If he also buys an island with an extinct volcano, I'd be very worried.
Paul Allen buys lovingly restored vintage V-2 Nazi ballistic missile
Ex-Microsoft gazillionaire Paul Allen has acquired a V2 rocket for his Flying Heritage Collection. First human artifact into outer space ... en route to London or Antwerp with a one-tonne warhead The Microsoft co-founder stumped an undisclosed amount for the Mittelwerk GmbH Vergeltungswaffe 2, having found himself with a …
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Friday 24th May 2013 22:42 GMT Dodgy Geezer
Re: Google and Apple must be worried
...I doubt they would sell a fully working one...
I see no reason why not. The internals are fairly simple items anyway, which could easily be reproduced nowadays.
Of course, it depends on what you mean by 'fully working'. They would not sell one fueled up, with a functioning warhead. And damage may have occurred to the items during the elapsed years - for instance, any battery inside would be long past its best. But I don't suppose they intentionally broke all the fins off the turbo pumps and drilled holes in the fuel tanks.
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Tuesday 28th May 2013 22:51 GMT Vic
Re: Google and Apple must be worried
> They would not sell one fueled up, with a functioning warhead
It would be simple enough to make up the fuel - it's a water/ethanol mix, and the proportions are well-known.
As for a warhead - well, if you can afford to buy one of the last remaining V2s, I can't see that being a major problem...
Vic.
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Friday 24th May 2013 22:10 GMT asdf
lol
Well as Freeman Dyson said he didn't like seeing the occasional destruction of the V2 but he knew considering they cost as much as a new fighter plane that each one was helping end the war. Germany needed Me232s but kept building V2s instead. Still the secret Nazi weapon that was the scariest was the whole using a giant mirror in space to destroy cities and boil oceans (said 50 years away from having).
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Monday 27th May 2013 08:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: lol
"[...] but he knew considering they cost as much as a new fighter plane that each one was helping end the war. Germany needed Me232s [...]"
It is my understanding that Hitler wouldn't accept the idea that the Me262 should be a defensive fighter. He ordered the production to concentrate on it being an offensive light-bomber.
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Monday 27th May 2013 10:42 GMT Matt Bryant
Re: AC Re: lol
"..... Hitler wouldn't accept the idea that the Me262 should be a defensive fighter....." Yes and no. The problem with procurement in the Luftwaffe was they often had the right experts in the wrong places, and even more often just good Nazi "yes men" in positions of control. When the prototype was demonstrated in 1943, Hitler asked if it could carry bombs for ground-attack in the same way as the FW190 did. Now, this in itself was not an unrealistic request, but the reaction to it shows the schism in the German command structure. By the time Hitler even asked the question it was too late due to incompetents like Udet, who advised Goring to cancel jet development in February 1940 because they were convinced Germany would have won the War by 1941, so blaming Hitler alone is short-sighted.
Adolf Galland, who was the Luftwaffe General of Fighters, was obsessed with restoring the tarnished image of his jagdfliegers. Indeed, little mention is made of the fact Galland originally opposed the whole jet fighter idea, thinking the Me209 development would realistically provide his jagdfliegers with a better mount than the Bf109 - the Me209 program was a complete failure. Due to his post-War popularity, Galland's version of history - Hitler stopped the Me262 being effective by insisting on a bomber version - has become almost gospel, neatly deflecting criticism from Galland himself. But Galland had an almost myopic preoccupation with air superiority fighters as that was his personal pleasure, and failed in the basic strategic understanding that wars are eventually won by soldiers capturing and holding ground.
In 1943, when Galland flew the Me262 prototype and suddenly changed his mind to wanting it as the Luftwaffe's main interceptor, the Axis forces had just been kicked out of Africa. The Panzers complained long and hard that the real reason they lost in Africa was because (a) the Luftwaffe fighters did not provide good enough cover against Allied air attacks, and (b) because the Luftwaffe's own air attacks on the advancing Allies were all too often intercepted because the Luftwaffe did not have a fast enough light bomber. This was despite the jagdflieger units in Africa having had a better fighter (the Bf109F and G models) than the local RAF units for most of the North African campaign. In facing the coming Allied invasion, Hitler foresaw that he would need a means to attack the beaches and invasion ships, and what better way than a bomber that would be almost impossible to intercept? When he found out that Galland and Milch had conspired to keep all the Me262s as fighters in the vain daylight battles against the USAAF bomber fleets he went off in one of his rages, but by then it was too late anyway. Hitler is criticised but his desire for an effective means of attacking any Allied invasion force was actually a sound notion.
