Germans introduce V1 in 1940

[nbcman]

I was just putting out an idea on a reason of why they would go with the V-1 before the war. Though, in the case of a successful BoB with the bombers focusing on airfields and factories while the V-1s are used against cities and ports, if they attempt a Sea Lion, at it fails obviously, the troops on the ground are very likely going to get gassed which could incentivize a response in kind by using the V-1s.

So the Germans in the early 1930's would have the foresight to see they were going to defeat the French on the continent and have a Battle of Britain / Operation Sealion which was not going to succeed in the early 1940s. Therefore the Germans decide to dump resources into two technologies which weren't in existence yet (V1 first design 1935 and Tabun discovered 1936)? That's one crazy good crystal ball.

 

[David Flin]

Though, in the case of a successful BoB with the bombers focusing on airfields and factories while the V-1s are used against cities and ports,

Which comes back to the age-old question of: "What is not being built if Germany are building significant numbers of one-use grossly inaccurate long-range bombs?"

Because, as far as I can tell, they are being magicked into existence without paying for them on things not built elsewhere.

Fewer fighters, and the BoB ain't going to be won. Fewer bombers, and focusing on the airfields becomes pointless (to say nothing that the RN becomes basically invincible). Fewer U-boats, and British supply lines are easier. Fewer tanks, and the chances are France won't fall.

And the V1 wasn't exactly a precision weapon. Targeting a port sufficiently to put it out of operation for any significant length of time is going to require what is technically known as a shit ton of V1s.

 

[Garrison]

I was just putting out an idea on a reason of why they would go with the V-1 before the war. Though, in the case of a successful BoB with the bombers focusing on airfields and factories while the V-1s are used against cities and ports, if they attempt a Sea Lion, at it fails obviously, the troops on the ground are very likely going to get gassed which could incentivize a response in kind by using the V-1s.

But they can't have the V-1s and the bombers, there just isn't the capacity in the German economy to add V-1s as well as a powerful conventional Luftwaffe. And in addition to the implausible idea of the Germans randomly deciding to prepare the use of a weapon that the refused to use on the battlefield at any point now we have the Germans somehow launching a Sealion that actually lands troops in the sort of numbers that would prompt the British use of gas. Again the Nazis had no plans for attacking Britain prior to the fall of France and even after it took some time for Hitler to accept the British would fight on. The V-1 is a marginal weapon only adopted out of desperation, the idea that it might make some huge difference in 1940 just doesn't hold water.

 

[Nell_Lucifer]

Which comes back to the age-old question of: "What is not being built if Germany are building significant numbers of one-use grossly inaccurate long-range bombs?"

Well, given that the original V-1 was produced by Volkswagen and Fieseler, it would affect those two the most I guess, if the production starts in late 1938/early 1939 then Volkswagen will stop some of its production of civilian cars and perhaps some of its Kugelwagen ones.

Fieseler on the other hand... let's see.

Spoiler: Fieseler

No KI 35B or D, and given those training planes are pretty much piloted V-1s, well, you already have 365 V-1s produced, more or less. If you remove the FW 58 from the list then you have I think double or triple the amount of V-1s.

If you take away the B variant of the 109, which I am not sure how much it costed but I think it was cheaper than the E variant? Let's assume for 1938 60K RM (The Emil in 1939 was ~100K RM and by 41 ~58K RM) and no 109 T - 60K RM? you will have:

1938: (I will start with a double cost for the V-1 from the ~5K RM one)
-365 (Instead of the KI 35B/D) => 3,650,000 RM
-480 (Instead of the Bf 109 D which would cost 4,800,000 RM)
1939: (Price reduced to ~6K RM)
- 1,666 (Instead of ~100 Bf 109 E which would cost 10.000.000 RM)
1940: (Price reduced to ~5K RM)
-3,328 (Instead of ~208 Bf 109 E which would cost 16.640.000 RM)
1941:
-4,141 (Instead of ~357 Bf 109 E which would cost 20.706.000 RM)
-840 (Instead of 70 Bf 109 T which would cost 4.200.000 RM)
Total: 10,820 from Fieseler alone but this does not take into account the materials freed from the production of the 109: Aluminum, Copper, Tin or the manhours to build those aircrafts.
It took initially around 800 manhours to build 1 V-1 and it got reduced to 350 in the end, the 109E had something like 3000 manhours, so you could make triple the amount of V-1s in the time it took to make the 109Es.

