Allied equivalent to the V-2..
- Thread starter dmz23
- Start date
Lots of money and the will to do it...probably does not get done before the end of the war, perhaps a joint US-British project. It probably delays the A-Bomb a few years.
Cryhavoc101
Donor
I always saw the V1 and V2 as weapons of 'Desperation'
Germany had no real way of striking back at Britain using heavy bombers etc
Britain did not have this issue so did not have to pursue this line of development
I would have thought that a Jet bomber - like a Canberra 'might' have been possible if the focus was on it instead of the Meteor Fighter and heavy Bomber Command losses to the LW might have driven more development than a relatively unneeded Jet Fighter.
An Anglo-American rocketry programme is certainly do-able, an equivalent to the V-2 I very much doubt. What would be the point? The V-2 programme was hideously expensive in both money and precious resources, a one-shot weapon that you only got to use once, carried only a small amount of explosives per missile and was comically inaccurate. Case in point the bombardment of the port of Lowestoft, because all of the missiles fired at the town either fell short into the sea or landed as duds in muddy East Anglian fields no-one realised it had been targeted and under attack until after the war when the military were going through captured German files. The Allies on the other hand have four-engine heavy bombers that can drop between six and ten times the weight of explosives a V-2 carried whilst being able to then return home and keep coming back on other nights to drop even more, and whilst also pretty inaccurate compared to nowadays once they had the radio navigation guidance sorted they were a hell of a lot more accurate than the V-2. If the Western Allies decide to drop more money into missile development expect it to be in areas like surface-to-air missiles, air-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles and tactical ground-to-ground missiles rather than strategic ones.
If Britain had developed rocketry/jets more before WWII, how farfetched would it be for the British to retort to V1/V2s instead of night bombing, specially by 1941/42? The UK couldn't produce as many aircraft as the USA and they didn't have as many teenagers to send to battle either. Rockets use no manpower and a V1 type of rocket still ties up AAA and fighters to intercept them. The problem, I think, it's the range.
Range and cost.
The V-1 was relatively cheap (about 3% the cost of a Lancaster), but had no legs at all and was less accurate than even Bomber Command's night area bombing. Even then, the ROI was very poor. It took ~10 V-1 to carry the same bomb load as a single Lancaster and every one of them was a 100% loss upon launch. It doesn't take long before the manned system becomes less expensive. This doesn't count personnel losses, but that sort of math is not uncommon in wartime.
The V-2, even without considering the development cost, which was insanely high, considering the size of the Reich's economy, was initially slightly less expensive than a Lancaster (eventually this cost went down to around 1/2 of the manned system) but carried 1/7 the bomb load. To replicate Dresden, where 3,900 tons of bombs were dropped would have taken ~$50 million (1941 dollars) of weapons (using the late war cost figure for the missile) and the effectiveness would have been far lower due to accuracy issues.
Curiously the US did reverse engineer the V1, from a test model obtained via the Swedes in 1942. Development of the US version, the JB-2 'Loon', was slow & production not started until late 1944 or early 1945. 5000 were scheduled for production but it was terminated at approx 1000 examples. A portion of the early production was sent to the PTO for use in Operation Downfall
There were tests of launching the JB-2 from heavy bombers. I've speculated on how they might have been used had development been accelerated and early production on hand in January 1944 or earlier.
In November 1943, GALCIT(what would soon become JPL) had looked over existing Allied info on the Nazi Rocket program, and tried to get funding and resources from AAF Material Command for similar rockets.
They were denied in creating a jet powered cruise missile that had 100 mile range and 1000 pound warhead, as weapons like that should only come from Army Ordnance
In January 1944, they did get some funding for research for the Private A and Private F missile. These eventually were developed into the Corporal Missile.
They were denied in creating a jet powered cruise missile that had 100 mile range and 1000 pound warhead, as weapons like that should only come from Army Ordnance
In January 1944, they did get some funding for research for the Private A and Private F missile. These eventually were developed into the Corporal Missile.
While in the USA Goddard was a prophet in the wilderness, his ideas took root in Germany. If you get as much rocket interest in the USA and even a small amount of government seed money you could have the USA capable of producing a V2 type weapon by sometime during WW2. As has been pointed out, the issue is not was it reasonably possible but why would the USA bother, even if they could spare the resources (and they probably could).