By the end if the War, jet fighters were rolling off hidden and often underground factory lines in large numbers, largely unhampered by the USAAF bombers, but many never got airborne. The Allies had smashed German synthetic fuel production so the "wonder jets" often had no fuel, and when they did there were often no trained pilots to fly them. The Germans failed to train enough pilots, having also scaled training back in 1940, and then failed to identify that problem in time to redirect resources. All too often the resources and skilled technicians had been directed to work on the wrong projects, such as the V2. So, to claim that Hitler personally stuffed the Me262 is not completely true.
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Monday 27th May 2013 18:32 GMT mmeier
Re: AC lol
A4, Fi103 and the jet fighters where basically all a waste of resources. The germans would have been better off producing FW190D/TA152 - good enough to kill Mustangs and B17s as well as building HE219 night fighters to kill Mosquitos and Lancasters. Lower production cost, less strategic materials and proven, rugged technology.
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Tuesday 28th May 2013 15:24 GMT Dodgy Geezer
Re: AC lol
... The Panzers complained long and hard that the real reason they lost in Africa was because (a) the Luftwaffe fighters did not provide good enough cover against Allied air attacks, and (b) because the Luftwaffe's own air attacks on the advancing Allies were all too often intercepted because the Luftwaffe did not have a fast enough light bomber....
The Africa campaign was almost entirely a battle of logistics and intelligence - with both sides at the end of a long supply chain.
In the beginning the Germans had considerable success with intercepting US liaison officers reports - the US were not at war at that point, but talked to the Brits and then radioed off reports with poor security - as did the Brits, initially. But then the Brits wound up Ultra and used their wide Air Force/Navy reach to take out most of the German supply route. End result - Rommel unable to fight for lack of fuel....
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Tuesday 28th May 2013 18:40 GMT Matt Bryant
Re: Dodgy Geezer Re: AC lol
"......The Africa campaign was almost entirely a battle of logistics and intelligence....." Once again, I would refer you to the fact that wars are won by putting soldiers in control of the ground. The Germans and Italians had a much shorter line of supply for most of the North African campaign, controlling most of the Med islands, but suffered from RAF interdiction of their supplies. In the air, the RAF had sent the Hurricane and Curtis Tomahawk fighters to Africa, assuming that all they would have to deal with was Italian biplanes. This plan came unstuck when Hitler decided to help his Italian allies and sent Luftwaffe units including ones equipped with the superior Bf109. The RAF fighters were outclassed - the Hurricane was already slow before the addition of sand filters, leaving it almost 80mph slower and climbing at half the rate of the Bf109F, and the Tomahawk had an operational ceiling of only 28,000ft, a good 10,000ft less than the Bf109F, and climbed like a brick. The RAF failed to send Spitfires to the theatre until mid-1942, but the Germans still failed to capitalise on their air superiority.
Partly this was due to another failing in Luftwaffe - promoting the wrong officers to lead units. At the start of the Battle of Britain Goring started promoting high-scoring pilots, like Galland, to lead units, replacing experienced "old timers". This policy of promoting the high-scorers caused a fixation on the success of the few over that of the unit. Jadgflieger like Marseille concentrated on building up their own scores rather than making sure their units were concentrating on shooting down the RAF bombers that were actually destroying Rommel's supplies. Marseille is lionised for claiming to have shot down 158 RAF aircraft, but only four of those were the bomber aircraft he needed to shoot down. Many members of his JG27 unit hardly scored, despite their superior fighters, because they spent too much time watching and applauding Marseille and a few other experten shooting down the lumbering Hurricanes and Tomahawks (and the later and almost as bad Curtis Kittyhawk) which were escorting the bombers Marseille actually should have been shooting at. JG27 had to be withdrawn from the theatre a month after Marseille died (in September 1942) because the unit's morale was shattered without Marseille. Meanwhile, the RAF fighters were concentrating on shooting down the Axis bombers actually attacking British ground forces and shipping, therebye helping ensure the eventual success of the British ground forces. Indeed, the Luftwaffe pilots flying the Ju-87s and Ju-88s in North Africa often complained their escorts left them unprotected because the jagdflieger were more concerned with scoring than actually protecting the bombers!
