Were the V1/2 rocket programs worth it?

Were the V1/2 rocket programs worth it?

  • No

    Votes: 18 42.9%
  • Yes

    Votes: 1 2.4%
  • To a degree

    Votes: 23 54.8%

  • Total voters
    42
Were the V1 and V2 rocket programs (and all the resources they consumed) worth the Reich creating them?

Meaning would they have gotten more combat value from putting the resources originally allocated for rockets towards something else?
 

BlondieBC

Banned
V1 is great investment, V2 was waste of money.

We have a thread on this at least once every 3 months. V1 is cheaper than flying a medium bomber over London and back with no opposition. V2 is horribly complex way of killing slave labor for little gain. V1 buffs are Nazi Buffs. V2 buffs are Allied buffs. Almost any weapon built by Nazi that is not a V2 is a better choice.
 
From the German perspective, it must have seemed as though the advantage of V2 over V1 was that there were no effective countermeasures to V2. Ironically, that was exactly wrong. Precisely because V1 could be countered, if only by mass use of AA guns and high performance fighters, it actually imposed more of a cost on the allied war effort than V2, where there was nothing to do but take it until the launch sites were overrun.
 
V1 I have my doubts. Yes, on a strict allocation of resources it caused the Allies to divert much more resources.

But its military effects were negligible and the Allies had those resources to spare, by whose nature would have had relatively little effect on the decisive theatre of the ground war. Germany would have been better served using her scarce resources to impact the ground war, rather than by aimlessly scattering HE across southern England.
 
No they used up a huge amount of money, materials, research man power and production facilities that would have been better used on more conventional projects.
 

DougM

Donor
Actually I have to disagree. The V2 was a great use of resources. Perhaps the best use of resources in the whole of Nazi Germany. Just not the way the Nazi’s hoped for. Where they hoped for a weapon that would have a great effect on the war what they got was a great rocket development program that ultimately benefited the ally counties in general and the US and USSR greatly.

So it depends on you point of view, it was a fantastic success as far as the US and USSR rocket programs go but not such a great idea for Germany at the time.
 
V1 is great investment, V2 was waste of money.

We have a thread on this at least once every 3 months. V1 is cheaper than flying a medium bomber over London and back with no opposition. V2 is a horribly complex way of killing slave labor for little gain.

If the comment on V1 cost is true, then since it is cheaper than something the Nazi's were actually still doing occasionally - launching air raids of Britain - then yes it was a good move. Save money, save increasingly scarce trained aircrew and bombers for other duties.

The resources put into the V2 if put into anti-aircraft missile development might have done more for the German cause. How cost effective that would have been compared to what they actually did - like producing FW-190's that they could not fuel or provide properly trained pilots for - is not known to me.

Not all the resources could be moved to any randomly chosen other project. The slave labour yes, but Von Braun and his team could not very well be transferred to a project to develop cheaper synthetic petroleum products, for example.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
If the comment on V1 cost is true, then since it is cheaper than something the Nazi's were actually still doing occasionally - launching air raids of Britain - then yes it was a good move. Save money, save increasingly scarce trained aircrew and bombers for other duties.

The resources put into the V2 if put into anti-aircraft missile development might have done more for the German cause. How cost effective that would have been compared to what they actually did - like producing FW-190's that they could not fuel or provide properly trained pilots for - is not known to me.

Not all the resources could be moved to any randomly chosen other project. The slave labour yes, but Von Braun and his team could not very well be transferred to a project to develop cheaper synthetic petroleum products, for example.

My guess is that if you cancelled the V-2 project early and put the resources into AA missiles, you would have usable AA missiles by the same time frame, but that is a guess.

To me the slave labor looks like the biggest item helping Germany. Given a few years lead time, surely these laborers could have been producing some other weapons system. True there were not enough pilots, but couldn't they have been making ammo, artillery, anti-tank weapons or tanks?
 
The V2 was an appalling waste of resources...

...The V1/Fi103 was very practical. The US actually built copies (Republic-Ford JB-2 Loon) for Operation Downfall. If used to dispense cluster bomblets (e.g. 'butterfly bombs') or war gases, the V1 could have immobilized London and the South Coast ports during Operation Overlord or before. The V2 was only useful to the Allies - a wasteful 'glamour project' like the two 'Bismarck' class battleships and the 'Graf Zeppelin' carriers.

The Germans could have developed 'Wasserfall' and 'Taifun' missiles and built the He163 Spatz Jet Fighter instead of wasting Reichsmarks on the V2... Thank Heaven they did not.
 
The V2 was only useful to the Allies - a wasteful 'glamour project' like the two 'Bismarck' class battleships...