Plus maintenance/repair costs and crew. It's not that anyone would shy of casualties in WWII, but that manpower could be used elsewhere instead. But first they'd need to tackle range - a British V1 would need to have the range to reach Germany
Cryhavoc101
Donor
Thats a very good point - V1 had a 250 KM range with an 850 KG Warhead. And is not an accurate weapon - allied disinformation regarding where they were landing made this worse often caused them to be aimed to land in Kent!
Lancaster has a 'Normal' bomb load of 6,350 kg and while not pin point at least (By June 1944) it was dropping its bombs in the close vicinity of the target.
On the surface-to-air missile (SAM) front the British apparently used cordite powered rockets from the already existing Unrotated Projectile and RP-3 programmes when developing their Brakemine missile during the war, post-war they moved over to High Test Peroxide (HTP) and kerosene powered rocket engines which became something of a speciality of theirs. Considering that they were able to put a satellite, Prospero X-3, into orbit with a HTP and kerosene powered rocket is there any particular technical barrier to using it as fuel for an early SAM? In a timeline where say the British decide to look into rockets earlier and discover that HTP can be ignited by simply pumping the HTP through a silver plated nickel gauze as a catalyst it would seem to be a rather promising avenue to investigate.
Why? The V-1 and V-2 were brought into service only because the Luftwaffe (and the German aviation industry) was incapable of mounting a sustained strategic bombing offensive. The Allies, on the other hand could do this so why invest the time and money experimenting with ballistic missiles that could only be random terror weapons when they could use 500 planes to bomb an targeted industrial facility and still terrorize lots of Germans.
On a related matter, the point could be made that, actually, the V-1 was a far better investment for Germany than the much more sophisticated - and costly - V-2. Because the V-1 could be intercepted and shot down by interceptors and AA this meant that, for political reasons, the British (and too a lesser extent the Americans) had to dedicate fighter aircraft and AA weaponry to defend against them. Aircraft and weaponry that might have been better used elsewhere. Since V-2s struck without warning and could not be intercepted, the Allies didn't even have to try. Perhaps the Germans should just have shelved ballistic missiles and placed all effort on producing more V-1s or putting the effort they put on the V-2 toward other simpler cruise missiles.
On a related matter, the point could be made that, actually, the V-1 was a far better investment for Germany than the much more sophisticated - and costly - V-2. Because the V-1 could be intercepted and shot down by interceptors and AA this meant that, for political reasons, the British (and too a lesser extent the Americans) had to dedicate fighter aircraft and AA weaponry to defend against them. Aircraft and weaponry that might have been better used elsewhere. Since V-2s struck without warning and could not be intercepted, the Allies didn't even have to try. Perhaps the Germans should just have shelved ballistic missiles and placed all effort on producing more V-1s or putting the effort they put on the V-2 toward other simpler cruise missiles.
Saunders Roe, which built the Black Knight research rocket of the late 1950s and as part of Westland the Black Arrow that launched the Prospero satellite spent a lot of the time in the 1950s on rocket powered aircraft, that is the SR.53 and 177. Avro did a lot of work on its Type 720 before that was cancelled. IIRC Armstrong Siddeley/Bristol Siddeley designed the rocket engines for both.
I think even if the 1957 Defence Review hadn't happened the British were developing too many fighters for the RAF and RN to absorb. Therefore the effort put into the rocket fighters might have been better put into missiles. That is Saunders Roe/Westland starts Black Knight/Black Arrow sooner instead of doing SR.53 and 177.
Meanwhile Avro should have started what became the Blue Steel stand off bomb instead of the Avro 720 (and the Avro 730 as that was another of the projects which had no realistic chance of completion). Although called a stand-off bomb it was really a faster and more accurate V-1. And IIRC also used HTP for fuel. The RN also had a pair of HTP powered submarines built, the Excalibur and Explorer, one of which aquired the nickname Exploder.
Say they started in 1947, they could have had Black Knight in 1950 instead of 1958 and the first Black Arrow launched satellite in 1960 rather than 1971. In my British Aviation 1945-75 timeline the British start Blue Streak in 1947 instead of 1955. It's operational in time for 60 to be deployed on surface launch pads instead of the Thors. The only problem is how to pay for the R&D and production of the missiles. I have pruned the number of aircraft projects (e.g. only one V-bomber), but I still think more money is needed.
Last edited:
usertron2020
Donor
Von Braun's people openly admitted that "Until 1937, Goddard was ahead of all of us". The problem is Goddard was dying of cancer in WWII and in no shape to pull off a major R&D missile program by then. His work was too primitive in the 20s and the money wasn't there by the Great Depression.