By 1944 and the Allied invasion of France the Stuka units had switched to the speedy FW190A fighter-bomber, but this was never as effective as the more accurate dive-bombing of the Ju-87 and Ju-88. They had to because the Luftwaffe fighter units were being concentrated by Galland on defending Germany from the USAAF bomber raids, meaning the FW190s had to often fly unescorted. They would dearly have loved the much enhanced survival chances of flying an Me262 fighter-bomber as Hitler had wanted. Instead, the massed Allied fighters had complete daytime control of the airspace over the Normandy beaches, with only two small attacks actually penetrating the fighter screen on D-Day.
".....In the beginning the Germans had considerable success with intercepting US liaison officers reports....." This was actually an Italian intelligence coup. Before the Yanks joined the war the Italians broke into the US embassy in Rome and copied the US diplomatic codes, including the top secret "Black Code" used for military attache traffic and spying. After the war started the US didn't change their codes, despite British advice. This wasn't too much of a problem until an American officer, Colonel Fellers, was sent to the Middle East as an observer in early 1941 (before the US entered the war). Churchill wanted to get as chummy as possible with the Yanks and soon ordered that Feller have full access to the daily Middle East HQ briefings. He was even taken on guided tours of the units at the front. For almost a year he supplied daily reports to Washington that gave exact British dispositions, appraisals of defences and attack plans, and even casualty reports, all in the "Black Code". Within 24 hours Rommel had a deciphered copy of every report, courtesy of the Italians. Worse, Fuller's reports gave the Axis comprehensive advance warning of all the convoys attempting to lift the seige of Malta. Yet the Yanks refused to change their codes even after specific British warnings. Rommel was not the military genius he is often made out to be - when the Brits finally persuaded the Yanks to change codes it was just before the Second Battle of Alamein, and Rommel floundered without his usual supply of intelligence.
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Friday 24th May 2013 13:31 GMT Dunstan Vavasour
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
Because making rockets is hard to do in any age, We understand the physics, but making the many components all work together properly so the rocket flies is hard.
The same goes for making atom bombs. That's why I'm not unduly worried about Iran's programme.
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Friday 24th May 2013 16:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
"That's why I'm not unduly worried about Iran's programme."
Ummmm.... I'm not that worried myself, but the Iranians are actually quite smart. Their system of government might be a nutty, mullah infested theocracy, but Iranians in general are pretty clever.
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Friday 24th May 2013 17:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
"The same goes for making atom bombs. "
One of my boys' comics in the 1950/60s (Victor, Valiant?) was a superior one with written stories. It had a series about a secluded part of the world where the inhabitants used atomic explosions to do terraforming. The supposed technique was to dig a very deep well. A sub-critiical lump of fissile material was then placed at the bottom of the well - and an identical piece dropped from the top. Can't remember how they did a low-tech enrichment to get the fissile material though.
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Friday 24th May 2013 19:48 GMT Dave 32
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
The problem is that, unless the two subcritical lumps are mechanically constrained when bumped together, the criticiallity will, almost certainly, mechanically separate them before an explosion can result. Remember the two "Demon Core" incidents, and how the two criticiallity incidents only killed two people:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core
Dave
P.S. I'll get my coat; it's the one with the Iodine tablets in the pocket.
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Wednesday 29th May 2013 07:36 GMT Steve I
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
"Because making rockets is hard to do in any age, We understand the physics, but making the many components all work together properly so the rocket flies is hard."
This is why Rocket Science is easy (put fuel in a tube closed at one end and set light to it), but Rocket Technology is hard...
