V-2 attacks on New York

The Nazis, had, in the waning days of WW2, a program to create a V-2 launched from canisters towed by U-boats. One launch canister was built and tested, but never used.....

Now, lets assume that this program had more priority, and in early 1944, 3 V-2 rockets fall on New York.....

What happens?
 
Good for US propaganda efforts. An attack on the homeland can be used as an extremely rallying cry for another war bond or enlistment drive.

Not much else will differ from OTL aside from increased destroyer patrols in the North Atlantic once the source of the V-2s is pinpointed.
 
A few relatively localized rocket attacks will only further strengthen the American public's support for the war effort without really having much of an effect on the strategic side of things. Now if we're talking a nuclear warhead tipped ICBM, like the planned A3 rocket, that's a whole other story...
 
Calls for the American Army to disregard previous agreements on treaty lines and drive as deep into Germany as possible.
 

Cook

Banned
Judging from the performance of the attacks on London:

In late…
...1944, 3 V-2 rockets fall on New York.....
...State causing no damage. 1 lands in the outskirts of New York City killing two people, injuring a dozen and flattening three houses. It was discovered later that two more missiles exploded on launch.

FDR makes a rousing speech and war production increases.
 
Most of the misses against London were due to British intelligence leaking direct hits as overshoots, thus the Germans corrected for the non-existent overshoots, and the V2s fell short from then on.
 
Impossible, the V-2 had a very complex firing procedure that took nearly an hour to set up. It also had to be accurately aligned to face it's target, I saw a film of this process in a documentary that asked just this question, it was pretty clear that trying to carry out this on the pitching deck of a U-Boat would have been totally impossible. There also would have been the ever present danger of being located by aircraft or ASW ships and sunk.

So in short the answer is no way.
 
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They were towed in canisters behind the sub, not carried in the sub itself, and they were launched directly from the canisters. Of course, given the fact that the subs would probably not be in sight of land, aiming would be a complete shot in the dark, which, stack on top of the already sketchy accuracy (could hit a city from a fixed point, but probably not much better) meant, you'd probably be as likely to hit New Haven as New York.
 
What are the chances of a sub even surviving long enough to launch, the American east coast wasn't the best place to be a U-Boat n 1944.
 
Another case of overeaching

It took the USSR ten years to turn the V2/sub combo into something usable, and even then it was only worth the effort with nuclear warheads.
The V2 was not very accurate firing from a precisely known land position, so hitting anything from a sea launch plataform would be a blind shot.
The V2s are a clear case of triyng to push the envelope so far it no longer fits the mailbox...
The V2 program in fact killed more people in Germany, (the slave workers building them in underground factories in horrible conditions) than on it's target areas...
The V1 program made some sense in a 1944/45 IOC time frame, the V2 was a research program rushed into action and too imature to be of more than psychological value.
 
Assuming the concept is plausible, which I have questions about, the true end result here may be a harsher peace and occupation, which could have huge effects in how the Cold War turns out. When things settled down, the Allied occupation of Germany was, as such things go, fairly benign. A harsh occupation, such as implementing the Morgenthau Plan, might well have made the transformation of West Germany to a social democracy and its Wirtschaftswunder far more difficult if not impossible.
 

Sior

Banned
What are the chances of a sub even surviving long enough to launch, the American east coast wasn't the best place to be a U-Boat n 1944.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Teardrop

Operation Teardrop was a United States Navy operation of World War II conducted during April and May 1945 to sink German U-boats that were believed to be approaching the United States east coast armed with V-1 flying bombs. Two large U.S. Navy anti-submarine warfare task forces succeeded in destroying five of the boats, for the loss of one destroyer escort. After the war the Allies determined that the submarines were not carrying missiles.
 

J.D.Ward

Donor
As several other posters have said, very little effect results from this.

The only war-changing possibility is if, by luck rather than design, they kill a major military or political figure.

Far more likely is the British version of this, a timeline in which Churchill is killed by a V1 or V2.
 
Most of the misses against London were due to British intelligence leaking direct hits as overshoots, thus the Germans corrected for the non-existent overshoots, and the V2s fell short from then on.

Considering that the German program to get HUMINT from the American mainland failed miserably AFAIK, they'll have no way of knowing exactly where their missiles fell.
The Americans will probably do the same thing the British did in real life IIRC; that is reporting on the BBC and such that the German missiles (in IOTL V-1's) fell more to the SW then they really did, resulting in the Germans aiming their missiles more and more in the NE direction of London.

They can't really correct their fire anyways, considering that the launching point will be different everytime, because the Germans don't have anything like LORAN AFAIK. Unless you'd have a submarine firing multiple rockets after one another from the same location, which goes contrary to every SLBM doctrine around.

So the Germans have no way of either knowing exactly where they are aiming from as where they're aiming at.

Impossible, the V-2 had a very complex firing procedure that took nearly an hour to set up. It also had to be accurately aligned to face it's target, I saw a film of this process in a documentary that asked just this question, it was pretty clear that trying to carry out this on the pitching deck of a U-Boat would have been totally impossible. There also would have been the ever present danger of being located by aircraft or ASW ships and sunk.

So in short the answer is no way.

As AdA mentioned, it took the Soviets (and the Western Allies) a decade+ to get SLBM halfway accurate. It took them untill 1960+ to get the first underwater launch, which greatly aids the possible submarine's survival.

Unless the Nazi's somehow manage to survive untill 1955, it's a no go.
 
It could boost submersible technology a bit. The tests were made in the Baltic Sea with very good weather and already there towing a canister/container behind a submarine was troublesome.

Going to cross the Atlantic Ocean with one would require having extreme luck with the weather for several days.

So to make this actually a feasible idea would mean there'd have to be some progress to be made.

All other problems have already been written by the previous posters.
 
It would take extreme luck for this to happen but extreme luck sometimes happens. If it does happen expect it to be used in US propeganda showing how real the German menece is and you probably have increased production. The war will probably end sooner. You will probably have the US more pissed at the Germans than the Japanese in TTL and some Pacific assets move west and the "Germany First" group gets a big boost.
 
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