WI No V-2 but more and better V-1's?

[Gunnarnz]

If they were just using high explosive warheads, maybe it would be tolerated. But what if they used incendiary warheads to firebomb London? Surely every ground attack aircraft of the RAF would be tied up trying to suppress the launch area.

Personally, I don't think incendiaries would change the British response. The Luftwaffe dropped incendiaries over London during the Blitz, and other cities, and although Coventry was pretty bad I don't think it changed anything significant in RAF operations. Hell, the RAF was firebombing German cities much more thoroughly than a handful of V-1s could manage, deliberately creating firestorms, and that didn't shift the German response to the raids. The RAF was already attacking V-1 launch sites as soon as they were identified, so I don't really see much scope for change.
But this is an area I don't know much about, so if others know more I'm happy to be educated.

 

[tallthinkev]

A more powerful engine can cut down the length of the launch ramp. The normal length was around 50m, if the can be cut down to 30m that's 3 lorries, 6 in total. An hour to set up and off you go. Unless the ground crew are spotted there and then not much can be done.
As for air launch all well and good yet is the risk of losing an aircraft, more so a pilot worth it?

 

[TDM]

The amount of time, money, effort and resources wasted on the V-2 program, was let's say not good. So lets say it was never started, or more likely closed down (early 44?) when it was known it wasn't going be anything like as good as when first thought.
Instead work is poured into upgrading the V-1. Better engines, (real jet engines?), and more importantly a better guidance system for a start.
Or course this isn't a war winner, but being able to hit channel ports, airfields and production, even one in ten time, hell make it one in twenty, is going to make life harder for the allies
Pros and cons of such a project, and maybe a few months longer of a war.

Type about this for a bit

I'd imagine more and better V1's will incentivise the Wallies to bring radar guided AAA fuzes in quicker (the V2 for all it issues can't be intercepted once launched)

You don't need the ramps.

View attachment 688584

But then you are taking up a plane and aircrew (and ground crew and fuel), and IIRC the malfunction rate was not insignificant on this

Personally I think the ramps were pretty good, yes they could be bombed but actually they were pretty easy to conceal and importantly they were relatively cheap to build and even more importantly cheap and easy to operate and could be decentralised. Which is frankly what Germany needs 1943+. Its also not like airfields and airplane operational infrastructure can't be bombed as well.

Also as pointed out the guidance is trickier from the air and there are issues with the options suggested (e.g. radar beam guidance can be blocked/spoofed etc)

 

[Ravinoff]

all those 3.7" and 90mm guns dedicated to shooting them down ove SE England says otherwise

Okay, let me rephrase that: by the time they actually went into use, the V-1s were not particularly useful because other events had turned the war to the point where Nazi Germany was utterly hosed. The first V-1 to land in England was on June 13, 1944 - about two weeks after D-Day and just before Operation Bagration hit the Eastern Front like a ten-ton hammer. For as much as you hear about them, V-1 attacks against England were really only an issue for a period of about two to three months in summer 1944. Yeah, in that time 10,000 were launched (for about 2500 that hit London) and caused approximately 6200 deaths and 17,000 injuries, but between the Allies pushing German forces back outside launch range and deployment of proximity fuzes and advanced radar gunlaying systems, by the end of August 75% of the missiles that reached the Operation Diver AA lines were being shot down. After all, when you put V-T fuzes into the mix, a V-1's really just one step up from a target drone.

If Germany accelerated development (and threw less reichsmarks down the V-2 hole) and had V-1s launching a year or two earlier? That might have made a difference, the sheer saturation of targets to intercept in a combined V-1/Luftwaffe raid in 1941 or 1942 would have been hell. But in 1944..."vengeance weapons" really was what they were, just an attempt to inflict as much damage as possible before pissing off the Soviets and losing the Atlantic Wall ended the war.

 

[sonofpegasus]

Forget V1 and V2 completely, concentrate on getting the Me 262 jet in service in numbers with well trained pilots by 1943. The Me 262 do not go after the bombers, their job is to bounce the escorts and strip them away from the bombers so that the German prop fighters can score kills.

 

[ric350]

A while back I suggested a WI where the V1 (FI-103) was successfully flown in late 1939. The reasoning being that it was such a simple design, (there were no technological/scientific breakthroughs required), all it needed was earlier conception and government backing. The idea was for it to be ready for deployment to attack Paris in 1940, but France surrenders first. So it gets it first use during the BoB, when there was little to no chance of intercept. Oh and instead of the concrete ramps, a modified Bruckenleger would be used as a mobile launcher.

ric350

 

[thaddeus]

the book German Jet Engine and Gas Turbine Development by Kay several improvements to the pulse jet were highlighted, they found twin jets cancelled out most/all of the vibration issue (albeit they did not double the thrust) and a longer exhaust allowed higher altitude flight. (solving the vibration issue would have paved the way for manned versions, even historically the low cost prompted continued efforts)

other projects included fabricating parts of the fuselage out of explosive nipolit and a single use jet version.

I've heart the opposite, they could get sympathetic vibration/resonance as often as cancelling out

I'd like to read that, the book by Kay is not overly sympathetic to pulse jet but did not mention the twin pulse jets actually making vibration issue worse? I thought their issue was you would be using two engines but not doubling the thrust (of course it doubles the fuel consumption)

the pulse jets were crude and obsolete even at the time of introduction, the reason they were never pursued post-war, but for the German war machine they were ideal if they could have been made to work in manned versions?

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Forget V1 and V2 completely, concentrate on getting the Me 262 jet in service in numbers with well trained pilots by 1943. The Me 262 do not go after the bombers, their job is to bounce the escorts and strip them away from the bombers so that the German prop fighters can score kills.

