WI Pedro Paule Went Public

I don't like the idea of mass chemical strikes on civilians either, but given the lousy accuracy of long-range missiles (and without HUGE advances in electronics, that isn't going to change) and the need for BOTH sides in WWI to find some way to finesse the deadlock in the trenches, it seems pretty clear that someone one one (more likely both) sides is going to see this as a viable option...

So the inter-war scare slogan will be

THE ROCKET WILL ALWAYS GET THROUGH.
 

Deleted member 1487

Wiking,

You have a more hopeful view of human nature than I do, I suppose. Given what the Turks did to the Armenians (at roughly the same time, historically speaking), I am not as confident as you are that there were all that many restraints on the our behavior regarding civilians prior to WWII. The question may have been one of technological limitations (i.e. we simply didn't have the tools for truly awful mass slaughter), but I am not sure that if some of those tools had been in our hands (particularly on the Eastern Front) in WWI, that we wouldn't have performed just as badly...

And thanks again for that reference...I just ordered the book!

I am referring to the Western Front only. In the Middle East, on the Eastern Front, and even Italian Front poor treatment of prisoners and violence against civilians occurred, probably the worst on the Eastern Front. That said, it wasn't as bad as WW2, because so many taboos had yet to be broken. WW1 radicalized everyone to a degree and it took time and ideology to break down these taboos. Even in WW2 massive civilian bombing happened only after certain events in the west, but started immediately in the East. During WW1 in the west, attacks on civilians started after 1914. Yes there were atrocities in Belgium and France related to the Franc-Tireurs, but these were generally isolated incidents meant to restore order (or such was the perception of the Germans at the time) and a hold over from the Franco-Prussian war.

Use of new weapons of 'mass destruction' were not used against civilians on any front though OTL, which makes me wonder why it would happen here if rockets are around. It was not a desperation issue though, because both sides had plenty of opportunities to do it in the same situations that would occur here too, but did not. Call it strangelove or whatever else, but there was something that caused all sides to hold back from using chemical and biological weapons against civilians in WW1. Perhaps it was a means to retain some humanity during the war, I don't know.

All I know is that there was massive outrage when the Germans first used gas and a lot of effort went into moralizing and legal arguments for it. The Germans even refused to use the more effective projectile means of delivery because the word of the law forbid it. Instead they used a much more dangerous (to the user) delivery method of digging gas tanks into the ground and letting the wind blow the resulting cloud of gas over to the enemy side.

Franz Josef refused to allow its use at all by his army, even with great pressure exerted by the Germans to use it.

There was a major mental block then against using these weapons in the mind of the public and even the military (there was much disagreement about starting to use gas on the German side). The creation of rockets won't make gas usage happen any earlier, nor will it change the perceptions of using it. No one was ready yet to use it on civilians, nor were they in WW2. Its just not going to happen because humanity gets hung up on some things, but not others. Chemical warfare against civilians is one such hang up, as is biowarfare, at least in the modern era in the West. Who knows whether it will remain that way, but for the sake of our discussion, no power in WW1 will do it.

Edit:

Would they be accurate enough to aim them at port facilities, major railroad nexi, and major manufacturing centers with some non-negligible chance of success?

Depending on the advancement of research, there could be a ballistic missile campaign as part of the strategic bombing of Britain in WW1. Use against Dover, Calais, Dunkirk or any channel port in range (depending on what is possible) could happen. Interesting to think about what effect that would have on the war and supply situation. Massed rockets against Ypres in conjunction with a gas attack in 1915 perhaps?
 
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Strategic vs Operational?

Wiking,

I understand the point you are making regarding the revulsion against chemical weapons when they were first used (though it should be noted that numerous generals - and politicians - on BOTH sides had absolutely no compunction against using them whatsoever), but clearly the barriers against this usage eroded over time. By 1917-1918, clearly there were no real restraints in place, and I am left to wonder what might have been choices made by Germany in particular during the spring of 1918. Either way, interesting thought...

One point, by the way, you refer to chemical weapons as 'weapons of mass destruction', which they most certainly (in the context of WWI, at the very least) were not. This goes back to my comment regarding our tendency to lump all non-conventional weapons together under the the rubric of NBC (or CBR) weapons. Chemicals in WWI would have been more effective than high-explosives as a missile warhead, but little more than that. The idea of these being used for mass destruction is fanciful for anything other than massed barrages which were clearly far beyond the capability of any of the combatants.

mrmandias (and Wiking),

Ports would be excellent targets (though I suspect that the Germans would have focused on continental ports, rather than British ones, but anon...), though rail heads and marshalling areas might have been more fruitful still. Large artillery concentrations (and their associated ammo dumps) might have also been appealing targets, though these tended to be reveted, and thus less vulnerable even to large warhead strikes. Certainly supply dumps and logistics nodes would have been well within reach of liquid fueld rockets, and by the very nature these facilities would have been large enough (in terms of space occupied) to be vulnerable even to relatively inaccurate missiles. The impact of such strikes would be more disruptive than destructive (the latter would require larger and more sustained attacks than were practical with such expensive weapons), but when combined with effective planning, they might have been decisive for a defense.

mrmandias,

Yes...well, the Bomber didn't always get through...did it?
 
