who, like many others, was accused of crimes against the state during Stalin’s purges, succumbs to a combination of disease and malnutrition while interned at the Kolyma gulag, and dies. It ultimately turns out that the charges against him were baseless.

(1) I was unable to find a specific date for when a test of the A1 occurred, just that it happened in 1933.
(2) The rocket actually did explode OTL, but obviously von Braun was not killed.
(3) Such as the A4.

Basic Plan

My basic plan for this is to use the two PODs in the first post to set back the development of rocketry (specfically ICBMs) by about 15-20 years. As a result, a lot of resources get put into developing better bombers, and hence interceptors, during the 50s and 60s, rather than missiles (so no 1957 white paper, or anything like that).

Expect to see Arrows, Valkyries, armed Blackbirds, and some other interesting things.


Anyone interested?

LostCosmonaut said:

Intro

December 17, 1933 (1): Wehrmacht officers assembly at Kummersdorf to view a test of the A1, a new rocket designed by engineer Werner von Braun. The design hasn’t had all of the kinks worked out yet, and the rocket’s alcohol / liquid oxygen engine explodes on the pad. (2) There is one casualty, von Braun himself, who is tragically killed by a flying piece of shrapnel. Following this disaster, the German high command concludes that rockets such as the A1, and others that von Braun had supposedly designed (3), will be impractical as weapons of war, and almost entirely eliminate funding for this area of research.

Click to expand...

Apart from the date this not impossible to say the least of it. Rockets do blow up and its not unknown for them to take developers with them

In regards to V2 test launches have a look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_V-2_test_launches

LostCosmonaut said:

October 6, 1939: Soviet engineer Sergei Korolev, who, like many others, was accused of crimes against the state during Stalin’s purges, succumbs to a combination of disease and malnutrition while interned at the Kolyma gulag, and dies. It ultimately turns out that the charges against him were baseless.

(1) I was unable to find a specific date for when a test of the A1 occurred, just that it happened in 1933.
(2) The rocket actually did explode OTL, but obviously von Braun was not killed.
(3) Such as the A4.

Click to expand...

Or have shot by the NKVD

You would still have to remove Goddard from rocketry and have the USSR to give up fully on the idea aka have the other Soviet rockets guys die/take up stamp collecting

I'm wondering if maybe you could have an earlier POD in which the A1 is jointly developed by both the Germans and the Soviets. This way, when the launch kills Werner von Braun, Stalin has Sergei Korolev and the rest of the Soviet rocket/missile program liquidated for being a waste of time and resources. Goddard on the other hand, I don't have a clue.

Life In Black said:

I'm wondering if maybe you could have an earlier POD in which the A1 is jointly developed by both the Germans and the Soviets. This way, when the launch kills Werner von Braun, Stalin has Sergei Korolev and the rest of the Soviet rocket/missile program liquidated for being a waste of time and resources. Goddard on the other hand, I don't have a clue.

Click to expand...

A join effort. Now there is a bit of flesh on the idea. You would have the NKVD and Gestapo lurking around each other, as suspicious as hell of each other. I like it

Pangur said:

A join effort. Now there is a bit of flesh on the idea. You would have the NKVD and Gestapo lurking around each other, as suspicious as hell of each other. I like it

Click to expand...

Best part is, you could also have Goddard get wind of the failure through the grapevine, and since von Braun's work was taken almost directly from Goddard, this might convince Goddard to go in a completely different direction. In OTL, the US Navy contracted Goddard, so perhaps he ends up working on rocket assisted shells instead.

I had just planned on having Goddard continue to be hosed by the US and getting absolutely no funding. As a result, he isn't able to accomplish much. Also, I don't want to completely eliminate all advances in rocketry, mainly the usage of rockets as nuclear weapon delivery systems. I still have some plans for rockets and such in the timeline. For example, although it's pretty far away right now, I have a vision of the first American astronaut going into space on a souped-up X-15.

Looking at the relevant sections in my biography of Korolev, it mentions that a bunch of other engineers, including Glusko, were caught up in the purges. So without those Soviet engineers, and the contributions from German scientists / samples, I figure it will take a lot longer for the relevant technologies to develop.