Anyway, you will have by 1940 around 5000 V-1s with a monthly supply of 270, other resources would come from captured Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway and finally France to not disrupt the production of strategic aircrafts or vehicles.

So, the V-1 will make a dim in the overall resources for the Luftwaffe but should be ameliorated pretty soon.

But they can't have the V-1s and the bombers, there just isn't the capacity in the German economy to add V-1s as well as a powerful conventional Luftwaffe. And in addition to the implausible idea of the Germans randomly deciding to prepare the use of a weapon that the refused to use on the battlefield at any point now we have the Germans somehow launching a Sealion that actually lands troops in the sort of numbers that would prompt the British use of gas. Again the Nazis had no plans for attacking Britain prior to the fall of France and even after it took some time for Hitler to accept the British would fight on. The V-1 is a marginal weapon only adopted out of desperation, the idea that it might make some huge difference in 1940 just doesn't hold water.

General Brooke and others were ready to use gas in case of a German invasion, they had the gas stored at airfields and key points of the Bomber Command and given the panic of 1940 and fear of a German invasion, they would take said invasion, even if it was 10K troops from the initial 80K as serious as they could, if they receive reports of German paratroopers landing in Britain it would be even more a good incentive to use the gas.

The Germans would respond in kind, turning the conventional V-1s into gas spraying ones.

 

[Garrison]

Well, given that the original V-1 was produced by Volkswagen and Fieseler, it would affect those two the most I guess, if the production starts in late 1938/early 1939 then Volkswagen will stop some of its production of civilian cars and perhaps some of its Kugelwagen ones.

Fieseler on the other hand... let's see.

Spoiler: Fieseler

No KI 35B or D, and given those training planes are pretty much piloted V-1s, well, you already have 365 V-1s produced, more or less. If you remove the FW 58 from the list then you have I think double or triple the amount of V-1s.

If you take away the B variant of the 109, which I am not sure how much it costed but I think it was cheaper than the E variant? Let's assume for 1938 60K RM (The Emil in 1939 was ~100K RM and by 41 ~58K RM) and no 109 T - 60K RM? you will have:

1938: (I will start with a double cost for the V-1 from the ~5K RM one)
-365 (Instead of the KI 35B/D) => 3,650,000 RM
-480 (Instead of the Bf 109 D which would cost 4,800,000 RM)
1939: (Price reduced to ~6K RM)
- 1,666 (Instead of ~100 Bf 109 E which would cost 10.000.000 RM)
1940: (Price reduced to ~5K RM)
-3,328 (Instead of ~208 Bf 109 E which would cost 16.640.000 RM)
1941:
-4,141 (Instead of ~357 Bf 109 E which would cost 20.706.000 RM)
-840 (Instead of 70 Bf 109 T which would cost 4.200.000 RM)
Total: 10,820 from Fieseler alone but this does not take into account the materials freed from the production of the 109: Aluminum, Copper, Tin or the manhours to build those aircrafts.
It took initially around 800 manhours to build 1 V-1 and it got reduced to 350 in the end, the 109E had something like 3000 manhours, so you could make triple the amount of V-1s in the time it took to make the 109Es.

Anyway, you will have by 1940 around 5000 V-1s with a monthly supply of 270, other resources would come from captured Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway and finally France to not disrupt the production of strategic aircrafts or vehicles.

So, the V-1 will make a dim in the overall resources for the Luftwaffe but should be ameliorated pretty soon.

General Brooke and others were ready to use gas in case of a German invasion, they had the gas stored at airfields and key points of the Bomber Command and given the panic of 1940 and fear of a German invasion, they would take said invasion, even if it was 10K troops from the initial 80K as serious as they could, if they receive reports of German paratroopers landing in Britain it would be even more a good incentive to use the gas.

The Germans would respond in kind, turning the conventional V-1s into gas spraying ones.

Even if the Germans wanted the contingency of using gas in retaliation, for an invasion that they hadn't even thought about before July 1940, why would they start pouring money into developing tabun and V-1s in the mid 1930s when they need every scrap of resources they can get to build up the Army and the conventional airforce? This is starting to reach ludicrous levels of handwaving to try and make the V-1 relevant.

