Garrison
Donor
That was planned but cancelled, just didn't fit the German military tradition:
Introduction of V-1 Flying bombs early in the war would've been a game changer
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In context the ability to effectively disperse chemical weapons was well known and understood at the time and had been since @1917 with such being largely BETTER able to be spread effectively by a 'flying' platform such as the V1 than by artillery or free-fall bombs. Ram-air pressurized tanks and wing-slot spreaders were understood technology of the day. You'd still have to deal with the CEP but it's now a line rather than a circle and possibly spreads enough to still do significant damage.
Still rather unworkable in general, (consider your launch and early flight fail rate is what you're going to do to your OWN territory) but it was well within the general capability of the day IF anyone had been willing to go that route. Retaliation would ensue of course but during the interwar period everyone pretty much assumed that things would reach that point quite rapidly anyway. It would be a train-wreck of a war but keep in mind the WWI Allies had both considered such a plan and begun to initiate it when the war ended.
(The US had been readying to deploy "Hap" Arnold and the Kettering Bug and the rumors and principles of the time indicate it would not have used 'conventional' explosive warheads... Kettering himself decried the "combination of robot aircraft and chemical weapons")
Randy
TDM
Kicked
I guess part of the problems is the first three campaigns didn't last long enough to really get a strategic feel for the bombing campaigns (but well that's not Germany's fault) GB I agree with though.
CBW agents have the problem of being liquids, problematic with heating and pressure changes, and otherwise tricky to add to missile warheads. In addition the V-1 flew at around 900m, rather too high for effective dispersal of CW agents, and was designed to dive on target rather than spraying.
Plus the only nerve agents the Nazi regime produced in quantity, Tabun, was not available in significant quantities, so V-1 warheads would be limited to mustards, phosgene, and other such agents, plus exotica like CTF, none of which would be particularly useful in such a scenario.
Then there's the fact that most of the agent would be sprayed on semi-random locations.
I'm pretty sure most of the V1s fell short so even with a chemical warhead most of it is still falling into the Channel or empty fields in Kent.
One of the problems with spray tanks in V1 is that you would need to have a way to compensate for the change in balance of the aircraft while the agent was being delivered. Weight at the start of the flight would be different when you started the spray until you were empty and some kind of float arrangement would be needed to compensate for this. Some agents were more viscous than others when they were used in a spray tank from the air vs. the use on the ground in something like a Livens projector or artillery shell, this will also affect the way the tank is emptied and how much area is covered.
See a "Higher for of Killing" https://www.amazon.com/Higher-Form-Killing-Chemical-Biological/dp/0812966538 as a good start.
See a "Higher for of Killing" https://www.amazon.com/Higher-Form-Killing-Chemical-Biological/dp/0812966538 as a good start.
I've been pretty pressed for time IRL, but I really want to make a couple points here.
The V1, while dangerous to the civilian population, misses the most effective aspects of strategic bombing due to it being solely an "area bombing"* weapon.
A close look at the strategic bombing campaigns against Germany shows a few things.
1. 'Precision' strategic bombing was incredibly damaging to the Reich. Within months of targeting POL infrastructure, the bombing caused apocalyptic damage to the industry and effectively destroyed Germany's ability to use motorized/mech/armor divisions. The much maligned Schweinfurt/Regensburg raid not only caused damage to a ball bearing plant (causing mild supply issues as stockpiles we're found and tapped) but caused a 1,000 plane production reduction at Regensburg over the next few months (Strategy for defeat has an interesting chart outlining this. Free internet versions are available). Consider that; a raid considered a costly failure removed 1000 fighters from the Luftwaffe mid war. In fact, this raid combined with the (rare event) supporting British raid on related facilities that night, led to the Luftwaffe chief shooting himself.
Obviously precision is relative here. It turned out to be quite difficult to hit targets heavily enough and repeatedly enough, but despite this it still had an obvious, large and compounding effect.
Some of the other effects that the daylight bomber raids had were, in no particular order, smashing virtually every Luftwaffe base in France, destroying the road and rail net in Western Europe, forcing Germany to put over a million men into the air defense effort, forcing catastrophic losses onto the Luftwaffe fighter arm during "big week" raids and the continuing bomber offensive.
