Advanced versions of the V-2 rocket

Eunometic wrote:
On the Saturn guidance system, on which many of the Penemunde Germans
worked, the gyro and accelerometer package was aligned by optical
methods by windows in the booster.

The Soviet N-1 used mirrors mounted on its exterior to aid alignment.

Strictly there were several of
these since changing vibration at various portions of the flight meant
that the sensors needed to be elsewhere at that time Some ICBM's just
use the self aligning properties of the gyro to find north.

Redstone used the same layout as the SG-66 but achieved a CEP of 300
yards. I've always wondered what SG-66 would have achieved if used
in mass. Clearly it didn't have the precision devices of the Redstone
though such things as fluid bearing were being tested. I expect that
SG-66 V2 would still have used the rotating platform.


The V-2s using radio-commanded thrust termination in combination with
radar tracking the missile proved to be more accurate than those using
accelerometers, but then of course, they could be susceptible to jamming.
This leads to the strange story of ships jamming V-2s as they were seen
rising out of France at night after D-Day.
Reports of people observing this stated that ships would aim
searchlights at them, and they would then go out of control and crash.
Assuming some sort of tight beam radio jamming system was being used, a
searchlight would be a handy way to aim the beam at the ascending
missile and jam it, causing its engine to shut down prematurely.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:

This leads to the strange story of ships jamming V-2s...

I've never heard this one -- and I've gotta say, given the flight
corridor to be covered and the unpredictable timing, it doesn't sound
like a high-return proposition. Do you have a citation? Seems more
likely to be wartime folklore born of V-weapon nerves and "surely
they're doing something about it" wishful thinking.

Monte Davis wrote:
I've never heard this one -- and I've gotta say, given the flight
corridor to be covered and the unpredictable timing, it doesn't sound
like a high-return proposition. Do you have a citation? Seems more
likely to be wartime folklore born of V-weapon nerves and "surely
they're doing something about it" wishful thinking.


That's exactly what I thought also.
The effort does get mentioned here, without specifics of how it was
attempeted:
http://www.vectorsite.net/ttwiz_06.html
"There were also an attempt early on to use jamming countermeasures
against the rockets, on an assumption that they were radio-guided. That
assumption was based on the discreet examination by British intelligence
of a V-2 that had fallen on Swedish territory. The V-2 was actually a
special prototype, carrying an active radio guidance system for an
experimental anti-aircraft missile known as "Wasserfall". However, a
normal V-2 had a gyroscopic inertial guidance system and the jamming
proved ineffectual. It was quickly abandoned."
Although there was no radio guidence system to jam, on the V-2s with the
radio-commanded thrust termination it might have been possible to cause
the engine to shut down prematurally, so that the rockets would fall
into the Channel rather than on England.
On a clear night they should have been very bright as they were launched
and arched over to the west on their trajectories to target.

Pat

"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
...
Maybe. Who cares? Why does this matter to you?

Why are you arguing with this Rob twit? It's like the Special Olympics- even
if you win, you're still retarded.

Just killfile him.

Scott Hedrick wrote:

"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
...
Maybe. Who cares? Why does this matter to you?

Why are you arguing with this Rob twit?



Two reasons, neither of which is especially good:
1: Boredom
2: An unwillingness to let nonsense get passed off as fact.

--
-------
The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake. - H.L. Mencken

On Jul 7, 5:19 am, Pat Flannery wrote:
Eunometic wrote:
On the Saturn guidance system, on which many of the Penemunde Germans
worked, the gyro and accelerometer package was aligned by optical
methods by windows in the booster.

The Soviet N-1 used mirrors mounted on its exterior to aid alignment.

A similar technique though in the case of the Saturn Boosters it was
the inertial platform rather than the whole booster that was aligned.
If you've got an hour and high quality gyros they can self align as
they precess to align with the earths rotation.


Strictly there were several of
these since changing vibration at various portions of the flight meant
that the sensors needed to be elsewhere at that time Some ICBM's just
use the self aligning properties of the gyro to find north.

Redstone used the same layout as the SG-66 but achieved a CEP of 300
yards. I've always wondered what SG-66 would have achieved if used
in mass. Clearly it didn't have the precision devices of the Redstone
though such things as fluid bearing were being tested. I expect that
SG-66 V2 would still have used the rotating platform.

The V-2s using radio-commanded thrust termination in combination with
radar tracking the missile proved to be more accurate than those using
accelerometers,

Walter Haeursermann, who worked on the V2 program,
puts its improvement in cross range as 50% i.e probably
2km to either side of the target since CEP was 4.0-4.5km.

In terms of the down range he puts the improvement as 10%.
Brennschluss was by
doppler effect. This must have been essentially perfect as he puts
the
accelerometer as producing only 400 meters of the errror in the first
place anyway.


but then of course, they could be susceptible to jamming.

I don't think jamming was the major concern as it would have been very
difficult
given the location of the launch sites from any likely jamming device
and the
very short opperation of the system.

The guidance system operated only for a short time (70 secs) while the
missile
was close to the transmitter. The concern was that the allies might
backtrack the
beams to the launch site.

The radio guidance system consisted of a pair of antenna 200 meters
apart
which were placed 10-16 km up range so that the missile found itself
exactly on a line between the target and the radio beam. The 50Mhz
beam worked like
this: 50 times a second a delay line was switched in alternately
between the left
and right directional dipoles so that the 'lobe' produced by the
interaction of the two beams phases
was alternately shifted slightly left or right. When the beams were
of equal strength
the missile was in the middle.

When the lobe was left a 5khz signal was modulated on the signal and
when right 7khz to
help the missile distinguish where it was. Another 37Mhz transmitter
provided a Doppler
reference for propulsion cutoff.

The system was designed by Helmut Hoelzer who also designed the analog
computers that
operated the control vanes with the classic inertial gyro system.

As you can immagine it would require only one reading to find the
direction of the beam
and another to triangulate it for an air strike, though given that it
only needed to operate for a
short time this would be difficult.

The guidance beam did a good job of determining motor cutoff on the
basis of speed
and it did a reasonable job of constraining the cross range position
of the missile though it
did not
a/ directly influence the direction the missile was heading,
especially at cutoff since
there was always some kind of dither. It controlled the missile
position at cutoff but only
indirectly influenced its speed to left or right.
b/ influence the pitch over angle which was still controlled by the
Gyros.

A campaign of more accurate manufacturing, calibration and alignment
was underway though the main thrust
initially was to increase the reliability of the system. (much of
the early V2's inaccuracy was
due to manufacturing defects)

As well as development of new techniques and components that
intrinsically improve accuracy.