 

[Nell_Lucifer]

Even if the Germans wanted the contingency of using gas in retaliation, for an invasion that they hadn't even thought about before July 1940, why would they start pouring money into developing tabun and V-1s in the mid 1930s when they need every scrap of resources they can get to build up the Army and the conventional airforce? This is starting to reach ludicrous levels of handwaving to try and make the V-1 relevant.

It is not tabun, it's just, at least initially, plain mustard gas as someone else pointed a few post ago. The development of Tabun, Sarin and other nerve gases will come as a consequence of the British using gas on the landing German troops.

The V-1 would be a... I guess modular flying bomb, as there were versions planned, that could use incendiaries, smokes, high explosives and gas at longer ranges than conventional artillery.

It doesn't require a lot of funds from the RLM, given that in 1937 they did a somewhat standardization program of trying to cut down costs and wasteful spending, according a contract for the development of a working prototype 50/50 is not that unusual at the time or uncommon at the time, given that the same RLM accorded contracts of different tooling to some companies for planes that we built in the dozens.

 

[Garrison]

It is not tabun, it's just, at least initially, plain mustard gas as someone else pointed a few post ago. The development of Tabun, Sarin and other nerve gases will come as a consequence of the British using gas on the landing German troops.

The V-1 would be a... I guess modular flying bomb, as there were versions planned, that could use incendiaries, smokes, high explosives and gas at longer ranges than conventional artillery.

It doesn't require a lot of funds from the RLM, given that in 1937 they did a somewhat standardization program of trying to cut down costs and wasteful spending, according a contract for the development of a working prototype 50/50 is not that unusual at the time or uncommon at the time, given that the same RLM accorded contracts of different tooling to some companies for planes that we built in the dozens.

But it still remains a weapon of incredibly limited capabilities, it still remains a weapon that can only be launched in whatever direction the ramps point and would need huge numbers to saturate an area with explosives/smoke/gas. And trying to turn it into some sort of multirole weapon just turns it from cheap to expensive, as would anything that would make it more accurate. If you need to drop a bomb beyond artillery range a dumb bomb on an aircraft makes more sense, which is exactly the conclusion pretty much everyone in WWII came to. The V-1 only made sense to press into service when all other options were exhausted, or if you had the resources to just build everything, which is why the JB-2 Loon came into being.

 

[CaptainCalvert]

A V1 with enough range to hit French area targets has a potential use. For example, dropping missiles in the rear areas of the Maginot forts hinders the interval forces and effectively isolates the forts. If they somehow managed to hit a fortress, a 1/2 ton warhead would cause a fair bit of damage.
This alone wouldn't justify building V1s but if they were also viewed as a tool for threatening cities and military concentrations beyond artillery range this could tip the balance. This would require some form of mobile launchers so that they could be shifted to threaten or attack these area targets.
It would look good on paper but probably would be much less effective in practice although there is the possibility that the uncertainty around these weapons would lead to premature surrenders or withdrawals, especially in poorly led forces.
I'm still confident that long range artillery and close air support would be much more useful and versatile, but the lure of a shiny new technology that could attack at ranges of >50km and can't be intercepted could capture the imagination.

 

[Coulsdon Eagle]

It is good, but lacks pin-point accuracy at the lowest scales.

How do I know? There is a supposed bomb marked on what has been my home for 60 years, and was built in 1938. Until the late 60's there was a bomb site about 200 yards down the road, which shows no bomb hit. So if you want to check if your house was bombed, don't rely upon it.

Cool, cheers



It would explain teh constant crossing of themselves and fearful looks they give when doing so



Unless the scale is wrong I don't think it that far south? (I could be wrong though)


True enough

I actaully found this site which is quite good

 

[steamboy]

A V1 with enough range to hit French area targets has a potential use. For example, dropping missiles in the rear areas of the Maginot forts hinders the interval forces and effectively isolates the forts. If they somehow managed to hit a fortress, a 1/2 ton warhead would cause a fair bit of damage.
This alone wouldn't justify building V1s but if they were also viewed as a tool for threatening cities and military concentrations beyond artillery range this could tip the balance. This would require some form of mobile launchers so that they could be shifted to threaten or attack these area targets.
It would look good on paper but probably would be much less effective in practice although there is the possibility that the uncertainty around these weapons would lead to premature surrenders or withdrawals, especially in poorly led forces.
I'm still confident that long range artillery and close air support would be much more useful and versatile, but the lure of a shiny new technology that could attack at ranges of >50km and can't be intercepted could capture the imagination.

