Germans introduce V1 in 1940

David Flin

Gone Fishin'
Regarding this thread's scenario, while the blitz focused on the East End, the V1s would hit all over London. So Whitehall, the West End and other parts of London would be hit hard too. That's why I'm suggesting the ruling class might not be quite as stoic.

I would suggest going to things like Mass Observations, where period attitudes and thoughts are recorded.

ATS 230873, for example, was trained in London, and shifted loads by truck around London - including trips to the East End during a period that included V1 attacks. (My Uncle Patrick claims to have had a lengthy conversation with said subaltern, with varying degrees of detail given depending on the audience. However, Uncle Patrick was not an honest man, and examination of his war record shows that at the time in question, he was in Burma and not, as he liked to pretend, up to black market shenanigans in London).

Early in the war, there are the well-known examples of night clubs continuing to be patronised during air raids.

By and large, those of a non-stoic nature had departed London early on, on one excuse or another. Those that remained were the bloody-minded sods.

I would strongly, strongly, strongly suggest reading the diaries and memoirs of the people of the period, rather than trying to guess at their attitudes.
 

Garrison

Donor
As one of the population who faced this in real life (albeit I was rather young at the time), you are projecting an attitude that simply didn't exist. The bolded sentence is, quite simply, a total and utter nonsense of what the period attitudes were.
Not to mention that when the RAF delivered far heavier attacks later in the war the Germans still kept going despite the far greater carnage wrought. At no time in the war did conventional strategic bombing cause any nation to surrender, the Dutch and the Poles were invaded and facing defeat before the bombing raids that proved the final straw. There are even those willing to make a plausible argument that the nuclear bombing of Japan wouldn't have ended the Pacific War without the USSR's declaration of war against Japan.
 
Had Germany the robust miniature tubes the US Industry developed, that was possible, as the JB-2 Loon showed being able to live with the high vibration environment
Yes, but if they had that they could probably make proximity fixed shells as well, and a fair few things would be different.
 

Garrison

Donor
Had Germany the robust miniature tubes the US Industry developed, that was possible, as the JB-2 Loon showed being able to live with the high vibration environment
Which of course they didn't and it would rather defeat the point of the V-1 as the cheap, simple weapon that doesn't put a strain on strategic resources since of course each of these guidance devices will be making a one way trip, oh and none of them were automatic, they all needed human intervention and were subject to highly effective jamming in fairly short order. It seems at this point that every deficiency with the V-1 is either handwaved away or 'fixed' by adding more complexity to a 'simple' weapon.
 

David Flin

Gone Fishin'
Had Germany the robust miniature tubes the US Industry developed, that was possible, as the JB-2 Loon showed being able to live with the high vibration environment

And if Germany had the industrial capacity and unfettered access to raw materials that US industry had ...

As far as I can tell, the premise is going down the road of:

If Germany perceives a need for something that has no real use for based on what their immediate needs were, and

If Germany can produce large numbers of these V1 without impacting the things they needed to beat Poland and Norway and France and

If Germany focuses on bombing Britain into submission rather than trying to go down the Sealion route of getting troops on the other side of the Channel and

If Britain, presumably because of LMF that no-one else seemed to suffer when it came to ploughing on through bombing campaigns, simply gave up and

If Britain, presumably because of the lead-laced tea that caused the LMF, didn't do anything much different in the light of a changed situation and

If Germany had access to methods of guidance of the V1 in 1940 that wasn't available to it in 1944 and

If that particular change doesn't change the cost/benefit ratio dramatically, and

If ...

It's all getting a bit cumbersome.
 

marathag

Banned
Yes, but if they had that they could probably make proximity fixed shells as well, and a fair few things would be different.
Forces from pulse jet many magnitudes easier to deal with than the 10,000G from being fired from a cannon, and spinning from the rifling
 

Garrison

Donor
And if Germany had the industrial capacity and unfettered access to raw materials that US industry had ...