The main source of error was the gyroscopes not the accelerometer

Devices such as the double ball bearing with superimposed oscillatory
motion that had
100 times less firction for reduced drift in the gyros and ressitence
in the acceleromter pendulum bearing.
Drift on the old LEV-3 was 10 degree an hour ie about 0.2 degrees in
the 70 second boost . By
Placing the accelerometer and more accurate gyros on a stable platform
such as the SG-66
makes them somewhat independent of alignment on the missile body
and isolates them somewhat from vibration and jidder as well as
allowing incorporation of cross range
accelerometers. Beyond better ball bearings fluid Pressure bearings
were also under development.

SG-66 incorporated many of these advances. What exactly its accuracy
would have been I don't know but
it would seem that A CEP of around 1km was achievable. Certainly
Redstone achieved 300 yards with the same
system but more refined components. In the latter Jupiter system a
ball and disk integrator was added to calculate the
distance the missile had flown so that this information could be
combined with the velocity information to more
accurately determine the cutoff. Again the V2 people were looking
at this and perhaps it would have been
installed in the SG-66 though it was considered not worthwhile till
the gyros were improved.

A reference to this are the papers of Walter Haeusermann on the aiaa
website.

I suggest also that the beam riding guidance system under development
for the wasserfall missile (I believe a
13.5cm microwave beam superimposed with the tracking radar) would have
found duel use in improving
accuracy of the V2 by eliminating down range and cross range drift
during the boost phase. The same technology
used to fly the Wasserfall down a beam towards a target aircraft could
be used to reduce V2 scatter.

I've come across references to more accurate radio beam systems
opperation at higher frequencies.
The term "Viktoria' is possibly the code name.

This leads to the strange story of ships jamming V-2s as they were seen
rising out of France at night after D-Day.

I don't believe it. There were a lot of faulty missiles intitially.

Correlation is not causation.


Reports of people observing this stated that ships would aim
searchlights at them, and they would then go out of control and crash.
Assuming some sort of tight beam radio jamming system was being used, a
searchlight would be a handy way to aim the beam at the ascending
missile and jam it, causing its engine to shut down prematurely.

Most V2 launches were by the regular inertial system and the radio
system
only came in latter.

The doppler calculation was performed on the ground in a wien bridge
and the shutdown
command was passed up to the missile.

The ground station transmitted a 37Mhz signal, the V2 doubled it at
(74Mhz) and retransmitted it to the ground.

The ground station mixed the two signals and the second harmonic
frequency was used
to indicate the speed.

I really think that the abillity of the allies to jam German equipment
is exaggerated at times.
Sure its possible but it requires specific circumstances. Having said
this the low
frequencies used by the system (about 50Mhz) means that the 6m
wavelenghts would
not allow directional antenna so directional that they could blanks
out completely
attempts to jam or spoof them.

Sure if you have hundreds of bombers over Germany emitting megawatts
of jamming
and dropping hundreds of tons of foil it works but jamming individual
systems is
another matter especially if the precise frequencies, modulation
scheme and trimmings
are not known or can be changed.

Jamming Fritz-X and Hs 293 failed many times untill the system was
compromised
and spoof jamming might have worked one one or two occaisions
and then the Germans had other systems under development.

I suppose its possible, but I think it sounds like a myth or a nice
feeling: ie when
the Bomber Command crews left their IFF on thinking that it jammed the
German radar when
what was really going on was that the night fighters were homed in on
it.

Eunometic wrote:

A similar technique though in the case of the Saturn Boosters it was
the inertial platform rather than the whole booster that was aligned.
If you've got an hour and high quality gyros they can self align as
they precess to align with the earths rotation.

The N-1 rested on a circular support ring mounted between its central
and peripheral engines; you can get a look at it in this Youtube video:
http://www.astronautix.com/video/vn13l.htm
It apparently uses some sort of releasable hold-down tongues rather than
explosive bolts to hold the N-1 to the pad while the engines come up to
full thrust.
That transporter-erector looks like something straight out of
Thunderbirds or Things To Come.

Strictly there were several of
these since changing vibration at various portions of the flight meant
that the sensors needed to be elsewhere at that time Some ICBM's just
use the self aligning properties of the gyro to find north.

Redstone used the same layout as the SG-66 but achieved a CEP of 300
yards. I've always wondered what SG-66 would have achieved if used
in mass. Clearly it didn't have the precision devices of the Redstone
though such things as fluid bearing were being tested. I expect that
SG-66 V2 would still have used the rotating platform.

The V-2s using radio-commanded thrust termination in combination with
radar tracking the missile proved to be more accurate than those using
accelerometers,


Walter Haeursermann, who worked on the V2 program,
puts its improvement in cross range as 50% i.e probably
2km to either side of the target since CEP was 4.0-4.5km.

In terms of the down range he puts the improvement as 10%.
Brennschluss was by
doppler effect. This must have been essentially perfect as he puts
the
accelerometer as producing only 400 meters of the errror in the first
place anyway.



but then of course, they could be susceptible to jamming.


I don't think jamming was the major concern as it would have been very
difficult
given the location of the launch sites from any likely jamming device
and the
very short opperation of the system.

The guidance system operated only for a short time (70 secs) while the
missile
was close to the transmitter.

Seventy seconds after launch the V-2 would be at quite a high altitude;
the story from WW II said that the searchlights were aimed at the
ascending rockets as they became visible at night after launch; and that
they went out of control after the searchlights were aimed at them.
If you could shut down the engine, say thirty seconds after launch, the
thing was going to get nowhere near London.


The concern was that the allies might
backtrack the
beams to the launch site.

The radio guidance system consisted of a pair of antenna 200 meters
apart
which were placed 10-16 km up range so that the missile found itself
exactly on a line between the target and the radio beam. The 50Mhz
beam worked like
this: 50 times a second a delay line was switched in alternately
between the left
and right directional dipoles so that the 'lobe' produced by the
interaction of the two beams phases
was alternately shifted slightly left or right. When the beams were
of equal strength
the missile was in the middle.

When the lobe was left a 5khz signal was modulated on the signal and
when right 7khz to
help the missile distinguish where it was. Another 37Mhz transmitter
provided a Doppler
reference for propulsion cutoff.


From what I've read, only the propulsion cutoff was used operationally,
as that didn't require the two control transmitters, with as you point
out, the susceptibility to location of the launch site (although this
sounds more like a threat to the fixed launch bunkers than the mobile
missile transporters).