Also, as a teaser, here's some Soviet airframes that will probably make appearances:

NK-25 engined MiG-25 (as discussed here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=5977137&postcount=120)
Sukhoi T4 (Soviet XB-70 counterpart).
MiG-105 Spiral

LostCosmonaut said:

I had just planned on having Goddard continue to be hosed by the US and getting absolutely no funding. As a result, he isn't able to accomplish much. Also, I don't want to completely eliminate all advances in rocketry, mainly the usage of rockets as nuclear weapon delivery systems. I still have some plans for rockets and such in the timeline. For example, although it's pretty far away right now, I have a vision of the first American astronaut going into space on a souped-up X-15.

Looking at the relevant sections in my biography of Korolev, it mentions that a bunch of other engineers, including Glusko, were caught up in the purges. So without those Soviet engineers, and the contributions from German scientists / samples, I figure it will take a lot longer for the relevant technologies to develop.


Also, as a teaser, here's some Soviet airframes that will probably make appearances:

NK-25 engined MiG-25 (as discussed here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=5977137&postcount=120)
Sukhoi T4 (Soviet XB-70 counterpart).
MiG-105 Spiral

Click to expand...

As a teaser its works! Had not heard about the MIG-105 before. It would be ironic if you could work your TL some how so that there is a space pernamently manned station earlier that in the OTL

Part 2

I've decided to only provide a brief history of what went on during World War 2, only covering stuff that will be relevant to the later timeline.






May-September 1940: Initial glide tests of the Hs 293 weapon system.

January 1941: RCA submits a proposal for a TV-guided anti-ship missile, named “Dragon”. This will eventually become the “Bat” radar-guided AShM (Air-Ship Missile).

5 June 1942: The RLM approves Fritz Gosslau’s proposal for an unmanned aircraft carrying an explosive payload, assigning it the designation Fi-103.

10 December 1942: The first Fi-103 powered flight is conducted after the airframe is successfully air-launched from an He-111 aircraft.

July 1943: Fritz-X and Hs-293 AShMs damage several allied ships, causing slight interference to landings in Italy.

13 June 1944: In response to the successful D-Day landings, the first Fi-103 cruise missile (by now known as the V1) is launched at London. Significant bombardment by V1s will continue to be launched at London until the last launch sites within range are overrun in early November (1). Sporadic launches will continue from modified He-111s over the North See until the end of the war.

Summer 1944: The American Bat AShM enters testing.

29 March 1945: The American 9th Armored Division arrives at the Remagen Bridge, one of the last intact bridges over the Rhine. A fierce firefight ensues with defending German forces.

31 March 1945: The Luftwaffe launches operation Bowlingspielstift (Bowling Pin). 26 V1s are air launched from Ar-234 bombers at a range of 220 km. Three bombers are lost with their payloads due to failures in the separation mechanism, and a further 6 V1s fail midflight. Most of the remaining missiles impact in the general vicinity of the bridge, causing virtually no damage. However, one bomb clips the steel superstructure of the bridge, detonating the explosive payload. The damage caused by this event, in additional to artillery fire from German forces, causes the bridge to collapse on 2 April. This slows down the entry of American forces into Germany, but ultimately makes little difference to the strategic situation. (2)

April 1945: The American Bat AShM is used for the first timeagainst Japanese targets near Borneo. The weapon is generally successful, and numerous small Japanese vessels are sunk.

27 May 1945: Germany surrenders.

6 August 1945: The B-29 "Enola Gay“ drops a 18 kt fission bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

9 August 1945: The B-29 “Bock’s Car“ drops a 20 kt fission device on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

16 August 1945: The Red Army launches operation August Storm, the invasion of Manchuria, Korea, and Sakhalin.

18 August 1945: Following Soviet declaration of war, Emperor Hirohito broadcasts Japanese surrender. Sporadic resistance to Allied and Soviet forces continues for a few days.

8 September 1945: Japan signs surrender documents on the battleship Missouri.



(1) Actually occurred in October 1944 OTL. Without Germany spending money and resources on the V2, everything else gets a bit more (although this won’t affect the ultimate outcome of the war).

