Easy. The USAAF actually listens to Goddard's proposals and throws some money at him.
In a war with lots of indiscriminate area bombing, you could pretty much pound Berlin to rubble without risking the bomber air crews.
Maybe even move some of your bomber production into rockets, and landing craft, and tanks.
why a U.S. IRBMs for WW2. ?
they have range of 3,000-5,500 km (1,865-3,420 miles)
a V2 with 1942 State of Technology had range of 320 km (200 mi)
on Hardware
the only one who can build that in U.S. is Robert H. Goddard
even in 1932 his A4 rocket was far better than
Werner von Braun jet to build A-1 prototype
(A4 had already gyroscope mounted on gimbals, steering vanes in the exhaust)
in 1940 Goddard P rockets had engine with turbopumps feed and
gasoline and liquid oxygen as Fuel
while Von Braun fight with problems on his pressure-fed engine in A-2
so if the USAAF had listened to Goddard (and Kelly Johnson Jet-figther proposal)
they had much better rocket as Thrid Reich V-2
With gov't support, I think Goddard can have that kind of rocket by say '43'-44. In time for the heavy campaign against Germany.
Earlier, a 80 to 160 mile range rocket might be possible in early '42. Useful for area attack on large soft targets. French cities don't make sense, but airfields...
So, basically we are talking about something along the lines of a Redstone Rocket.
Could guidance be any better than for the V2? Unless you're just trying to hit cities indiscriminately...
Could guidance be any better than for the V2? Unless you're just trying to hit cities indiscriminately...
Certainly could, using radio-inertial guidance rather than just inertial guidance by itself. Disadvantage is that you can decrease the accuracy via jamming, but that wasn't a concern the Allies faced, but definitely one the Germans did (which is why they ended up deleting it).