The system was designed by Helmut Hoelzer who also designed the analog
computers that
operated the control vanes with the classic inertial gyro system.

As you can immagine it would require only one reading to find the
direction of the beam
and another to triangulate it for an air strike, though given that it
only needed to operate for a
short time this would be difficult.

The guidance beam did a good job of determining motor cutoff on the
basis of speed
and it did a reasonable job of constraining the cross range position
of the missile though it
did not
a/ directly influence the direction the missile was heading,
especially at cutoff since
there was always some kind of dither. It controlled the missile
position at cutoff but only
indirectly influenced its speed to left or right.
b/ influence the pitch over angle which was still controlled by the
Gyros.

A campaign of more accurate manufacturing, calibration and alignment
was underway though the main thrust
initially was to increase the reliability of the system. (much of
the early V2's inaccuracy was
due to manufacturing defects)

As well as development of new techniques and components that
intrinsically improve accuracy.

The main source of error was the gyroscopes not the accelerometer

Devices such as the double ball bearing with superimposed oscillatory
motion that had
100 times less firction for reduced drift in the gyros and ressitence
in the acceleromter pendulum bearing.
Drift on the old LEV-3 was 10 degree an hour ie about 0.2 degrees in
the 70 second boost . By
Placing the accelerometer and more accurate gyros on a stable platform
such as the SG-66
makes them somewhat independent of alignment on the missile body
and isolates them somewhat from vibration and jidder as well as
allowing incorporation of cross range
accelerometers. Beyond better ball bearings fluid Pressure bearings
were also under development.

SG-66 incorporated many of these advances. What exactly its accuracy
would have been I don't know but
it would seem that A CEP of around 1km was achievable. Certainly
Redstone achieved 300 yards with the same
system but more refined components. In the latter Jupiter system a
ball and disk integrator was added to calculate the
distance the missile had flown so that this information could be
combined with the velocity information to more
accurately determine the cutoff. Again the V2 people were looking
at this and perhaps it would have been
installed in the SG-66 though it was considered not worthwhile till
the gyros were improved.

A reference to this are the papers of Walter Haeusermann on the aiaa
website.

I suggest also that the beam riding guidance system under development
for the wasserfall missile (I believe a
13.5cm microwave beam superimposed with the tracking radar) would have
found duel use in improving
accuracy of the V2 by eliminating down range and cross range drift
during the boost phase. The same technology
used to fly the Wasserfall down a beam towards a target aircraft could
be used to reduce V2 scatter.

I've come across references to more accurate radio beam systems
opperation at higher frequencies.
The term "Viktoria' is possibly the code name.


The problem with all this is that they were making the V-2 more and more
complex and expensive, when the thing was already a highly inefficient
design from a manufacturing point of view to move one ton of explosive
from France to somewhere in London. The way it was built was just fine
for bombarding the city, and even bringing the CEP down to 1km is
pointless without a nuclear warhead. With its Amatol warhead the only
thing that was going to make any difference would be if you could
somehow bring CEP down to 100 m, not 1 km.
And that was frankly not workable due to cross winds during the
missile's ballistic descent, and its tumbling end-over-end while in the
exoatmospheric portion of its flight, so that drag on reentry wasn't
predictable due to the fact it might start on its way in nose-first,
tail-first, or side-on.
The whole V-2 program was a huge waste of time, eating up vast resources
that would have better been spent on almost any other aspect of war
production.
If they were smart, the Peenemunde team should have ditched it early-on
and gone straight for Wasserfall, as at least that had real strategic
utility.
At least in the case of the V-1, the missile was dirt cheap to make and
the fact that it could be defended against meant that aircraft, AA, and
barrage balloon forces and their infrastructure and personal that could
have been deployed to Europe were tied up in Britain trying to stop buzz
bombs.

This leads to the strange story of ships jamming V-2s as they were seen
rising out of France at night after D-Day.


I don't believe it. There were a lot of faulty missiles intitially.

Correlation is not causation.



Reports of people observing this stated that ships would aim
searchlights at them, and they would then go out of control and crash.
Assuming some sort of tight beam radio jamming system was being used, a
searchlight would be a handy way to aim the beam at the ascending
missile and jam it, causing its engine to shut down prematurely.


Most V2 launches were by the regular inertial system and the radio
system
only came in latter.

The doppler calculation was performed on the ground in a wien bridge
and the shutdown
command was passed up to the missile.

The ground station transmitted a 37Mhz signal, the V2 doubled it at
(74Mhz) and retransmitted it to the ground.

The ground station mixed the two signals and the second harmonic
frequency was used
to indicate the speed.

I really think that the abillity of the allies to jam German equipment
is exaggerated at times.
Sure its possible but it requires specific circumstances. Having said
this the low
frequencies used by the system (about 50Mhz) means that the 6m
wavelenghts would
not allow directional antenna so directional that they could blanks
out completely
attempts to jam or spoof them.

Sure if you have hundreds of bombers over Germany emitting megawatts
of jamming
and dropping hundreds of tons of foil it works but jamming individual
systems is
another matter especially if the precise frequencies, modulation
scheme and trimmings
are not known or can be changed.

Jamming Fritz-X and Hs 293 failed many times untill the system was
compromised
and spoof jamming might have worked one one or two occaisions
and then the Germans had other systems under development.

I suppose its possible, but I think it sounds like a myth or a nice
feeling: ie when
the Bomber Command crews left their IFF on thinking that it jammed the
German radar when
what was really going on was that the night fighters were homed in on
it.


Effective jamming range to the ascending rocket would be a function of
signal strength, and a aimed radio jamming beam that could reach it,
using the searchlight as a means to aim it and allowing other jammers to
notice it lock onto it, or begin emitting jamming signals.
Did this actually happen? I don't know. But there's nothing to say that
the concept wouldn't be workable, and the website I noted did say there
were attempts to jam V-2s.
Another interpretation of the story would be that searchlight operators
saw a light in the sky and locked their searchlights onto it, thinking
it was a enemy aircraft at lower altitude, and that coincidently some of
these lights were V-2s that suffered inflight failures, and the
witnesses interpreted what was going on as beams of some sort being
shot at the V-2s and destroying them.

Pat

On Jul 9, 5:40 am, Pat Flannery wrote:
Eunometic wrote:

A similar technique though in the case of the Saturn Boosters it was
the inertial platform rather than the whole booster that was aligned.
If you've got an hour and high quality gyros they can self align as
they precess to align with the earths rotation.