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Friday 24th May 2013 13:33 GMT gerryg
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
These things had no intelligent guidance system - an internal gyroscope was spun up to keep them stable and they were pointed in the right direction with approximately the right amount of fuel, e.g., "anywhere in London" not grid reference TQ123456 or whatever
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Friday 24th May 2013 14:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
Are you sure about that? I thought they were steered by radio control from the launch site. Since it's a ballistic missile the engine is switched off not long after launch so the risk of enemy jamming isn't too high.
There's one in the Science Museum in London. Quite impressive.
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Friday 24th May 2013 13:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
Most North Korean tech is derived from a few imported Soviet Scud missiles (which came via Egypt in the 1970's), which in turn can trace their lineage directly back to the original V2 technology.
As stated in the article - these aren't much more accurate than 'city sized' and only have a few hundred mile range.
The bigger systems tend towards multi-stage for which complexity rises heavily; but NK tend to get a lot of help from Iran in this area - they have managed to get an object into orbit, so they aren't complete failures in this area - even if the latest KN-08 system looks like it is mocked up out of old bits of Scud and painted canvas.
To be honest - a lot of the failures probably come from human error, lack of engineering skills, demotivated workforce etc rather than a lack of technology. Don't forget the V2 failed spectacularly on multiple occasions too...
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Saturday 25th May 2013 23:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
"I suspect someone is now on the Nork shitlist for leaking military secrets"
Nothing secret about it luckily - all the photos of the parade are on the Web and some kind chaps have even done the analysis of the fake looking bits for us.
More importantly, I can't believe no one has picked up that we have basically given it the call sign" knob", although it does follow nicely from "no dong" I suppose...
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Friday 24th May 2013 14:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
They have the theory, they even have some old SCUD's to copy.
They don't have quality materials or tools to make their own version.
Everything is slap-dash and poor quality - something you just can't get away with in the larger missiles they're trying to develop.
for every 'success' they've got a host of failures.
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Friday 24th May 2013 18:14 GMT ecofeco
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
Exactly. It's the shear complexity.
Secondly, the V2s didn't even qualify as suborbital. They were barely intercontinental by only the most technical of definitions.
The Norks, and everyone else not part of the orbital club, are trying to jump all the way to sub orbital intercontinental and then to low stable orbit.
That's still a VERY big leap.
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Friday 24th May 2013 18:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
"They were barely intercontinental by only the most technical of definitions."
According to the News Chronicle article they had 240 miles range.
Was it Tony Robinson who did a TV series on the blast effects of wartime bombs and missiles on a row of houses? He argued that the V2 penetrated a long way into the ground before the fuse had time to fire. So there was very little damage to nearby buildings - as the blast was channelled upwards. However the amount of earth thrown up into the air killed people by burying them.
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Friday 24th May 2013 19:08 GMT BongoJoe
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
I used to live in Antwerp and there was, when i was there in the 80s, still many gaps between the houses from the old V1 and V2 damages. Quite often one or two houses in a street would be gone and that's it.
But that's not to say the effect that they had; because there were so many there were literally a weapon of terror.
My faher was in Antwerp for a while during the war and he'd say that one would drop an hour - on the hour. So everyone would be waiting nervously for the next one knowing full well when it was going to come. He said that he was glad to get back to the front line for 'peace of mind'.
One, of course, fell on the Rex cinema on the De Keyser Lei killing hundreds of allied soldiers.
Horrible things. I can't see why anyone would want to spend money on one. The man has gone further down in my estimation.
- Paris because they never reached her. Thankfully.
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Friday 24th May 2013 19:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
"Quite often one or two houses in a street would be gone and that's it."
In much of England the German bombing was not intensive - often a sneak raider with specific strategic targets. After a while civilians didn't take any notice of the sirens. One stick missed the main railway station in Stoke-on-Trent and mostly fell on nearby fields. One bomb took out an end of terrace house - which after the war was just a gap at the end of the shortened block. My aunt lived in the next street. Family stories said she was busy making sandwiches for when her husband came home - and never heard the explosion. The falling shrapnel from anti-aircraft fire was a bigger danger for many civilians who were outside their houses.