Well trained Me 262 pilots would not find enough advantages to balance the problems. The largest being the Me 262 was slow turning. About anything the Allies were flying 1942-43 could out turn the 262 by a significant margin. Roll rate was not significantly better either. Counter intuitively it had slow acceleration. It took the engines time to wind up to full power. What it did have was blinding speed when at full power, and a respectable climb rate when the speed was up. In combat it was more or less a one trick pony, Boom & Zoom being the one good tactical option for the well trained pilot. Once the Allied pilot knew the Me262 was approaching on a attack he could avoid it by killing his airspeed, a Split S maneuver worked well. Invariably the Me pilot overshot, unable to get the enemy back into his gunsight. He could then make a wide circle at speeds the Allied pilot could not match and try for another approach. If he tried for a tight turn, or anything else to get back on the enemy the results were not good. I met a US fighter pilot who had a Me262 pilot attempt to turn with him. As the 23 year old Yank dumped his airspeed the German attempted to make a tight turn to stay on him. Instead he slid past & was in his turn set up for a text book deflection shot.

With a heavy centerline gun battery the Me262 was a excellent bomber killera but as a air superiority fighter it was only as good as Allied interceptors and worse than some. Early deployment means earlier training of Allied pilots to deal with it, and its a incentive to put more effort into the assorted jet aircraft the Allies were developing.

 

[The Tai-Pan]

With a heavy centerline gun battery the Me262 was a excellent bomber killera but as a air superiority fighter it was only as good as Allied interceptors and worse than some. Early deployment means earlier training of Allied pilots to deal with it, and its a incentive to put more effort into the assorted jet aircraft the Allies were developing.

Yeah, this is sort of the key. Anything Germany can do, the Allies can do faster, better and in far more quantity if they want.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

LoL. Mass production of the US copy of the V1, the JB-2 Loon was practical in 1944. The USAAF & USN had other priorities so a 'limited' production of 5,000 was postphoned until mid 1945. As it was a test batch of 1000 were actually ordered.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Large scale air launch of the V1 may not have been practical for the German AF. In 1942 they were running up against limits in bombers and experienced aircrew available. In 1943 those limits shrank drastically. By mid year they were having problems organizing even limited bomber strikes. Trying to launch 5000 or even 2500 V1 from aircraft may not have been practical.

 

[andys]

all those 3.7" and 90mm guns dedicated to shooting them down ove SE England says otherwise

Said guns being successful due to the straight line the V1 flew in and the VT fuse of course. If the Germans could make the V1 able to alter course, perhaps via pre-programmed but random zig-zagging, more might have avoided being shot down by the guns and got through to the target. A longer range would also help, giving a greater range of potential launch sites and thus angles from which they could approach their target.

Having them drop Window as they pass over the coast/gunline would help too.

 

[Questerr]

The best upgrade would be some sort of radio guidance system, perhaps a beam riding system. The V1 follows the first beam until it crosses the second and goes into its final dive. It will bring accuracy up from "It might hit Greater London" to "It should hit Westminster".

Except the British were better at jamming, which means it becomes “it might hit Britain“.

 

[Questerr]

all those 3.7" and 90mm guns dedicated to shooting them down ove SE England says otherwise

Which stopped those guns from instead doing nothing because there was no high altitude air threat from Germany by then.

 

[Questerr]

Which can be corrected with a beam riding guidance system that uses technology available in WWII to both sides and was used to as a navigation aid for bombers.

And is incredibly easily jammable with the superior Allied electronics industry.

 

[Blue cat]

Which stopped those guns from instead doing nothing because there was no high altitude air threat from Germany by then.

Presumably even if the guns and their crews couldn't have been redeployed to more useful roles then a different role could have been found for at least some of the crews ?

 

[Questerr]

A while back I suggested a WI where the V1 (FI-103) was successfully flown in late 1939. The reasoning being that it was such a simple design, (there were no technological/scientific breakthroughs required), all it needed was earlier conception and government backing. The idea was for it to be ready for deployment to attack Paris in 1940, but France surrenders first. So it gets it first use during the BoB, when there was little to no chance of intercept. Oh and instead of the concrete ramps, a modified Bruckenleger would be used as a mobile launcher.

ric350

And people filled that thread with reasons why it wouldn’t work out like that.

 

[Questerr]

Presumably even if the guns and their crews couldn't have been redeployed to more useful roles then a different role could have been found for at least some of the crews ?

Only an issue if the Allies didn’t have an abundance of artillery. They did. Far more than they needed.

 

[Questerr]

Said guns being successful due to the straight line the V1 flew in and the VT fuse of course. If the Germans could make the V1 able to alter course, perhaps via pre-programmed but random zig-zagging, more might have avoided being shot down by the guns and got through to the target. A longer range would also help, giving a greater range of potential launch sites and thus angles from which they could approach their target.

Having them drop Window as they pass over the coast/gunline would help too.

Random zig zagging is going to kill any idea of accurate targeting.

 

[Belisarius II]

Said guns being successful due to the straight line the V1 flew in and the VT fuse of course. If the Germans could make the V1 able to alter course, perhaps via pre-programmed but random zig-zagging, more might have avoided being shot down by the guns and got through to the target. A longer range would also help, giving a greater range of potential launch sites and thus angles from which they could approach their target.

Having them drop Window as they pass over the coast/gunline would help too.

Zig zagging would greatly shorten their operational range, and be very prone to mechanical failure, and even less accuracy.

I should add they could never know when they would cross the coast, or gun batteries, so dropping Window would be impossible. A single aircraft dropping Chaff at a random time isn't effective in blinding radar, over a large area. In WWII it was used by mass bomber formations, near the target area.