The N-1 rested on a circular support ring mounted between its central
and peripheral engines; you can get a look at it in this Youtube

video:http://www.astronautix.com/video/vn13l.htm
It apparently uses some sort of releasable hold-down tongues rather than
explosive bolts to hold the N-1 to the pad while the engines come up to
full thrust.

That transporter-erector looks like something straight out of
Thunderbirds or Things To Come.

If only it had wings, thrusters and a relightable engine for landing
we
would have thunderbird 1. Fly back boosters with wheeled or
vertical landing have been a feasibility since the early 1950s and
perhaps since the A4b.




Strictly there were several of
these since changing vibration at various portions of the flight meant
that the sensors needed to be elsewhere at that time Some ICBM's just
use the self aligning properties of the gyro to find north.

Redstone used the same layout as the SG-66 but achieved a CEP of 300
yards. I've always wondered what SG-66 would have achieved if used
in mass. Clearly it didn't have the precision devices of the Redstone
though such things as fluid bearing were being tested. I expect that
SG-66 V2 would still have used the rotating platform.

The V-2s using radio-commanded thrust termination in combination with
radar tracking the missile proved to be more accurate than those using
accelerometers,

Walter Haeursermann, who worked on the V2 program,
puts its improvement in cross range as 50% i.e probably
2km to either side of the target since CEP was 4.0-4.5km.

In terms of the down range he puts the improvement as 10%.
Brennschluss was by
doppler effect. This must have been essentially perfect as he puts
the
accelerometer as producing only 400 meters of the errror in the first
place anyway.

but then of course, they could be susceptible to jamming.

I don't think jamming was the major concern as it would have been very
difficult
given the location of the launch sites from any likely jamming device
and the
very short opperation of the system.

The guidance system operated only for a short time (70 secs) while the
missile
was close to the transmitter.

Seventy seconds after launch the V-2 would be at quite a high altitude;
the story from WW II said that the searchlights were aimed at the
ascending rockets as they became visible at night after launch; and that
they went out of control after the searchlights were aimed at them.
If you could shut down the engine, say thirty seconds after launch, the
thing was going to get nowhere near London.

True, but post war wisdom is that the allies never became aware of
the
Leitstrahl system. It remained uncompromised

Surely they would have Speculated that the Germans were using
radio

guidence but the reality is That for a variety of reasons most
launches
were by the accelerometer/gyroscopic based system which disclosed
no radio signals nor was vulnerable to Jamming. Possibly the
allies
may have tried to direct some kind of Broad band noise or
scintilation
jamming but such measures are generally Of limited effectiveness
unless both the frequencies and modulation scheme Are known.




The concern was that the allies might
backtrack the beams to the launch site.

The radio guidance system consisted of a pair of antenna 200 meters
apart
which were placed 10-16 km up range so that the missile found itself
exactly on a line between the target and the radio beam. The 50Mhz
beam worked like
this: 50 times a second a delay line was switched in alternately
between the left
and right directional dipoles so that the 'lobe' produced by the
interaction of the two beams phases
was alternately shifted slightly left or right. When the beams were
of equal strength
the missile was in the middle.

When the lobe was left a 5khz signal was modulated on the signal and
when right 7khz to
help the missile distinguish where it was. Another 37Mhz transmitter
provided a Doppler
reference for propulsion cutoff.

From what I've read, only the propulsion cutoff was used operationally,
as that didn't require the two control transmitters, with as you point
out, the susceptibility to location of the launch site (although this
sounds more like a threat to the fixed launch bunkers than the mobile
missile transporters).

Hauersermann writes as if the system was used operationally.
About 20% of Launches used this system.


The system was designed by Helmut Hoelzer who also
designed the analog computers that operated the control
vanes with the classic inertial gyro system.

As you can immagine it would require only one reading to find the
direction of the beam
and another to triangulate it for an air strike, though given that it
only needed to operate for a
short time this would be difficult.

The guidance beam did a good job of determining motor cutoff on the
basis of speed
and it did a reasonable job of constraining the cross range position
of the missile though it
did not
a/ directly influence the direction the missile was heading,
especially at cutoff since
there was always some kind of dither. It controlled the missile
position at cutoff but only
indirectly influenced its speed to left or right.
b/ influence the pitch over angle which was still controlled by the
Gyros.

A campaign of more accurate manufacturing, calibration and alignment
was underway though the main thrust
initially was to increase the reliability of the system. (much of
the early V2's inaccuracy was
due to manufacturing defects)

As well as development of new techniques and components that
intrinsically improve accuracy.

The main source of error was the gyroscopes not the accelerometer

Devices such as the double ball bearing with superimposed oscillatory
motion that had
100 times less firction for reduced drift in the gyros and ressitence
in the acceleromter pendulum bearing.
Drift on the old LEV-3 was 10 degree an hour ie about 0.2 degrees in
the 70 second boost . By
Placing the accelerometer and more accurate gyros on a stable platform
such as the SG-66
makes them somewhat independent of alignment on the missile body
and isolates them somewhat from vibration and jidder as well as
allowing incorporation of cross range
accelerometers. Beyond better ball bearings fluid Pressure bearings
were also under development.

SG-66 incorporated many of these advances. What exactly its accuracy
would have been I don't know but
it would seem that A CEP of around 1km was achievable. Certainly
Redstone achieved 300 yards with the same
system but more refined components. In the latter Jupiter system a
ball and disk integrator was added to calculate the
distance the missile had flown so that this information could be
combined with the velocity information to more
accurately determine the cutoff. Again the V2 people were looking
at this and perhaps it would have been
installed in the SG-66 though it was considered not worthwhile till
the gyros were improved.

A reference to this are the papers of Walter Haeusermann on the aiaa
website.

I suggest also that the beam riding guidance system under development
for the wasserfall missile (I believe a
13.5cm microwave beam superimposed with the tracking radar) would have
found duel use in improving
accuracy of the V2 by eliminating down range and cross range drift
during the boost phase. The same technology
used to fly the Wasserfall down a beam towards a target aircraft could
be used to reduce V2 scatter.

I've come across references to more accurate radio beam systems
opperation at higher frequencies.
The term "Viktoria' is possibly the code name.

The problem with all this is that they were making the V-2 more and more
complex and expensive, when the thing was already a highly inefficient
design from a manufacturing point of view to move one ton of explosive
from France to somewhere in London.

In terms of the manufacturing cost of the V2.

When calculated as a system eg R+D costs and opperating costs other
major WW2 programs such as the B-29 are also lavish.