These are NOT precision guided weapons. They had a CEP measured in the 10s of miles. If you was aiming at disrupting the supply to and from the Maginot line you're basically spraying missiles all over the place in the vague hope that one might hit something that's an incredibly small target. Baring in mind these things missed London which is not a small target. You're now expecting it to disrupt supply lines/rail lines/roads? How? Other than pure blind chance.

And as was said this thread is just getting more and more desperate to get a crap weapon to A. Be available and B. Actually be useful in a tactical and strategic sense.

And as is par for the course

"This gets made."
"Okay how?"
"It just does."
"How do they know they'd need it did they know that France would fall that fast?"
"They just do."
"What gets sacrificed instead of it?"
"Nothing."
"How?"
"It just does."

Basically cause and effect does not affect Nazi Germany when it comes to production or development of new things, meanwhile the Allies are either

A. Reacting EXACTLY as per OTL, despite them probably knowing about any new developments, indeed they'll basically ignore them and be utterly shocked/terrified when this new weapon that's been in development for a decade and somehow wasn't noticed by allied intelligence personnel or leaked by Canaris and co is deployed.
B. Cowards who surrender at the merest twitch of a Teutonic 'stache.
C. Idiots who think that breaking out muskets and returning to Napoleonic era infantry block formations is a good thing. IE not responding in any way shape or form or even looking into things.

 

[vizzer]

In terms of range the V1 launchers wouldn't be built right on the border unless they want the French to think "Hmm, the Germans are putting a lot of effort into building those things better pre-target them with artillery just in case." Which could be especially nasty for Germany if they've loaded them with gas .

 

[steamboy]

In terms of range the V1 launchers wouldn't be built right on the border unless they want the French to think "Hmm, the Germans are putting a lot of effort into building those things better pre-target them with artillery just in case." Which could be especially nasty for Germany if they've loaded them with gas .

Ahh but you forget, this is a Nazi tech wank. The Allies will see them, go "Hhmm...well those are odd places for ski ramps being put up by young men in grey uniforms, I wonder where this craze for skiing came from."

And return to sucking on their lead lollypops and cups of lead tea. And if you ask why? Well because they do.

Oh! And I forgot something that also happens during your typical nazi tech wanks

D. The Allies leadership etc will act completely out of character to a new threat. For example Germany starts building H class battleships and an effective CV in the 30's and by 1940 has 6 of each in service (all of which of course does not affect tank or aircraft production of course, because it just does) The UK will not react to this at all or change anything about its fleet or respond in any way.

 

[thaddeus]

for a 1940 weapon I would suggest the unpowered BV-246 is more likely to actually be developed, albeit not as advertised https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blohm_&_Voss_BV_246 (for something crudely effective, load them with incendiaries)

by 1942, Britain is still not out of the war and German bombers are not really available, a weapon like the V-1 could be deployed

 

[steamboy]

The BV-246 was even less accurate than the V1. This is just a good way to randomly shower incediaries over fields and lakes. Or the channel. And its still the issue of "Okay so we've got a useless resource sink that does not work, lets make this viable for the Nazis." The BV-246 was garbage, pure garbage. If its less accurate than the V1 what use is it unless you want to randomly dig holes in fields in the UK and France. And as its unpowered, you're now risking aircraft towing it up into position. Which we assume the Anglo-French will not react to.

I will point out that the V1 at the start had a CEP of 19 miles. So if a BV-246 is less accurate than that, you'll be lucky to hit the city you're aiming at. Or if you're firing it at say Belgium, the right country.

And please, people who desperately want this thing to be useful (V1 or now BV), please tell me, clearly how with a 19 mile or 31km CEP, how the V1 is suppose to be this wunder waffen that will knock France out the War and cripple the English and so on with all the other wanking of it that's been going on in previous posts here. Its not accurate, its basically going to be randomly distributing HE over random parts of the countryside or maybe a town or or the city you r aiming at. You can NOT hit a specific target smaller than a city, and even then its anywhere within 19 miles of an aiming point. Which could be off by a lot. So even hitting a city is a matter of luck rather than Der Uber Mesch's Wunderwaffens.