I agree with most of what you say, but Tirpitz actually did fairly well. Simply by staying in harbour and posing an ever-present threat to the Arctic convoys she forced the Allies to devote a great deal of effort to her. She tied up heavy naval assets and a good deal of air power just by existing, not to mention all the attempts made to destroy her. Realistically that was as much as anyone could expect a single battleship to achieve against the Allies, and "the lone Queen of the North" managed the role of 'threat in being' quite well. There might have been better uses for the steel and manpower devoted to her, but it's not obvious that they were wasted.
 
V1 yes, V2 absolutely not.

The V2 was an appalling waste of resources...

...The V1/Fi103 was very practical. The US actually built copies (Republic-Ford JB-2 Loon) for Operation Downfall. If used to dispense cluster bomblets (e.g. 'butterfly bombs') or war gases, the V1 could have immobilized London and the South Coast ports during Operation Overlord or before. The V2 was only useful to the Allies - a wasteful 'glamour project' like the two 'Bismarck' class battleships and the 'Graf Zeppelin' carriers.

The Germans could have developed 'Wasserfall' and 'Taifun' missiles and built the He163 Spatz Jet Fighter instead of wasting Reichsmarks on the V2... Thank Heaven they did not.

Very true by both posters.

Can you elaborate?

What should the Reich have used the resources for if they didn’t use them on the V2?

Perfect the jet engine earlier, plus AA missiles.
 
I agree with most of what you say, but Tirpitz actually did fairly well. Simply by staying in harbour and posing an ever-present threat to the Arctic convoys she forced the Allies to devote a great deal of effort to her. She tied up heavy naval assets and a good deal of air power just by existing, not to mention all the attempts made to destroy her. Realistically that was as much as anyone could expect a single battleship to achieve against the Allies, and "the lone Queen of the North" managed the role of 'threat in being' quite well. There might have been better uses for the steel and manpower devoted to her, but it's not obvious that they were wasted.

I would disagree with that. At most, Tirpitz kept a few Allied heavy ships in the Atlantic instead of the Pacific, so in a minor way it helped the Japanese war effort. But then, the Allies did not have any real lack of battleships or cruisers.
 
If they had finished developing the V2 earlier it could have caused a lot of trouble for the Allies, especially if they increase their range, speed and payload.

V-1 was effective at first but they found ways to counter it quickly, the V-2 is a lot harder to counter.
 
I would disagree with that. At most, Tirpitz kept a few Allied heavy ships in the Atlantic instead of the Pacific, so in a minor way it helped the Japanese war effort. But then, the Allies did not have any real lack of battleships or cruisers.

The combination of a credible surface threat (i.e. Tirpitz, Scharnhorst etc.) and aircraft in Norway that greatly restricted the Arctic convoys and supplies to Russia. Given that the decisive theatre was the East, this is a worthwhile goal.

Whether the effort expended was worthwhile is less clear. Could the effort involved in building the surface heavies have been used elsewhere to more impact in the East? Very possibly, given that I think Germany wins in the east in 1941-2 or not at all...
 
The combination of a credible surface threat (i.e. Tirpitz, Scharnhorst etc.) and aircraft in Norway that greatly restricted the Arctic convoys and supplies to Russia. Given that the decisive theatre was the East, this is a worthwhile goal.

Whether the effort expended was worthwhile is less clear. Could the effort involved in building the surface heavies have been used elsewhere to more impact in the East? Very possibly, given that I think Germany wins in the east in 1941-2 or not at all...

Say Bismarck and Tirpitz are never built, the steel and other material used for making trucks and panzers

1941, Soviets pushed farther back, and don't have access to the arctic ports, so doesn't matter what the UK merchant marine could deliver.
 
The combination of a credible surface threat (i.e. Tirpitz, Scharnhorst etc.) and aircraft in Norway that greatly restricted the Arctic convoys and supplies to Russia. Given that the decisive theatre was the East, this is a worthwhile goal.

Whether the effort expended was worthwhile is less clear. Could the effort involved in building the surface heavies have been used elsewhere to more impact in the East? Very possibly, given that I think Germany wins in the east in 1941-2 or not at all...

How about just building enough U-boats to force Brits to do convoys instead of the massive building program started in 1939? How much quality manpower, steel and other materials would that release for more productive endeavours in 1939-1941? (after 1942 all is moot anyway...)
 

Deleted member 1487

Can you elaborate?

What should the Reich have used the resources for if they didn’t use them on the V2?
The V-1 was extremely cost effective for the Germans, it cost only 1/6th that of the V-2 program and was vastly more destructive, plus diverted enormous Allied resources to attempt to counter them, especially the bomber offensive.

For the V-2 resources yeah, probably SAM work.
 
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