They get off a few rounds but being fixed units they are quickly bombed out of existence...
The bombing was only effective with Barnes Wallis Tallboy bombs, which were just made in time.
They get off a few rounds but being fixed units they are quickly bombed out of existence...
Ahh, so you watched the Channel 4 programme on Sunday??
Nothing new though.
Without huge deep earth penetration bombs the actual launch site might have been bomb proof but not the openings for the barrels and the supply route for the prodigious numbers of shells and charges which was never going to survive allied air superiority if it ever began firing.
I wasn't aware that Tallboy wasn't yet available but yes, the at-ground level parts of the site are vulnerable to normal bombs. And the Allies were already heavily bombing the transportation system so this would affect German installations of every type...
It should probably be noted here that there's a hell of a long way between the proof-of-concept model they built and the final "combat" model
Yes, in fact; Project Babylon was directly inspired by the V3, and some of the principles borrowed quite liberally from it - in particular, the idea of multiple propellant charges along the length of the cannon...though it's worth noting that it's not like the Nazis invented those or anything, and development in ultralong range cannons had been around since the mid-19th century.
One thing that always confused me about the V3 was - in WWI, the Paris Gun achieved ranges of over 120km with only slightly smaller shells. The distance from, say, Calais to London is under 200km. Schwerer Gustav, though it had somewhat shorter range, fired much heavier projectiles (50-100x as heavy, IIRC). So why did the the Germans go to all the trouble of multiple charges and such complex design when it seems plausible that massive but normal cannons would have worked?
Project Babylon was supposed to reach 1000km or more, but for the 180km needed, it seems more like an evolutionary solution is called for, rather than revolutionary.
The bombing was only effective with Barnes Wallis Tallboy bombs, which were just made in time.
That's far too sensible a decision for the Nazis - they practiced something very akin to social darwinism in deciding what projects succeeded or failed, but with the merits of those in charge of the project deciding success or failure rather than those of the project itself. That helps explain many dumb decisions like this - those making the decisions were often not very technically literate and were more interested in internal politics than technology in making them.I've been confused by it since I thought about a POD of building it instead of the Schwere Gustav. You figure they could only afford one set of crazy superguns. Strange that they didn't develop the Gustav design farther. The extended barrel version with rocket assisted round had a projected range of 150km. Maybe the V3 used less strategic materials in a shorter time frame.
Never thought of this before but the V3 was the worst nazi wonder weapon. Unfortunately it took the time slot of something cooler.
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It would inconvenience Overlord to run it from ports in the North and West of Britain, but it could still be done. Torch and nearly all of the Pacific invasions were mounted over much greater distances.