Factor in pilot and crew training, aircrew losses, navigation aids,
maintenance crews,
hospitals, and tools, spare parts, airfield protection and the need to
provide escorts
and jamming systems then that B-29,B-26, Lancaster, Ju 88 isn't so
cheap anymore.

For the Germans, with a high loss rate, it looks a lot better than a
maned bomber.

Production cost too me looked like less than half the cost of a Fw
190.

Unit costs were about RM120,000 (about the same as a BMW801 engine of
the Fw 190)
and the cost of RM50,000 looked achievable. (Cost of a Ju 88 in 1942
was RM400,000)

The V2 represented a realistic way for the Reich to deliver 1000/tons
a month
With veritable impunity. Hitler wanted 4500-5500 missiles per month.

The way it was built was just fine
for bombarding the city, and even bringing the CEP down to 1km is
pointless without a nuclear warhead. With its Amatol warhead the only
thing that was going to make any difference would be if you could
somehow bring CEP down to 100 m, not 1 km.

I did some basic CEP calculations. Assuming production rates of 1000/
month
One could easily deliver 200/missiles per week to a specific target.

Assuming the 1000m CEP then 50% of missiles would be within 1km, 43%
within the next
1-2km and 7% over 3km away. Of those 100 within 1 km there would be
a slight tendancy
To cluster around the aim point. About 33 would be within 500m and 8
within 250m and
2 within 125m and 1 within 90 meters. That's enough to take out an
oil refinery, aircraft plant
And do a lot of production disruption expecially if the warhead
becomes more effective eg
With a reliable airbust fuse.

Even missiles that miss aren't going to fall harmlessly or just kill
some poor innocent.
Many will cause real damage.

A 1000m CEP doesn't sound great but its not that far of what high
altitude level bombing or
Night bombing achieved; if not better and there were prospects for
further improvements.
All systems improve as did night bombing and high altitude day
bombing.

Morally and accuracy wise I see little difference. Sure a Lancaster
could in specific circumstances
Achieve exceptional accuracy eg the dambusters raid and the Tirpitz
attack but in general
The British and Americans showed themsleves unwilling to take the loss
in men and machines
Such missions required. Less risky methods that required far higher
levels of collateral damage
and clearly there were many on the allied side who made no bones over
the fact that they
were killing the civilian population or 'dehousing' them.
"Civilization" disappears fairly quickly.

And that was frankly not workable due to cross winds during the
missile's ballistic descent, and its tumbling end-over-end while in the
exoatmospheric portion of its flight, so that drag on reentry wasn't
predictable due to the fact it might start on its way in nose-first,
tail-first, or side-on.

Given that the center of gravity was in the nose and the center of
pressure aft
With these fins it would tend to align fairly quickly; nevertheless a
detachable warhead
Was needed to improve accuracy. I believe this was planned for the
A8 along with
the storable propellants.

Having said that the CEP of 300m of the Redstone with detachable
warhead suggests
something of the order of 1km was possible for advanced versions of
the V2.

SG-66 incorporated more accurate gyros, in a better system, combined
with
cross range speed nulling acceleromters.



The whole V-2 program was a huge waste of time, eating up vast resources
that would have better been spent on almost any other aspect of war
production.

Yes there was an opportunity cost but I disagree with the general
assessment that
The V2 was inevitably ineffective, inaccurate or over costly delivery
system. Dornberger
And von Baun wanted another year to get R+D and production going and
the cost analysis was
done. Dornberger himself noted that a V2 was competitive with the Ju
88 in delivering explosives
during the battle of britain.

Lets look at costs:

The earliest V2 prototypes had 6 gyroscopes: a set of 3 for attitude
reference and another set of 3 for
Rate reference. Hoelzer was able to derrive the rate signal from the
attitude signal using his analog
Computers and thus saved about 12000RM. By preforming a double
differentiation Hoelzer
Was finally able to remove even the position pickoffs for the exhaust
and fin guidence vanes.
A tremendous saving since the computer did the same job for RM1.5
extra.

The engine of the V2 ended up being overtly complex basket head
designe
With 18 sub hemispherical sub chambers on the head each of which had
its own
pair of LOX/alcahol feeds.

This is because Walter Thiel had been killed in an RAF raid and
engine
Development was set back one year. Nevertheless the Wasserfall team
Manged to get a mixing plate designe going. Here was a big cost
saving
Opportunity for the V2 motor. That compplicate head, complicated
plumbing
and nozzling all goes to a simple pressing and one pair of feed lines.

Then there was replacement of the aluminium alcahol tank with a paper/
synthetic one
And the replacement of the stainless steel LOX tank with a treated
aluminium one.

The LEV-3 only had 2 gyros and one acceleromter. That means they
required
Two pickoffs and perhaps two torquers to aligne them unless they were
simply
nulled electrically and released.

SG-66 required not 2 but 3 gyros and apart from needing 3 pairs of
pickoffs and torguers
For the gyros needed 3 more pairs for the gimballs. Then there was
the additional
Schlitt Acceleromter but that could be used to also perform plaform
levelling and I
Imagine a second one was added to level the other dimension.

Overall it needed 3 times more components though there might have
been
Smart shortcuts. For instance why have torguer on the individual
gyros
They could just be caged spun up then uncaged and nulled
electronically
moments before launch.

But then mass produced at 1000 month (about 33/day) it was bound to
get cheaper
100 gyros and pickoffs and 50-100 torguers each day.

How many people does it take to keep a squdron of bombers
opperational? The British but the cost as about the same as a
battleship
how many guidence packages could that many people make?

1 fuel tank converted to non strategic materials
2 Oxidiser tanks converted to less strategic aluminium.
3 Rocket motor plumbing and head design greatly simplified
And materials replaced.
4 Guidance and other components convered to steel.

5 Mass production techniques.

The analog computer, the mischgaraet, was a marvell of simplicity and
good designe.

DC signals (from potentiometer pickoffs) were modulated by a copper-
oxide/selenium diode
Bridge modulator to AC, amplified by a single valve and then converted
back to
DC via a phase sensitive demodulator. The amplifier was stable
around the
Null point (ie secure against offset drift) and adding/subtracting
could be performed in the DC
Domain or via transformer taps. Adding, subtracting, multiplying,
dividing, single and double
Integration could all be performed in a device with only one valve.

Power amplification occurred in magnetic amplifiers which in turn
drove spool valve positioning motors which delivered
Hydraulic pressure to the fin and vane actuators.

Because of the magnetic amplifier control technology of the A4, which
was almost completely devoid of vacuum tubes then V2 was potentially
very reliable.