As far as I can tell, the premise is going down the road of:

If Germany perceives a need for something that has no real use for based on what their immediate needs were, and

If Germany can produce large numbers of these V1 without impacting the things they needed to beat Poland and Norway and France and

If Germany focuses on bombing Britain into submission rather than trying to go down the Sealion route of getting troops on the other side of the Channel and

If Britain, presumably because of LMF that no-one else seemed to suffer when it came to ploughing on through bombing campaigns, simply gave up and

If Britain, presumably because of the lead-laced tea that caused the LMF, didn't do anything much different in the light of a changed situation and

If Germany had access to methods of guidance of the V1 in 1940 that wasn't available to it in 1944 and

If that particular change doesn't change the cost/benefit ratio dramatically, and

If ...

It's all getting a bit cumbersome.
If it was just a case of Hitler gets a bee in his bonnet and you have a few hundred V-1s thrown into mix in 1940 at the expense of some light and medium bombers that might be interesting and even faintly plausible. But as with so many discussions of Germany weapons its rapidly developed into an ever more tortured effort to make it into a war winner.
 

Garrison

Donor
Forces from pulse jet many magnitudes easier to deal with than the 10,000G from being fired from a cannon, and spinning from the rifling
Which doesn't remotely address the question of how they build the up this industry in time for 1940 when they didn't have IOTL 1944, or what that would do to the costs of the V-1 as you throw away an expensive navigational device with every launch?
 

David Flin

Gone Fishin'
As an aside do you know what's in the big black bit in the SE (I want to say roughly around the area that becomes Lewisham) on this map of bomb damage?

London-blitz-map.jpg


Can you think of a particular target that's getting hit there, or maybe because it's the bombers turning?

cheers from a interested Ladbroke Grove, boy :)

No idea what was there at the time. No obvious large industrial sites. It's close to Greenwich.

My wild guess would be: German bombers following the Thames to find London (we can see the black stuff along the course of the river), and turning south (the logical way to turn) to start the return trip, and the southern black bit is those that drop bombs just after the turn rather than just before.

Still, it does explain why it's hard to get a taxi to go south of the river at night. Still scared of German bombers.
 
No idea what was there at the time. No obvious large industrial sites. It's close to Greenwich.

My wild guess would be: German bombers following the Thames to find London (we can see the black stuff along the course of the river), and turning south (the logical way to turn) to start the return trip, and the southern black bit is those that drop bombs just after the turn rather than just before.

Still, it does explain why it's hard to get a taxi to go south of the river at night. Still scared of German bombers.
A large part of the success of the anti-V1 measures were persuading the Germans that they were overshooting the middle of London and getting them to drop the range. I cannot recommend Most Secret War by RV Jones more highly on this area - because there were so few German reconnaissance flights allowed over London the British were able to make the Germans think that much of the 1940-41 damage from the Blitz in the East End and Docklands was in fact from the initial wave of V1 attacks. The Germans dropped the range and SE London and Kent got hit instead by the few that got through the AA gun barrage on the coast and the RAF's tender ministrations over the Channel.
 
However the population is now facing nights of no sleep, never knowing when or where, death will suddenly strike.

As one of the population who faced this in real life (albeit I was rather young at the time), you are projecting an attitude that simply didn't exist. The bolded sentence is, quite simply, a total and utter nonsense of what the period attitudes were.
Uh, which part?
no sleep?
never knowing?
or
suddenly strike?

oh yeah, try decaf!🙄

ric350
 
Forces from pulse jet many magnitudes easier to deal with than the 10,000G from being fired from a cannon, and spinning from the rifling
Sure. But that was why those devices were developed. If they had those the Americans then they would have those capable of use in proximity fuzes
 

David Flin

Gone Fishin'
However the population is now facing nights of no sleep, never knowing when or where, death will suddenly strike.


Uh, which part?
no sleep?
never knowing?
or
suddenly strike?

oh yeah, try decaf!🙄

ric350

Surely you have seen the pictures of people camped out in Underground stations. Deep enough to be safe from bombs, and bedding for sleep.

People are adaptable. Often far more so than historians give credit for.

Once again, I recommend going to the many memoirs and diaries written at the time.
 