2. Area bombing of Germany achieved remarkably little. Despite burning large amounts of the residential portions of the Ruhr, "de-housing" the population showed much less effect on the war then blowing apart factories. It certainly wasn't great for morale, but it also had the effect of clearing out non essential jobs (the war can go on without the local dance instructor having her studio in operation) thus pushing a greater amount of the work force to large and thus more efficient production facilities or into agriculture.
This is without noting the failure of area bombing on numerous cities due to better geography and layout.
--
What does this have to do with the V1?
The V1 cannot effectively target industry. As made historically, it can hardly even target urban areas. Burning London simply isn't going to hurt the UK anything like as much as burning the Ruhr hurt Germany, and the Ruhr being roasted didn't do all that much to Germany.
*Now, area bombing can also be described as terror bombing, but I use area bombing as (A) not all terror bombing has to be random and (B) not all area bombing is terror bombing (I wouldn't count the USAAF firebombing of Japan as terror bombing, though it was certainly area bombing).
Edit:
On the other hand, a theoretical kamikaze V1 has the potential to be a devastating weapon. However, Given that Germany failed to use its historical bomber efforts well (when they finally got around to hitting spitfire production it worked quite well, but they didn't follow up or hit that soon enough anyway) I doubt that they use these especially efficiently either, and there are a lot of morale and feasibility questions.
The V1, while dangerous to the civilian population, misses the most effective aspects of strategic bombing due to it being solely an "area bombing"* weapon.
A close look at the strategic bombing campaigns against Germany shows a few things.
1. 'Precision' strategic bombing was incredibly damaging to the Reich. Within months of targeting POL infrastructure, the bombing caused apocalyptic damage to the industry and effectively destroyed Germany's ability to use motorized/mech/armor divisions. The much maligned Schweinfurt/Regensburg raid not only caused damage to a ball bearing plant (causing mild supply issues as stockpiles we're found and tapped) but caused a 1,000 plane production reduction at Regensburg over the next few months (Strategy for defeat has an interesting chart outlining this. Free internet versions are available). Consider that; a raid considered a costly failure removed 1000 fighters from the Luftwaffe mid war. In fact, this raid combined with the (rare event) supporting British raid on related facilities that night, led to the Luftwaffe chief shooting himself.
Obviously precision is relative here. It turned out to be quite difficult to hit targets heavily enough and repeatedly enough, but despite this it still had an obvious, large and compounding effect.
Some of the other effects that the daylight bomber raids had were, in no particular order, smashing virtually every Luftwaffe base in France, destroying the road and rail net in Western Europe, forcing Germany to put over a million men into the air defense effort, forcing catastrophic losses onto the Luftwaffe fighter arm during "big week" raids and the continuing bomber offensive.
2. Area bombing of Germany achieved remarkably little. Despite burning large amounts of the residential portions of the Ruhr, "de-housing" the population showed much less effect on the war then blowing apart factories. It certainly wasn't great for morale, but it also had the effect of clearing out non essential jobs (the war can go on without the local dance instructor having her studio in operation) thus pushing a greater amount of the work force to large and thus more efficient production facilities or into agriculture.
This is without noting the failure of area bombing on numerous cities due to better geography and layout.
--
What does this have to do with the V1?
The V1 cannot effectively target industry. As made historically, it can hardly even target urban areas. Burning London simply isn't going to hurt the UK anything like as much as burning the Ruhr hurt Germany, and the Ruhr being roasted didn't do all that much to Germany.
*Now, area bombing can also be described as terror bombing, but I use area bombing as (A) not all terror bombing has to be random and (B) not all area bombing is terror bombing (I wouldn't count the USAAF firebombing of Japan as terror bombing, though it was certainly area bombing).
Edit:
On the other hand, a theoretical kamikaze V1 has the potential to be a devastating weapon. However, Given that Germany failed to use its historical bomber efforts well (when they finally got around to hitting spitfire production it worked quite well, but they didn't follow up or hit that soon enough anyway) I doubt that they use these especially efficiently either, and there are a lot of morale and feasibility questions.
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marathag
Banned
Fuel was on the CoG to reduce trim changes as fuel was burned.