There is a story of the old ICL (Power Sammas, Hollerith?) factory in Letchworth experiencing such a lone raider alarm. By the time the works' defence squad had carried their machine gun to the roof the raider was disappearing into the distance.
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Saturday 25th May 2013 13:01 GMT Tim Worstal
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
The bit of Bath I grew up in got bombed in the Baedecker raids. One plane dropped a stick right across the avenue the parentals house is in. Looking at it now you can see a new house on one side of the avenue, 80 years newer than those on either side: and exactly the same on the opposite side.
That's how the bombs fell.
About 3 years back the parents changed one of the bedrooms overlooking that middle of the avenue into a bathroom. On doing the alterations they found that the window boxes (ie, what the sashes fit into, not the plant pots outside) were still pushed in a few inches from the bomb blast of those WWII explosions.
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Friday 24th May 2013 23:35 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
"Horrible things. I can't see why anyone would want to spend money on one. The man has gone further down in my estimation."
The first line of the article might give a bit of a hint.
Some things need to be preserved to reinforce the education of those not old enough to have witnessed history.
And FWIW, the gap in the row of house three doors up from me is a car park thanks to Herr Hitlers bombs (not V2). The guy who used to live next door witnessed that and the others dropped in a line, one on every other street due to the falling pattern. I don't think about it all the time. Not even every time I walk or drive past it. But I do know how it came about. being very old house, no doubt some day the are will be redeveloped and no longer will kids ask why there's a "missing" house on three of five rows and then learn something.
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Monday 27th May 2013 19:33 GMT Nuke
@John Brown - Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
Wrote :- "Some things need to be preserved to reinforce the education of those not old enough to have witnessed history."
I believe you are assuming that people will learn not to repeat such things. On the contrary, the first thing the USA did on learning about V2s was to hire von Braun to carry on designing and improving the things.
It is a fallacy (it needs a name) to assume that everyone else reacts to things as you do yourself. People are always keen to "show the facts" to others, in the belief that those others will be persuaded to adopt the same opinions as themselves. Not so. It can have entirely the opposite effect. I have known people, who, on seeing the usual pictures of starving Africans, have reacted not (as intended) by wanting to send them food, but by suggesting they be sent something to put them out of their misery.
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Monday 27th May 2013 19:22 GMT Nuke
Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
Wrote : "Was it Tony Robinson who .... argued that the V2 penetrated a long way into the ground before the fuse had time to fire. So there was very little damage to nearby buildings"
Tony Robinson talks bollocks - he should have remained a comedian.
To see a good illustration of the effect of a V2, look on Google Street View at Nutwell Street, London SW17. You will see Victorian Terraces both sides in the northern half, but 1960's houses and a block of flats in the southern half. The newer buildings show the damage extent. It extends across the south end junction with Melison Road and continues 30 yards up Himley Road nearly opposite. So about 140 yds of destruction.
My grandfather's house was there, and an uncle of mine was killed in that blast. Really bad luck as there are square miles of similar housing that were untouched around there.
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Tuesday 28th May 2013 09:24 GMT Nuke
@ Allan George Dyer - Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...
Wrote :- "Might have been a V1 (doodlebug, flying bomb)" [rather than a V2]
Not sure, but you seem to be replying to my story of the damage at Nutwell Street. It has always been a V2 in the story as told in my family, and that it was the very last V2 to hit London, but you sent me checking. It was a V2 all right, 6th March 1945, but not quite the last (which was 27th March) :-
www.rpwbresidents.org.uk/area/local-history/35-rebuilding-raynes-park
http://hawkley.ctie.org.uk/History/civilian_air_raid_casualties.htm
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Friday 24th May 2013 15:08 GMT Dave 15
Re: @Jefe
Yup, we know, but lets be honest it is all now a long time back, they tried to flatten parts of the UK - and really apart from Coventry failed, we did flatten large chunks of Germany - and I do mean flatten, there is a vast difference between the damage of the Blitz and the removal of many large cities from the map. (Coventry really was their only major success).
Personally, I like the 'don't talk about the war' bit... you started it, no we didn't, yes you did....