And before you go "But the Nazi's had time to work on it so it would be more accurate."

The best the Nazi's got it down to is 11 miles. Good luck striking a bridge, rail yard/rail line, fortification, troop position, port etc etc with that.

 

[Nell_Lucifer]

A thought I just had.

Initially, the V-1 was supposed to be radio controlled but, because by 1942-43 the Allied were effective in jamming any German system it was dropped for the mechanical system.

Given that this V-1 is not constrained by such concerns in 1938-1940, would it be build with a radio control system and would it be more accurate that way?

 

[steamboy]

Short answer.

No

Long answer

No because to be radio controlled its then basically got to operate like a Fritz, with someone able to see A. the missile. B. The target. So you fire off this volley of missiles, you then need to have the same number of specially equipped and specially trained bombers following them along to guide them to their targets. This requirement actually makes it HELLA short ranged as you need the bomb aimer to see the missile and the target. But this isn't a problem because its Nazi tech obviously.

This is not a job that anyone could do, you'd need to also massively expand the Germans electronics industry. And say you want to do a huge opening volley of 200 missiles. That's now 200 bombers with them that are not doing...actual bombing. Oh and if they get intercepted by defending fighters (which of course they won't because we're fully in Nazi wank territory, the UK and France are both fielding the Sopwith Camel or a SPAD because of course they are) then the missile is going to go off course and be useless. And the specially equipped, expensively trained crew and their bomber are either shot up, or running for home.

So you've made it even MORE resource intensive and you've taken aircraft away from their actual mission of being a bomber. AND you've got to get the crews trained to guide them AND you've got to get the systems advanced enough that when you fire the weapon presumably from a ground ramp that you've got the aircraft nearby and their electronics are good enough to take command of a very specific missile from among that 200 and you've got to be in position for the missiles to meet you and then be picked up by each aircrafts individual aimer. All this requires a considerable leap in technology and a massive jump in radio equipment production, which the Germans don't have. So you've got to get the factories, the systems, the technology all for this all to work.

No its not going to be radar guided or have a radar seeker.

No its not going to be a HARM because that technology does not exist yet.

So unless the Germans are fucking clarvoyant to have all this, and have it not affect them negatively in any way (It would, massively) at this point you're just throwing good money down a black hole of resources to make a shitty weapon system be relevant.

because at the moment its a case of

Okay we need this to work because...err...Nazi wunder waffe.

Requirements

Hitler approving a totally untested, unproven idea and putting the resources into it without any infighting over who gets to control it, build it, design it, operate it etc. And he trusts and indeed knows this will work 'because'.

This happening in the 30s when rockets were in their very infancy along with jet and pulse jet propulsion

The nazis then somehow perfect this system in 38/40

The Anglo-French do NOT notice ANY of this testing going on or development and the like at all as German security is absolutely air tight and no one like Canaris and co are leaking information and the usually well informed British spies are clearly blind, deaf and dumb. This state of affairs goes on for a decade.

These weapons, possibly radar guided with the technology to support them to equip them and the crews who have been trained up in total secrecy with NO leaks getting out are supported by an industrial base that wasn't there as well as the technology to do so. They do now. How? Because they just do okay? Also the industry needed to build this is all set up, all fully understood and with trained personnel all building a weapon system that no one's ever made before, with zero issues in quality, production delays or resource issues. This also applies for any radio equipment needed for them. This also does not affect any other German re-armament program at all in any way shape or form because Speer. Yes he's not in control of the German econimy at this time but its because of Speer. Also the Nazi war machine was super efficient and always cooperated between various firms and branches and none of the infighting that plagued everything else happens here. Why? Speer/Because.

Because the Allies have been too busy gargling liquid lead or giving themselves daily concussions that they are then totally caught by surprise by this utterly unproven weapon system, that works perfectly.

The CEP is somehow magically drastically reduced and the weapon becomes a tactical one.

France is France and are dumb cheese eating surrender monkies and surrender because Hitler threatens Paris with a rain of the V1

The French collapse of course leads to the BEF being destroyed because Blessed is Saint Mannstein and Saint Rommel.

Halifax is now PM because we said so.