With the introduction of the B-17 & later B-24, the USA already led the world in heavy bomber design, and even Bomber Command wouldn't catch up until the introduction of the mighty Lancaster. By then, the B-29 was in the works.
So, no need for such missile weapons. It would be many years before nukes could be made small enough to fit on a missile, too late for WWII.
Redbeard
Banned
Agree on most of what has been said about the allies not really needing any V1 or V2s - Bomber Command and 8th Airforce did it better (which really tells how lousy/costly V1 and V2 were)!
But if we nevertheless shall try to find a PoD to have allied V1 and V2s it could be:
When Barbarossa kicks in the door the whole house actually come crashing down (don't mind how - just happened OK
).
Anyway the Germans have plenty of resources to make a traditional bombing campaign over Germany be way too costly and the allies have far too many warships for the Germans to have a realistic chance of invading the British Isles any time soon.
In such a situation I guess the allies (too) would be motivated to develop somekind of ballistic missile to penetrate the countless Jägerstaffel of Luftwaffe.
But if we nevertheless shall try to find a PoD to have allied V1 and V2s it could be:
When Barbarossa kicks in the door the whole house actually come crashing down (don't mind how - just happened OK
).Anyway the Germans have plenty of resources to make a traditional bombing campaign over Germany be way too costly and the allies have far too many warships for the Germans to have a realistic chance of invading the British Isles any time soon.
In such a situation I guess the allies (too) would be motivated to develop somekind of ballistic missile to penetrate the countless Jägerstaffel of Luftwaffe.
Agree on most of what has been said about the allies not really needing any V1 or V2s - Bomber Command and 8th Airforce did it better (which really tells how lousy/costly V1 and V2 were)!
But if we nevertheless shall try to find a PoD to have allied V1 and V2s it could be:
When Barbarossa kicks in the door the whole house actually come crashing down (don't mind how - just happened OK
Anyway the Germans have plenty of resources to make a traditional bombing campaign over Germany be way too costly and the allies have far too many warships for the Germans to have a realistic chance of invading the British Isles any time soon.
In such a situation I guess the allies (too) would be motivated to develop somekind of ballistic missile to penetrate the countless Jägerstaffel of Luftwaffe.
Many of the threads say that even if the Axis did everything correctly the war would still end with American atom bombs exploding over Berlin, Rome and Tokyo in 1946. If the Americans couldn't get through with B-29s they would use B-36 bombers flying from the Continental US. However, they don't allow for the Axis developing a fighter or missile capable of shooting the bomber down. So the Americans would have to develop a ballistic missile of sufficient range to get around that problem.
There's always the other end of the alliance; if you want a V2 equivalent, who were the heaviest users of tactical rocket artillery in the war? Does "Katyusha" ring no bells?
The russian GiRD rocket research group were at least as far on as VfR in most of the thirties, and had active backing from the Red Army, which turned out to be their problem. The chief patron of rocket artillery was Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who wanted it as part of the armoured tactics, deep operational concept he wanted to convert the red army to.
He was one of the chiefest target of the purges, and much of the red rocket effort was pulled down with him; enough managed to backstab the rest (Glushko, chiefly) to survive and lay foundations, and most of those who survived the gulag did find their way into the russian space and missile program after the war.
Changing the nature of the yezhovschina (purges) might be too much to ask, but fast and thorough grovelling might preserve enough of GiRD to start thinking bigger, Russian bombing wasn't great- they had more need of long range rocketry anyway, and something Scud/Scunner like may emerge during 1943-44.
The russian GiRD rocket research group were at least as far on as VfR in most of the thirties, and had active backing from the Red Army, which turned out to be their problem. The chief patron of rocket artillery was Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who wanted it as part of the armoured tactics, deep operational concept he wanted to convert the red army to.
He was one of the chiefest target of the purges, and much of the red rocket effort was pulled down with him; enough managed to backstab the rest (Glushko, chiefly) to survive and lay foundations, and most of those who survived the gulag did find their way into the russian space and missile program after the war.
Changing the nature of the yezhovschina (purges) might be too much to ask, but fast and thorough grovelling might preserve enough of GiRD to start thinking bigger, Russian bombing wasn't great- they had more need of long range rocketry anyway, and something Scud/Scunner like may emerge during 1943-44.