If they were smart, the Peenemunde team should have ditched it early-on
and gone straight for Wasserfall, as at least that had real strategic
utility.

Certainly this is what Speer claims he wanted to do. However A4 tech
fed the Wasserfall
so you can't have one without the other. There were also plenty of
other
SAM missiles that could have done the job for less than wasserfall.

Also the A4 was built by EMW while Wasserfall was handelled over to
Henschell.
The V2 was a management disaster wheras the Wassefall was a management
marvell.

And would you trust radio guidance 100%? Sure some 90% of German
electrical
engineers were pulled into the anti-jamming and radar effort and while
they were
beginning to get results it would be a while before the heirarchy
developed faith
in this again.

All the people who wanted to develop microwave
Radar, anti duppel/window and anti-jamming methods had been
marginalized for some reason
In 1940-43. And it would be 1945 before mass production of microwave
radars and advanced
Anti-jamming methods such as the chirp pulse radar kugelschale,
reislaus frequency
Agile radar and the k-laus pulse doppler system combined with mega
watt power
Secured German radar functionality once more.

The ethic of the A4 was to bomb the Allies and terrorise them the same
way Germans
Had been in the mass raids over Hamburg etc that had killed over
100,000. In this way

It was hoped it would be possible to negotiate a ceasfire in city
bombing.

It was not an aimless terror campaign, at least as far as the attacks
on london
went.

At least in the case of the V-1, the missile was dirt cheap to make and
the fact that it could be defended against meant that aircraft, AA, and
barrage balloon forces and their infrastructure and personal that could
have been deployed to Europe were tied up in Britain trying to stop buzz
bombs.

The A4 and Fi 103 worked well together: having said that the Fi 103
needed
Improvements: more speed, more range and more accuracy fior which
incidently
Several measures were planed. Ultimetly this mssile was already
being
Taken care of.

Having said that V1's carried a becon for triangulation of the impact
point and
Correction for wind drift of subsequent missiles.

The electronic guidance system was supposed to allow one limited coded
course and
Range correction mid course. This system doesn't provide point
accuracy but it does
Limit opportunities for jamming. I imagine a similar system would
have been
necessary for any kind of weaponised A4b (to update an inertial
guidence systems
mechanical integrating acceleromters)


I suppose its possible, but I think it sounds like a myth or a nice
feeling: ie when
the Bomber Command crews left their IFF on thinking that it jammed the
German radar when
what was really going on was that the night fighters were homed in on
it.

Effective jamming range to the ascending rocket would be a function of
signal strength, and a aimed radio jamming beam that could reach it,
using the searchlight as a means to aim it and allowing other jammers to
notice it lock onto it, or begin emitting jamming signals.

Another factor is the directivity of the transmitting and receiving
aerials. This
factor can render jamming too all intents impossible if combined with
other anti-jamming methods since directivity pushes the battle for
signal to noise ratio S/N in the favour of the signal by 10:1 or 100:1



Did this actually happen? I don't know. But there's nothing to say that
the concept wouldn't be workable, and the website I noted did say there
were attempts to jam V-2s.
SNIP
Pat

Certainly the the system would have been susceptible to jamming as
several points.

I expect though that subsequent systems would have been nearly
impossible to jam.

A beam riding microwave system is extremely difficult to jam as a
directional antena on the
Rear of the missile will not accept jamming energy outside of a narrow
angle. The
system actually used on the A4/V2 was however not highly directional
due to the
low frequencies used.

Cheers.

On Jul 10, 3:28 am, wrote:
about V-2 in 1944

from France to somewhere in London. The way it was built was just fine
for bombarding the city, and even bringing the CEP down to 1km is
pointless without a nuclear warhead. With its Amatol warhead the only
thing that was going to make any difference would be if you could
somehow bring CEP down to 100 m, not 1 km.

What target would be the difference? Big Ben? British Museum?
The grave of Karl Marx or a Synagoge? No joke - Feldmarschall Milch
in his memoirs described the talk about the "America Bomber". He asked
what target in New York shall be bombed by such a project. Answer:
"The habour or the jewish quarter!"

This guys were realy the best example of `Neolithic mind with
modern weapons`.

Probably a flippant answer.

For whatever reason Milch and a few others
thought that bombing the US and investing in the technology to do so
was pointless and too difficult. There really was no major "America"
bomber
project that enjoyed high level support it needed to get developed.

This interest may have developed in 1944 but it was not taken
seriously
any earlier.

Milch was correct in his analysis that the Me 262 had to be in service
by the
middle of 1943 for Germany to avoid defeat.

But he shows himself a pompous even small minded an silly with
his dismissal of the in flight refueling experiments that were being
conducted. (the Germans (RLM or Luftwaffe) conducted a sort of probe
and drogue refueling experiments) that received little encouragement
but produced enough results for some jet bomber designs to incorporate
the facility.

No doubt many saw the war in terms of a war between Jews and Germans.

Milch however comes across as vindictive and petty, possibly with
reasons
(he was sacked) and extremely dismissive of any attempts to develop
an
bomber capable of reaching the USA.

There is no doubt the Germans possesed the skills to develop a long
range america bomber however Milch, the head of the Luftwaffe,
wasn't supporting it. The consensus seems to have been that
the effect for the expenditure of resources would be minimal.

Consider that a 32 hour mission by a six engined bomber squadron of
16 aircraft is going to be the equivalanet of 240 Me 109 missions
or about
24 missions by a Me 109 squadorn. To succede hundreds of bombers
would
need to penetrate to avoid being overwhelmed.

The development of the jet engine perhaps helped rekindle some
interest
as the speed and altitude of such aircraft allowed them to match that
of opposing interceptors far more so than in the piston era.




If they would take out the electric utility plants in southern England,
what do you think Bomber Command would go for next?

The Penemunde team wanted another year before the start of production
both to perfect the V2 reliabillity and accuracy wise and prepare it
for mass production. They of course didn't get this and one reason
for the choice of the simpler LEV-3 over the SG-66 was that the LEV-3
interim system could be ready in time and pace missile develelopment.

(Delays included the wasted years of 1940-1942 when the program
trickled along with minimal funding) to von Brauns and Dornbergers
arrest.

The V2 as it entered service with the LEV-3 guidence systems could at
best achieve 4km CEP when everything was done right. Removing the
efforts of British counter intelligence the probably achieved 6km
against London which is pretty much as was expected if one subtracts
the effects of early missile failures. The accuracy is equivalent to
1 degree error and about the same as gun could achieve proportionatly
at similar range. Having said that a lot of the V2 error was caused
by outright system failure than the limitations in the design or
plausible manufacturing.