Halifax who actually in real life was about as inclined to surrender to the Germans as most people are to putting their face in a wood chipper, surrenders.

This is how reaching and absurd this thread is getting.

 

[Garrison]

A thought I just had.

Initially, the V-1 was supposed to be radio controlled but, because by 1942-43 the Allied were effective in jamming any German system it was dropped for the mechanical system.

Given that this V-1 is not constrained by such concerns in 1938-1940, would it be build with a radio control system and would it be more accurate that way?

Why would you think they were not constrained in 1940? The British were very sharp about developing countermeasures and how would you even properly radio control these over any great range when you have to deal with wind, individual variations in performance etc? How are you even going to get positional data to a controller unless they are literally being guided from a bomber in line of sight? Also adding all that radio control gear will cut into the equipment available for tanks, planes. U-Boats.

 

[marathag]

Well, given that the original V-1 was produced by Volkswagen and Fieseler, it would affect those two the most I guess, if the production starts in late 1938/early 1939 then Volkswagen will stop some of its production of civilian cars and perhaps some of its Kugelwagen ones

You could say that VW was a State supported investment scam, as no Strength thru Joy Car was ever delivered to a worker, despite the weekly payments made in some cases, since the start of the program in 1938.
What would later be known as the Wolfsburg Plant, was severely underused during the War. Only real production started in early January 1940 with introduction of Polish slave labor for making field stoves and wooden drop tanks.
The Kübelwagen initial production was done by Porsche at Stuttgart, and moved to Wolfsburg in August 1940, after lobbying by VW for that contract- and even then, bodies were supplied by Ambi Budd, that was a partially owned subsidiary of Budd in the USA in a Berlin suburb until.it was damaged by Allied bombing..

Anyway, there was plenty of space for making buzz bombs from the day enough building the plant was completed.

 

[David Flin]

Why would you think they were not constrained in 1940? The British were very sharp about developing countermeasures and how would you even properly radio control these over any great range when you have to deal with wind, individual variations in performance etc? How are you even going to get positional data to a controller unless they are literally being guided from a bomber in line of sight? Also adding all that radio control gear will cut into the equipment available for tanks, planes. U-Boats.

One use radio control equipment, mark you.

Which is turning what started off as a cheap way of throwing explosives a long way to somewhere within a circle with a diameter of around 40 miles into a very expensive way of throwing explosives a long way to somewhere within a slightly smaller circle.

Maybe all the expensive bits of this Magic V1 can be on a giant rubber band and bungeed back once it is on final descent.

If radio control equipment is being literally thrown away in large numbers (we'll assume that the British, unlike OTL, don't develop counter-measures because this is 1940, and the British are being mind-controlled by the moustache twirling of the German Brains), then what of the German military infrastructure isn't get radios?

Let's handwave and say future visitors bring an infinite supply of radio equipment of the standard of the time. How are these miracle weapons being directed? If it's something like Knickebein, well, what happened OTL doesn't bode well for the usefulness of these Magic V1. If the Fritz-X system is being used, then there is the ludicrous situation that in order to get vaguely useful accuracy on a system intended to relieve bombers of the need to go into harm's way, bombers need to accompany these V1s in order to guide them, so going into harm's way. It would be at about this point that some German subaltern would say: "Hans, why don't we simply carry bombs and drop them ourselves and achieve the same thing?"

"I don't know, Wolfgang. I very carefully don't ask questions like that because I don't want to get shot."

***

What started off as an interesting premise has gone down the route of there being desperate attempts to turn something that makes the German situation worse into a wonder war-winning weapon, and the cracks show.

 

[marathag]

Why would you think they were not constrained in 1940? The British were very sharp about developing countermeasures and how would you even properly radio control these over any great range when you have to deal with wind, individual variations in performance etc? How are you even going to get positional data to a controller unless they are literally being guided from a bomber in line of sight? Also adding all that radio control gear will cut into the equipment available for tanks, planes. U-Boats.

That's how twin beam navigation worked,from the pre-war Lorenz with 30 mile range, to the slightly improved Knickebein of 100 miles in 1939.and just a bit later, the improved X-Gerät of 200 miles.
But in each case, the British were able to jam or deflect the beam, but that took time. Sometimes too late, like with Coventry, where the LW was able to use the Nav assist to its fullest.