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Friday 24th May 2013 15:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @Jefe
Actually the change to area bombing was prompted by the bombing of Coventry which was a centre for aircraft production, up until that time the RAF had concentrated on specific targets, the German raid showed that if you hit population centre's you not only kill workers you disrupt travel and living conditions for the ones who survive, and therefore disrupt war based industries, it's easy to be judgmental about this now but at the time the country was truly fighting for survival and unfortunately in total war many people die.
If you think Coventry was the only UK city to be devastated I suggest you look at pictures of other cities including London which took severe damage from bombing of civilian areas, not to mention many towns in Europe and Russia obliterated by the Luftwaffe.
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Sunday 26th May 2013 11:22 GMT Matt Bryant
Re: Dave 32 Re: @Jefe
"I seem to remember that Hamburg and Dresden suffered a bit of "marshmallow roasting" from firestorms....." Whilst the Allies did do area bombing of German cities, they did have a strategic plan (daylight attacks on aircraft factories by the Yanks, RAF attacks on the German petrol and oil manufacturing and distribution system by night). After a rather inept attempt at attacking the British aircraft industries in 1940, the Germans made little attempt at strategic bombing as the Luftwaffe simply wasn't equipped for the task. Goring had ignored developing proper strategic bombers by concentrating on building a tactical airforce as quickly as possible. Instead, from late 1940 onwards, the Luftwaffe bombing effort did virtually nothing but "revenge" attacks aimed at civilians when not doing tactical support of the German land and naval forces. The V2 and V1 programs were simply extensions of that - too inaccurate to hit specific factories but good enough for shooting at cities. Which is why the Allies did not pursue similar programs - they realised the limits of the guidance technology and instead concentrated on better strategic bombing technologies (such as the Tallboy and the Bouncing bombs, HS2 radar, and Pathfinder Mosquitos). But of course, it's become popular amongst revisionists to simply bleat about the "horrors" of Dresden (or Tokyo) and ignore the campaign to reduce Germany's capability by destroying their transport infrastructure and POL system.
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Friday 24th May 2013 12:48 GMT mantissa
British Intelligence
The more I read about WWII, the more I am amazed at how (supposedly) effective the Intelligence Services were at controlling the information leakage from this country. It is claimed that all German spies were turned by the Brits and used to our advantage. That and a lack of air supremacy would seem to have masked all that was going on here in the UK. That's a truly incredible achievement.
All this brought to mind by the comment that the UK 'leaked' info that the V2s were overshooting London. We'd never have got away with this had we not got the information scene under complete control.
Much like the UK government would like to now, I suppose.
(Recommend R.V Jones - "Most Secret War" book for more details)
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Friday 24th May 2013 20:05 GMT Dave 32
Re: British Intelligence
Originally written in memory of his girlfriend, who had just been killed in a plane crash in Canada. Later, it was given to Violette Szabo, for use by her while on assignment in occupied France (which, sadly, ended rather badly for her). :-(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_That_I_Have
Dave
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Friday 24th May 2013 19:33 GMT SteveastroUk
Re: British Intelligence
I had the great pleasure and privilege of inviting him to give a talk to the Manchester IEE younger members section, and for him to accept. It was the only time we ever filled a 500 seat auditorium to capacity, and with people standing. It was ALSO the only time a lecturer gave an encore. My dad and I took him to dinner afterwards, a meal I shall never forget.
Jones was also a brilliant and ingenious experimental physicist, and his other professional works are well worth reading
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Friday 24th May 2013 15:34 GMT Peter Simpson 1
"Intelligence was more use to bomb the launch sites in Northern France etc"
For which I happen to have copies of aerial reconnaissance photos. I give those photointerpreters credit: I can't find the damn sites. "No Ball" missions, I believe they were called.
Those WWII bomber crews must have had trouble getting into the air, what with the weight of their big brass ones and all.
//The beer's for them (and all the others) on Memorial Day, and especially for my friend Louis Paltrineri, radio operator on a B17, shot down and ended the war as a POW...thank you.