Although the accuracy of 4km is pretty hopeless from a tactical point
of view the mentality was to produce 4500-5500 (initially1000 missiles/
month) and cause such destruction that the allies would negotiate a
cessation of their own terror bombing of the German population.
Within Germany there were voices that noted that this would have the
effect of silencing the critics of area bombardment on the British and
allied side and moral critics as well.

While allied folklore was one of Precision raids such as that on the
Dams and the Tirpitz the reality in what must be 80%-98% of cases was
millions of ordinary Germans was quite different with 16,000 to
120,000 deaths in a city such as Hamburg, Pfhorzheim, Munchen, Berlin,
being a weekly occurence.

If the CEP is pulled down to 1km the V2 becomes an effective weapon
although by no means a precision weapon.

Effectively it means that if 200 missiles are launced against a
target
about 100 will be within 1km of the target. This equates to one
warhead per
3 hectares or about 170m between impact points. The clustering
about the aim
point probably reduces this to about 1 missiles per hectare within
500m of the target which means that no point will be more than 50m
from an impact point.

Think of a street with every 5th or 6th house with a direct hit and
the houses on either side destroyed. I've seen few factories that
aren't smaller than 100m x 50m so certainly any production area would
be shutdown.

Discounting the massive R+D cost the V2 cost less to produce than the
engine of a FW 190 fighter. I think about half as much. So producing
1000/month was realistic and this sort of damage could be done to 5
targets/month or 52 per year.

The only option for the allies was to detect the V2 launch sites
before they became active or to detect the launches so that the launch
sifes are neutralised before they can complete all of their launches.

No doubt bomber command would take revenge. An attack on power
stations at least limits harm to the civilian population as they
are usually not in populated areas.

I know that the conventional wisdom is that these weapons were cost
ineffective and a waste however I disagree. With another years
development or if the 1940-42 hiatus handn't occured I believe it
would have been quite effective though I find it morally reprehensible
for its inaccuracy I find it no more so than normal high altitude
raids or night raids.

Eunometic wrote:
On Jul 9, 5:40 am, Pat Flannery wrote:

Eunometic wrote:


A similar technique though in the case of the Saturn Boosters it was
the inertial platform rather than the whole booster that was aligned.
If you've got an hour and high quality gyros they can self align as
they precess to align with the earths rotation.

The N-1 rested on a circular support ring mounted between its central
and peripheral engines; you can get a look at it in this Youtube



video:http://www.astronautix.com/video/vn13l.htm
It apparently uses some sort of releasable hold-down tongues rather than
explosive bolts to hold the N-1 to the pad while the engines come up to
full thrust.



That transporter-erector looks like something straight out of
Thunderbirds or Things To Come.


If only it had wings, thrusters and a relightable engine for landing
we
would have thunderbird 1. Fly back boosters with wheeled or
vertical landing have been a feasibility since the early 1950s and
perhaps since the A4b.

Comrade! Baikal booster! http://www.buran.ru/htm/strbaik.htm
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/baikal.html



Strictly there were several of
these since changing vibration at various portions of the flight meant
that the sensors needed to be elsewhere at that time Some ICBM's just
use the self aligning properties of the gyro to find north.

Redstone used the same layout as the SG-66 but achieved a CEP of 300
yards. I've always wondered what SG-66 would have achieved if used
in mass. Clearly it didn't have the precision devices of the Redstone
though such things as fluid bearing were being tested. I expect that
SG-66 V2 would still have used the rotating platform.

The V-2s using radio-commanded thrust termination in combination with
radar tracking the missile proved to be more accurate than those using
accelerometers,

Walter Haeursermann, who worked on the V2 program,
puts its improvement in cross range as 50% i.e probably
2km to either side of the target since CEP was 4.0-4.5km.

In terms of the down range he puts the improvement as 10%.
Brennschluss was by
doppler effect. This must have been essentially perfect as he puts
the
accelerometer as producing only 400 meters of the errror in the first
place anyway.

but then of course, they could be susceptible to jamming.

I don't think jamming was the major concern as it would have been very
difficult
given the location of the launch sites from any likely jamming device
and the
very short opperation of the system.

The guidance system operated only for a short time (70 secs) while the
missile
was close to the transmitter.

Seventy seconds after launch the V-2 would be at quite a high altitude;
the story from WW II said that the searchlights were aimed at the
ascending rockets as they became visible at night after launch; and that
they went out of control after the searchlights were aimed at them.
If you could shut down the engine, say thirty seconds after launch, the
thing was going to get nowhere near London.


True, but post war wisdom is that the allies never became aware of
the
Leitstrahl system. It remained uncompromised

Surely they would have Speculated that the Germans were using
radio

guidence but the reality is That for a variety of reasons most
launches
were by the accelerometer/gyroscopic based system which disclosed
no radio signals nor was vulnerable to Jamming.

After they got the V-2 that fell in Backebo, Sweden that had the
prototype Wasserfall radio guidance gear on it, they must have become
very suspicious that it was using radio guidance in some way:
http://www.df.lth.se/~triad/rockets/indexen.html

Possibly the
allies
may have tried to direct some kind of Broad band noise or
scintilation
jamming but such measures are generally Of limited effectiveness
unless both the frequencies and modulation scheme Are known.


They could have some info on this via either radio monitoring, Enigma
intercepts, spies or anti-Nazi forces involved in the program.




The concern was that the allies might
backtrack the beams to the launch site.

The radio guidance system consisted of a pair of antenna 200 meters
apart
which were placed 10-16 km up range so that the missile found itself
exactly on a line between the target and the radio beam. The 50Mhz
beam worked like
this: 50 times a second a delay line was switched in alternately
between the left
and right directional dipoles so that the 'lobe' produced by the
interaction of the two beams phases
was alternately shifted slightly left or right. When the beams were
of equal strength
the missile was in the middle.

When the lobe was left a 5khz signal was modulated on the signal and
when right 7khz to
help the missile distinguish where it was. Another 37Mhz transmitter
provided a Doppler
reference for propulsion cutoff.

From what I've read, only the propulsion cutoff was used operationally,
as that didn't require the two control transmitters, with as you point
out, the susceptibility to location of the launch site (although this
sounds more like a threat to the fixed launch bunkers than the mobile
missile transporters).


Hauersermann writes as if the system was used operationally.
About 20% of Launches used this system.


From what I've read only the thrust termination system was used
operationally, as they thought the steering system could be jammed, and
accuracy via gyro control was sufficiently accurate for bombarding London.