(2) In OTL, air-launching V1s from the Ar-234 using a sort of „reverse Mistel“ arrangement was considered, but not put into practice. ITTL, the V1 is gets much more attention from the German military, and so ends up with an improved guidance system, and the Ar-234 launch system gets implemented. Even so, the one hit that did happen was due to extreme luck, not accurate guidance.
In real life, the Germans used about a dozen V2s to try and knock down the Remagen bridge. I don’t think any landed closer than about 200 yards though.

Pangur said:

Apart from the date this not impossible to say the least of it. Rockets do blow up and its not unknown for them to take developers with them

In regards to V2 test launches have a look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_V-2_test_launches




Or have shot by the NKVD

You would still have to remove Goddard from rocketry and have the USSR to give up fully on the idea aka have the other Soviet rockets guys die/take up stamp collecting

Click to expand...

Goddard was being thoroughly ignored in the US, without the German program the 'sensible people' would have carried on regarding rocketry as sci-fi. The other Soviet rocket engineers were in scientific prison camps working on what they were told to work on, largely aircraft with I believe some work on RATO later on but again that was after the Germans demonstrated the utility of the technology.

Comments? Feedback? Suggestions?

LostCosmonaut said:

I had just planned on having Goddard continue to be hosed by the US and getting absolutely no funding. As a result, he isn't able to accomplish much. Also, I don't want to completely eliminate all advances in rocketry, mainly the usage of rockets as nuclear weapon delivery systems. I still have some plans for rockets and such in the timeline. For example, although it's pretty far away right now, I have a vision of the first American astronaut going into space on a souped-up X-15.

Click to expand...

The X-15 couldn't go into orbit but I think what you have in mind is the X-20. Bear in mind that it will still need a booster. Single Stage To Orbit(SSTO) where you have a vehicle taking off and landing on a runway can't be done with a rocket vehicle, you would need something like SABRE, and that's still a few years away in 2012.

If you are thinking of something along the lines of SpaceshipOne, then you will need a much more powerful vehicle to launch it to orbit, more like Stratolaunch.

I'm not planning on using the X-15 as existed in OTL to get into orbit. It will be an improved version, with a booster of some sort attached.

LostCosmonaut said:

I'm not planning on using the X-15 as existed in OTL to get into orbit. It will be an improved version, with a booster of some sort attached.

Click to expand...

The X-20 was the evolution of the X-15 to produce an orbital vehicle. The booster would need to be in the same class as the Titan proposed for the X-20, and the changes you've made would seem to rule that out. If you want to air launch ala the X-15 you would need something like the Stratolaunch mothership.

One problem I see with this is that while you have retarded the development of liquid fueled rockets the development of large solid fueld rockets is likely to be accelerated. The need to be able to deliver a warhead into the enemies territory still exists, as does the fact that jet combat aircraft will soon aproach speeds where engaging solely with guns will become impractical. The development of air to air and surface to air missiles will be unaffected and naturally to solid fueled ballistic missiles.

Peg Leg Pom said:

One problem I see with this is that while you have retarded the development of liquid fueled rockets the development of large solid fueld rockets is likely to be accelerated. The need to be able to deliver a warhead into the enemies territory still exists, as does the fact that jet combat aircraft will soon aproach speeds where engaging solely with guns will become impractical. The development of air to air and surface to air missiles will be unaffected and naturally to solid fueled ballistic missiles.

Click to expand...

Which would be an issue as they are truly unsuited to launching manned vehicles, and even for satellite launches you really need a liquid fuelled upper stage for orbital insertion as seen in the new Vega from Arianespace.

Perhaps have the Germand turn the V1's on the Normnady Beach heads?

For the initial POD, I still think you should go with a joint German-Soviet project. The idea isn't far fetched by any means considering the cooperation between the two up until around '33 in OTL, It allows for the complete liquidation of the Soviet program due to the accident you mentioned, and it gives you far greater leeway in future events and butterflies. That being said, it's your story.

Slightly modified original post, and added another POD.

LostCosmonaut said:

Slightly modified original post, and added another POD.

Click to expand...

Looks good.