A very interesting debate; let's, for the remaining thread, say, for the sake of argument, that at least one side in WWI has no compunctions about developing and using rocket delivered chemical weapons on civilians in the enemy country, and that this scares the other capable nations enough that they develop counter programs.

Where does this put rocket technology by war's end? Also, I would think plane technology would also see more military interest than OTL...
 
My apologies

John,

Sorry...I probably strung that debate out longer than it should have been...

OK, if we presume that rockets are being used (and I would suggest that using them in a theater role, i.e. against ports, railheads, etc. is most practical), what you end up with by the end of WWI is a large number of fairly moderately ranged (roughly say < 250km) missiles and the infrastructure to build them at an acceptable cost. There would be extensive research (and thus likely some advances) in navigation/guidance systems (though barring some truly ASB-like changes, no serious electronics yet), probably in terms of more robust precision systems. Manned systems (Rocket Planes) wouldn't be practical yet (materials science), but there would certainly be some experimentation along those lines. Something like a V-1 might have been created, which would leave plenty of room for a more effective design in the coming years.

So if this is the case by 1920 (picking an arbitrary date), then for the 1920s we might see:

1) Better materials and engineering. This is a critical requirement, and a missile program in WWI would certainly have made this clear. The spin-offs in aviation would be impressive, and would massively accelerate the evolution of aircraft as well.

2) Better fuels, and a huge push towards manufacturering and storing liquid gasses.

3) Electronics, or at the very least more robust electro-mechanical systems.

4) Computers: Sooner, rather than later, someone is going to give Babbage's work a long look and then....

5) Turbojets and Ramjets, extremely primitive and probably impractical at first, but with (1) and (4), they will improve quickly

6) A very large number of dead experimenters
 
1-3, I'm seeing easily enough, and I'm actually pretty keen on 6 (from a fiction standpoint, understand :D).

I'm wondering, is a space program in the 1930's plausible then without 4?
 
Oh, by the way...

One other aspect of this that might be worth discussing is that the 'barriers to entry' (in this case, the sheer cost of getting into the R&D process) would be much lower given the state of the technology. This would mean that it would be easier for a large number of private developers to start working on various technologies. Hence we might see some truly exotic (eccentric?) approaches being given a far more thorough testing than in OTL...
 

Deleted member 1487

John,

Sorry...I probably strung that debate out longer than it should have been...

OK, if we presume that rockets are being used (and I would suggest that using them in a theater role, i.e. against ports, railheads, etc. is most practical), what you end up with by the end of WWI is a large number of fairly moderately ranged (roughly say < 250km) missiles and the infrastructure to build them at an acceptable cost....

Something like a V-1 might have been created, which would leave plenty of room for a more effective design in the coming years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_jet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_(flying_bomb)

The pulse jet was invented in Sweden in 1906, so the V1 looks like a possibility. The gyrosystem is the important and difficult part. It is simple to build to a degree, but the research to develop it is the important part. I could see it happening due to space rocket research.

The question is whether or not the use will change the outcome of the war. If the Germans get it first and can use it early on while the Entente has to play lots of catch up, things could be different in the outcome. I'm thinking the first Ypres with a rocket barrage Nebelwerfer style could cause a rout and breakthrough to a degree.
 
While changing technology so thoroughly would obviously most likely result in a different WWI outcome, I'm partial to assuming a TL where the political repercussions are as OTL as is plausible.
 

Deleted member 1487

While changing technology so thoroughly would obviously most likely result in a different WWI outcome, I'm partial to assuming a TL where the political repercussions are as OTL as is plausible.

Well, if Germany survives more intact with a negotiated peace, she will be able to further pursue rockets, electronics, and computers instead of dealing with the political repercussions and civil disorder that resulted OTL. Germany also was hands-down the #1 country pre- and post- WW1 for scientific development until WW2 OTL.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_country
Check the numbers of wins before WW2, Germany has the most wins of any nation prior to WW2. Add in Austria, as the Austrians wanted post WW1 and the list rises even higher. Konrad Zuse:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse
He would be better funded and supported by colleagues than OTL plus earlier rockets.

Plus a peace by negotiation would leave everyone too exhausted and unwilling to repeat the experience. With the US now holding so much debt the Entente won't be willing or able to destroy world trade by starting another war (US won't let it), while Germany realizes she is surrounded and better play nice because she got lucky by getting as far as she did. And she has no more allies (AH collapses, Bulgaria got all she wanted or smashed so not willing to do it again, Ottomans either collapsed or too devastated to want to go to war again). That means without WW2 science moves much faster without all the killing and pure science can move ahead. Also funding in Europe is better and there isn't a brain drain meaning the US and Britain aren't the sole drivers of progress post WW2.
 