The problem with all this is that they were making the V-2 more and more
complex and expensive, when the thing was already a highly inefficient
design from a manufacturing point of view to move one ton of explosive
from France to somewhere in London.


In terms of the manufacturing cost of the V2.

When calculated as a system eg R+D costs and opperating costs other
major WW2 programs such as the B-29 are also lavish.


Yeah, but that leveled Tokyo without even using nuclear weapons, and
pummeled the Japanese war-making ability unto the ground.
London was still there and largely intact after the V-2 attacks.
The V-2 killed thousands of people, but other than that it had just
about zero influence on the progress of the war.
I worked out the casualty figure per missile used years ago:
"They managed to spend a fortune of the Nazi's money (around 2 & 1/2
billion dollars in U.S. wartime dollars; including 2
billion for the A-4 and it's predecessors development alone between
1931-45) on a weapon that, in use, killed a average of around 1 & 3/4's
person per missile..
Out of curiosity, I looked up the facts and figures on casualties caused by
V-2's (or A-4's, for the purists) during W.W.II:
A total of approximately 3,170 V-2s were launched operationally at targets;
the vast majority at London, England and Antwerp, Belgium.
The V-2 attacks on England killed a total of 2,511 people.
The attacks on Belgium by both V-1's and V-2's killed a total of 6,448
people- assuming a breakdown of the type of weapons used to be the same as
the attacks on England, then around 44% of the deaths would be attributable
to V-2's; or around 2840 total.
If we include another, say, 200 deaths for other targets that came under V-2
attack, we come up with a total of around 5,550 total fatalities or a
average
of 1 and 3/4 killed per missile.
(Figures are from V-Missiles of the Third Reich, by Dieter
Holsken, Monogram Aviation Publications,1994, ISBN 0-914144-42-1)"

At 1 and 3/4 people killed by each rocket (and the vast majority of
those civilians, not military personnel), this was a pathetically inept
and unsuccessful weapon.
A MG-34 machine gun probably killed more people on average than a V-2,
and cost far, far, far, less.
Plus it would be killing military personnel engaged in hostilities
against you.
Factor in pilot and crew training, aircrew losses, navigation aids,
maintenance crews,
hospitals, and tools, spare parts, airfield protection and the need to
provide escorts
and jamming systems then that B-29,B-26, Lancaster, Ju 88 isn't so
cheap anymore.


Factor in all those potatoes going into alcohol production for V-2s
while the German populace was beginning to experience food shortages,
and it doesn't look so cheap either.
Factor in all the fuel being used to move the V-2s from their assembly
area to there launch sites, and yet more valuable resources are wasted.
The real killer here is all the money that was lavished on this project
at Peenemunde prior to it becoming operational.
They were spending a fortune on a weapon system that didn't make any
strategic sense right from its very inception.
The von Braun team fed the Wermacht a line of B.S. regarding the
missile's accuracy (100 meters from aim point), and the Wermacht should
have had some outside source check up on the math they were using and
laughed them right out of the office.


For the Germans, with a high loss rate, it looks a lot better than a
manned bomber.

Production cost too me looked like less than half the cost of a Fw
190.


And a Fw-190 at least had a chance to shoot down a allied bomber,
thereby helping the war situation in some material way
A extra 1,500 of those might wave been worth having.
Factor in the R&D that went into the whole A4/V-2 program, and you'd
have at least 3,000 more Fw-190's in place of the V-2.
Unit costs were about RM120,000 (about the same as a BMW801 engine of
the Fw 190)
and the cost of RM50,000 looked achievable. (Cost of a Ju 88 in 1942
was RM400,000)

The V2 represented a realistic way for the Reich to deliver 1000/tons
a month
With veritable impunity. Hitler wanted 4500-5500 missiles per month.


The way it was built was just fine
for bombarding the city, and even bringing the CEP down to 1km is
pointless without a nuclear warhead. With its Amatol warhead the only
thing that was going to make any difference would be if you could
somehow bring CEP down to 100 m, not 1 km.


I did some basic CEP calculations. Assuming production rates of 1000/
month
One could easily deliver 200/missiles per week to a specific target.


With what CEP?
Accuracy was a ovoid around eight miles wide by twelve miles long.
The missile is going to blow a crater about 60 feet wide on impact, and
do blast damage (though not as much as a V-1, because the warhead buried
itself on impact) to an area of around 600-900 feet wide.
In a area as large as its CEP that's not a very high density of damage
overall.
Assuming the 1000m CEP then 50% of missiles would be within 1km, 43%
within the next
1-2km and 7% over 3km away.

Which is fine, but they never got that accuracy, so the mathematics is moot.
This argument presupposes things that never happened, using a guidance
system that was never deployed.
They knew the accuracy of the weapon before they put it into service
from all of their test launchings, and it was pretty awful.
Something along he lines of a super mortar than a field gun.
Of course at that point everyone involved in the program had their
collective foot stuck in the tar pit so deep that they had to keep
going, as if they admitted that the whole thing was a complete cock-up
from the word go, the Fuhrer would probably have them all shot as
traitors to the Reich, and point out that he hadn't liked the thing
until they talked him into it.
The only thing that would have made this weapon, at its accuracy,
worthwhile is either a nuclear or biological warhead.
Raining down a few hundred tons of anthrax spores on London could have
been quite effective.
Within six months of doing that, the Allies would have rained down
several thousand tones of anthrax spores on Germany, possibly making it
uninhabitable to the present day, but there is seldom big gain without
big risk.
Going beyond this is like speculating that they had concentrated on SAMs
instead of V-weapons right from the beginning of the war; you can take
guesses on what the effects that would have had on the bomber offensive
against Germany, but it's all guesswork, because they didn't do it.

Of those 100 within 1 km there would be
a slight tendancy
To cluster around the aim point. About 33 would be within 500m and 8
within 250m and
2 within 125m and 1 within 90 meters. That's enough to take out an
oil refinery, aircraft plant
And do a lot of production disruption expecially if the warhead
becomes more effective eg
With a reliable airbust fuse.


They couldn't even figure out how to do a radio proximity fuze for their
AA shells, much less for something coming out of the sky at 3,000 mph
with a red-hot nose on it.

Less risky methods that required far higher
levels of collateral damage
and clearly there were many on the allied side who made no bones over
the fact that they
were killing the civilian population or 'dehousing' them.
"Civilization" disappears fairly quickly.


I seem to remember a town called Guernica where this happened first.
Something comes to mind about sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.

Pat