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Sunday 26th May 2013 11:43 GMT Matt Bryant
Re: Dave 32 Re: V1 Flipping
Tipping was not often used as most fighters could not stay in formation with a V1 long enough to place their wingtip under the very small wing of the V1. Apart from the Tempest the majority of Allied interceptors needed good fortune and a height advantage to dive into a firing position. The V1 was a very small target which meant the pilots had to close to very short range to guarantee a hit, and there was a considerable risk of the hit V1 exploding and damaging the attacking fighter, but this was still much preferred to the risk of colliding with a V1 whilst attempting tipping.
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Friday 24th May 2013 16:44 GMT Jim Hague
Redirecting V1s
You didn't want to tap the V1 wing. The shock would probably damage your wing and might well trigger the warhead, which wouldn't be nice with you that close. Instead, you got the wing of your kite close enough under the V1 wing to have the air flowing over yours give a little additional uplift to the V1 wing, thus redirecting the V1.
A few years ago I accompanied one of my kids on a primary school 'evacuation' outing. One of the grandparents on the trip related how, as a young boy, he'd watched from the top deck of a double decker bus going down Fleet Street as a Spitfire did exactly this.
Gonads of steel ain't in it.
Raise a glass tonight.
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Friday 24th May 2013 17:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Redirecting V1s
"The shock would probably damage your wing and might well trigger the warhead, which wouldn't be nice with you that close."
Some of the early intercepts used standard fighter tactics by shooting from behind. They lost a few aircraft like that after they had to fly through the explosion debris cloud.
Some of the older fighter planes had to start high and then do a steep dive to give enough speed to overtake a V1.
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Saturday 25th May 2013 10:27 GMT Dodgy Geezer
Re: Redirecting V1s
If you were flying a Tempest V, with 2,500 HP of Sabre engine up front and a decent wing section without compressibility problems, interception speeds from behind weren't that much of an issue. Given that the V1 was a very small target, engaging from behind with matched speeds offered the best chance of a hit.
Flying through the explosion wasn't too bad either - much of the debris went sideways. One point of interest - as you went through the pressure bubble caused by the detonation your aircraft encountered marked variations in gas density, including a partial vacuum. With the torque from the 4-bladed prop, and no air to bite on, the aircraft would often emerge from the fireball upside down....
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Friday 24th May 2013 20:30 GMT Dave 32
Re: Redirecting V1s
V1s are, apparently, somewhat rare. There is one mounted on a pedestal outside of the courthouse in Greencastle, Indiana, USA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greencastle,_Indiana
I happened to be unaware of this fact, and, while driving through Greencastle one night, almost ran off the street from the amazement of seeing it!
Dave
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Friday 24th May 2013 22:34 GMT Richard Plinston
Re: Redirecting V1s
> V1s are, apparently, somewhat rare. There is one mounted on a pedestal outside of the courthouse in Greencastle, Indiana, USA:
Is that an actual Fiesler Fi 103 'V1' or the American copy: the Republic Aviation-Ford JB-2 'Loon' which was built as an almost exact copy of the V1 after receiving crashed examples. 1,391 were made in America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic%E2%80%90Ford_JB%E2%80%902
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Monday 27th May 2013 02:11 GMT itzman
Re: Tipping
1/. it wasn't physical contact. The tip vortices off the aircraft wing were enough to destabilise the thing beyond its ability to recover.
2/. it was preferable to shooting at a live bomb
3/. it wasn't that hard since they maintained a straight course at a constant height and didn't shoot back at you.
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Friday 24th May 2013 17:55 GMT Simon Cresswell
I can recommend La Coupole
Which is near St. Omer - ostensibly a combined V2 factory and launch site which sort of conforms to the volcano theme (massive concrete dome to protect it) which is now a great museum.
It never saw operation - constant bombing and the Allied advance after D-Day put paid to that.
One nugget I got from the museum is that Hittler efffectively cut off funding to Von Braun and Co. for over 18 months while he concentrated on the Eastern front - which rather makes you think.
Other sites near La Coupole too - Eperleques (chuffing great factory bunker) and Mimoeques - which was the installation for the stillborn V3 rockets - but 617 Squadron got there first.
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Friday 24th May 2013 18:25 GMT ecofeco
Re: I can recommend La Coupole
From Wiki:
The V-3 (Vergeltungswaffe 3) was a German World War II supergun working on the multi-charge principle whereby secondary propellant charges are fired to add velocity to a projectile.