MGogZRi.png

(From German Aircraft Industry and Production, 1933-1945)
yaBETbB.png

So, if anything, the V-1 production would not disrupt aircraft production until 1940.
 

Coulsdon Eagle

Monthly Donor
As an aside do you know what's in the big black bit in the SE (I want to say roughly around the area that becomes Lewisham) on this map of bomb damage?

London-blitz-map.jpg


Can you think of a particular target that's getting hit there, or maybe because it's the bombers turning?

cheers from a interested Ladbroke Grove, boy :)
Not sure if the dark patch in the south extends to Croydon, which IIRC was one of the most heavily bombed London councils during WWII.

It contained or was close to three Fighter Command airfields at Croydon Airport, Kenley & Biggin Hill; there were also a fair bit of aircraft industry based there, as Croydon had been (still was?) the UK's major civilian airport, with companies such as Red Wing. My grandfather, a master builder and so in a reserved occupation, spent much time on duty to repair bomb damage to the infrastructure.

Croydon was also an important rail junction, where the lines from London Bridge & Victoria met before splitting off for south coast destinations such as Hastings, Newhaven, Seaford, Brighton, and Portsmouth, or further west via Guildford. There were large marshalling yards at Norwood Junction.

I would add that my mother was in an air raid shelter at her school during a busy period of V-1 raids when a near miss buried the shelter's entrance, and the kids had to be evacuated through an emergency pipe exit. Those shelters at Chipstead Valley Primary outlived my time there, only being demolished some time in the late 1970's.
 
I forgot to post my comments on the table earlier but they've all been covered as well or better.

I can see the lure of new shiny technology being very appealing to the Nazi leadership. They'd see the 1930s equivalent of that wiki table and decide "we just have to have it".
Maybe they'd use it as long range artillery for rear area bombardment or as a massively overpriced katyusha instead of developing close air support.
They'd be more scary, very expensive and much less useful on the battlefield than OTL 1939 and 1940 strategic artillery and CAS.
By the time they realise their mistake things could be very different.
Meanwhile the British, USA and soviet union are busy throwing money into their own versions of these new wonder weapons.
 

Garrison

Donor
I forgot to post my comments on the table earlier but they've all been covered as well or better.

I can see the lure of new shiny technology being very appealing to the Nazi leadership. They'd see the 1930s equivalent of that wiki table and decide "we just have to have it".
Maybe they'd use it as long range artillery for rear area bombardment or as a massively overpriced katyusha instead of developing close air support.
They'd be more scary, very expensive and much less useful on the battlefield than OTL 1939 and 1940 strategic artillery and CAS.
By the time they realise their mistake things could be very different.
Meanwhile the British, USA and soviet union are busy throwing money into their own versions of these new wonder weapons.
Except the Katyusha is a tactical battlefield weapon with a degree of flexibility. The V-1 is a strategic weapon that can only hit a target that's in the direction of its launch ramp and is big enough to be hit by the not very accurate rocket. It's a bad strategic weapon and it would be an even worse tactical one, and I am saying that as the person who drew this:
Erdbeben.jpg
 
Except the Katyusha is a tactical battlefield weapon with a degree of flexibility. The V-1 is a strategic weapon that can only hit a target that's in the direction of its launch ramp and is big enough to be hit by the not very accurate rocket. It's a bad strategic weapon and it would be an even worse tactical one, and I am saying that as the person who drew this:
I seem to remember there was an attempt to use V1s against the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen and it was a dismal failure. So was the attempt to shut down Antwerp with V1s.
 
Except the Katyusha is a tactical battlefield weapon with a degree of flexibility. The V-1 is a strategic weapon that can only hit a target that's in the direction of its launch ramp and is big enough to be hit by the not very accurate rocket. It's a bad strategic weapon and it would be an even worse tactical one, and I am saying that as the person who drew this:
View attachment 764072
We know that. But over-promising and getting carried away with unproven technology was common practice in Nazi Germany.
Apparently many German towns had an 'aerial torpedo' on display to aid fundraising for the airforce in early 1934 so there was a clear drive and desire to adopt leading edge technologies from an early stage in the regime.
 
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