But once over the target are when spraying starts, will start to make the CoG move rearward, that makes the aircraft increasingly unstable.
Doesn't really matter at this point, since the goal is to spray the chemical payload over SE England at a rapid rate, followed by the crash of the drone
According to Tooze the Ruhr campaign was a success!
But this was an Oboe / HS2 type raid which allowed pretty accurate 'Area bombing' (the system allowed navigation to with a 200 meter margin of error and the pathfinder squadrons had matured aiding marking of targets
The mistake was in not continuing it and Harris and co over estimating the damage caused.
However to your general point given the CEP of a V1 is the size of then Greater London its only a terror weapon at best
They did do some development with the Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg
Of course with the rather narrow and cramped cockpit being right in front of the pulsejet engine and being about 400 mph fast (or even faster) getting safely out of it would have been quite a task for the pilot.
Maybe a kind of bomb bay which drops the pilot downwards? At 400mph, the parachute opening may well kill or permanently cripple the pilot [1] if the parachute didn't explode, so best to allow a few moments for the airspeed to drop off a bit. Of course, that does allow more time for the Home Guard with the Boys to take aim and allow for the deflection shot....
[1] A badly packed parachute that opens too quickly can be very dangerous due to rapid deceleration. Even a 10 second freefall (so not at terminal velocity when opening the chute) can result in an uncomfortable experience if leg straps aren't quite tight enough, since the unfortunate person is effectively hit by the straps (which have been slowed by the parachute before the person wearing the parachute slows down). Most men on their second 10 second or longer freefall are seen hauling the legstraps very tight indeed before getting into the plane. I gather it's not as bad for women, though still unpleasant.
An exit like some type of bomb bay might be bad for the stability of the flight bomb, especially with its high speed. Also with the 400 mph being the cruising speed the flying bomb might even be faster around the time when the pislot should theoretically try to escape. In a book that I have it is mentioned that the bomb pilot would have to try to get out when it would be about 1000 km/h fast (a bit over 600 mph) at which already just opening the canopy would take a lot of effort.
Of course in that point my book somewhat differs from the wikipedia entry, which lists a "never exceed speed" which with 800 km/h is obviously slower than the 1000 km/h in that book. Although both the wiki and my book state that the survival chances of the pilot for such an exit were less than 1% and the book further lays out that it was mainly an excuse to avoid mentioning it clearly that the pilot would have to die with the attack ("It's not a suicide attack! We have a way how the pilot can escape!")
(On another note the Wiki says that in 1944 175 of those bombs were ready for action while my book merely states that 175 bomb were being built without saying anything about combat readiness.)
Garrison
Donor
It didn't help that Harris wanted to win the war by bombing Berlin, because of course that would break the Germans. Had he followed up on the Dambusters raid and of course targeted the synthetic oil plants Bomber Command could have crippled German war production, and also stopped Speer from presenting himself as some sort of organizational genius after the war.
And yes, nothing like this is possible with the V-1, though we are reaching the point in the thread where someone is bound to suggest some super-duper radar guided version of the flying bomb that Germany can just magic up the resources to build.
Why ? If they are captured they will be tortured to death by locals who would want that
Beaten up, shot, pitchforked, threatened, insulted or left dangling from a tree (and maybe going too far on one or more due to anger) are all plausible, as is being captured and taken to the local police station, but Britain then and now is not a place where torture is or was acceptable practice.
According to justice.org.uk, it was made illegal in England and Wales in 1640, and in Scotland in 1708, but had long been unacceptable under common law before that.
Having said that, I certainly wouldn't fancy facing the locals shortly after their church, village hall or hopyard had been blown up.
On this note... before anyone asks, the US's Fat Man warhead weighed 10,800 pounds and the Little Man warhead weighed 9800 pounds, so both over 5 times the V-1's carrying capacity. Even if we handwave Nazi Nukes, the V-1 is not the delivery system.
Nazi Science (with added Destiny) counters your pessimism with the V10! - which is ten V1s wired together, but is still more credible than at least some of the OTL Nazi nuclear programme(s).
I still struggle with the idea that the post office had its own research group. Maybe they misunderstood 'we need to think about a delivery system'?