NothingNow

Banned
I'm also thinking Rocket Artillery might also be used by Light formations to counter enemy Artillery Batteries. Especially if we're comparing a Niebelwurfer-like system to
While I defer to your engineering knowledge, I have one question for you:
If they were so simple, why weren't they used in WW1? The idea may just need to be conceived of and accepted by the military. It may have been possible, but perhaps the idea was either rejected or just not thought of.
It could have developed out of a method to Simulate early Aerial Bombing, with out risking an Aircraft or it's crew. This would make sense since early gravity bombs were really just glorified Grenades. Later on, it's developed as a device to counter a breakthrough, where you're more concerned about stopping the enemy as fast as possible and it's easier and faster to fling three or four Erzatz Scuds down range than having a whole artillery unit get involved.

I'm thinking that later on the bomblets would look something like the BLU-3 "Pineapple" submunitions from the Vietnam War.
BLU-3_Pineapple_Cluster_bomblet.jpg


Later on when land mines become more common, someone gets the Idea of delivering land mines or other Terrain denial systems via rocket, as it's the best way to continuously deny the enemy an Area in his rear.
 

Deleted member 1487

I'm thinking that later on the bomblets would look something like the BLU-3 "Pineapple" submunitions from the Vietnam War.

Later on when land mines become more common, someone gets the Idea of delivering land mines or other Terrain denial systems via rocket, as it's the best way to continuously deny the enemy an Area in his rear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_Bomb
Probably something like this if it could be machined. Remember, this is an era where the SMG didn't come out until 1918 as a result of the experimentation that came before it and combat experience.

Land mines were very undeveloped in WW1 and not entirely reliable. Probably just some sort of contact fuze with a grenade would be best, like the Butterfly bomblets. Artillery or bomb delivered submunitions would not develop a land mine per se, rather just a bomb that when touched goes off like all current AP cluster bombs.

As the technology was not used or developed in WW1, I just don't see rockets being the idea that causes submunitions to debut in WW1. Not as a matter of technology, but perhaps manufacturing processes are not developed as finely yet, nor are the tech boys thinking in that direction. I may be wrong, but I'll stick by my comment.

Actually, I kind of hope I'm wrong about it and there will be some sort of device that we can POD into full cluster bombs for a more interesting narrative.
 

NothingNow

Banned
Land mines were very undeveloped in WW1 and not entirely reliable. Probably just some sort of contact fuze with a grenade would be best, like the Butterfly bomblets. Artillery or bomb delivered submunitions would not develop a land mine per se, rather just a bomb that when touched goes off like all current AP cluster bombs.
Well, either way, it'd be useful. the Delivered landmines might be used as Early as the Thirties ITTL, but certainly not for WW1.

As the technology was not used or developed in WW1, I just don't see rockets being the idea that causes submunitions to debut in WW1. Not as a matter of technology, but perhaps manufacturing processes are not developed as finely yet, nor are the tech boys thinking in that direction. I may be wrong, but I'll stick by my comment.

I was actually thinking that it'd start out with just a fragmenting Warhead being used on a rocket, either for Anti-personnel or Anti-air work, and then someone getting the Idea of Putting Frag or Incindiary grenades or bomblets in place of the Frag warhead, as a better way to douse thy enemy hellfire and Iron. It'd be easier with a rocket than an Artillery shell just because of Acceleration stresses the Shell would face.

Actually, I kind of hope I'm wrong about it and there will be some sort of device that we can POD into full cluster bombs for a more interesting narrative.

It'd be awesome for a narrative. Especially if there's some powder monkey who has to arm the bomblets before launch.
 
Well, if Germany survives more intact with a negotiated peace, she will be able to further pursue rockets, electronics, and computers instead of dealing with the political repercussions and civil disorder that resulted OTL...

Plus a peace by negotiation would leave everyone too exhausted and unwilling to repeat the experience. With the US now holding so much debt the Entente won't be willing or able to destroy world trade by starting another war (US won't let it), while Germany realizes she is surrounded and better play nice because she got lucky by getting as far as she did. And she has no more allies (AH collapses, Bulgaria got all she wanted or smashed so not willing to do it again, Ottomans either collapsed or too devastated to want to go to war again). That means without WW2 science moves much faster without all the killing and pure science can move ahead. Also funding in Europe is better and there isn't a brain drain meaning the US and Britain aren't the sole drivers of progress post WW2.

Maybe -- OTOH, I can't help but think how this is similar to where people though Germany was at the time not so long before Hitler's rise, and many people even thought so after. IOW, it feels like a pretty equally plausible case that WWII was unlikely or implausible in OTL.

This doesn't mean a rise of someone like Hitler in Germany is actually probable in TTL or anything -- just that's it's still plausible. And I get the feeling if any regime would be -- let's face it -- crazy enough to push through a high mortality space exploration program, it would be the Nazis.
 

Deleted member 1487

All I have to say is rocket gas launchers!:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebelwerfer
Let the Germans develop the rocket for smoke laying before the war because of its greater payload than either the mortar or artillery shell and gas launching is no different in manufacture. 2nd Ypres with gas rockets would make it much more effective.
 
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