The weapon was planned to be used to bombard London from two large bunkers in the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France, but they were rendered unusable by Allied bombing raids before completion. Two similar guns were used to bombard Luxembourg from December 1944 to February 1945.
The V-3 was also known as the Hochdruckpumpe ("High Pressure Pump", HDP for short), which was a code name intended to hide the real purpose of the project. It was also known as Fleissiges Lieschen ("Busy Lizzie").[4]"
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Friday 24th May 2013 18:39 GMT Yet Another Anonymous coward
Re: I can recommend La Coupole
I always thought that would be a good tactic (for the opposition)
Pretend to build some super secret weapon in a mountain, leak lots of details about how dangerous it is and watch as the good guys spend all their time and effort of their premium bomber crews trying to destroy it.
For a bonus surround it with lots of anti-aircraft defences so bombing it is almost suicide.
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Friday 24th May 2013 23:03 GMT Richard Plinston
Re: I can recommend La Coupole
> Presumably the V3 was intended to have enough range to reach New York?
The 'V2 weapon' was actually the A-4 rocket. Development of other rockets included the A-4b winged version which led to the A9 which was similar to the A4 but with full length delta wings and the A10 which was much larger and was designed to be a stage 1 for the A9/A10 combination to give it a 3000 mile range - sufficient to get to New York. It is likely that the A9 needed to be manned to get adequate accuracy. In theory the pilot could escape. The A10 was supposed to be recoverable by parachute for reuse.
"Development of the Guided Missile", Gatland, 1952.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregate_%28rocket_family%29
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Friday 24th May 2013 18:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
News Chronicle November 11, 1944
V2: HERE ARE THE ROCKET SECRETS
That is the front page headline on the "Late London Edition" of that newspaper. Four-pages in a single sheet - price "one penny". It came from a friend's clearout of accumulated newspapers several years ago. A bit brown and fragile - but a fascinating read after over 70 years
"MR. CURCHILL'S disclosure yesterday in the House of Commons that certain parts of England have for several weeks been under fire from the latest German terror weapon, the V2 rocket bomb, makes it possible to reveal a much more detailed description of the new missile than has hitherto been possible.
[...]
It was one of the best kept secrets of the war so far as the enemy were concerned and there are signs that they still have no accurate knowledge about the actual places that have been hit.
"
The paper gives a surprisingly technical description about the rocket - including range etc. Says radio control used for initial part of flight followed by inertial guidance systems - which made it quite accurate in direction but poor on range. There are also some pictures of the damage caused in "a town in southern England".
Another headline "Patton two miles from Saar; Nazis say tank battle on"
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Friday 24th May 2013 22:42 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Re: News Chronicle November 11, 1944
Says radio control used for initial part of flight followed by inertial guidance systems - which made it quite accurate in direction but poor on range.
And ... the analog on-board computer that everyone forgot about: Helmut Hoelzer’s Fully Electronic Analog Computer used in the German V2 (A4) rockets
It seems to do attitude control and position correction by integrating the sideways accelerations, if I understand weel, though ... where are the accelerometers? And how does it know it is on course?
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Saturday 25th May 2013 16:15 GMT Mephistro
Re: News Chronicle November 11, 1944
"where are the accelerometers? And how does it know it is on course?"
Not an expert in the area, but I think that a gyroscope can double as an accelerometer/orientation sensor. And I don`t think the V2 knew its course. It probably relied on being launched in a given direction, and then it only had to make corrections to keep its orientation.
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Saturday 25th May 2013 08:31 GMT Marco van Beek
First V2 to hit London
Landed, if that is this the right term, in Chiswick, near the bottom end of Staveley rd, which runs down the side of the grounds of Chiswick House. There is a small plaque next to an electricity transformer. It mortally wounded one person. Not the best ROI for a weapon of mass destruction.
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Saturday 25th May 2013 20:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
the Mittelwerk GmbH Vergeltungswaffe 2
"The Microsoft co-founder stumped an undisclosed amount for the Mittelwerk GmbH Vergeltungswaffe 2"
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