Useless German weapons made during the war.

While the V1 & V2 were not as successful as Allied bombing, they were still the only way Germany had of attacking the British mainland. German aircraft simply couldn't survive in British skies.

And while they killed relatively few people they had a larger psychological effect than the Blitz did, because of the purely random nature of the targeting. And, of course, the V2 was impossible to stop.

Now imagine that these weapons had been used on a more sensible target than London. Like, for instance, Portsmouth. All that shipping, all those troops, all that equipment, just stocking up ready for D-Day. Being coastal there is much lless time to intercept the V1s, and almost no opportunity for the deep flak belts that were so effective historically. Portsmouth is also close enough to to coast that German recon had a chance to get there and back home, meaning that the historic British tactic of convincing the Germans that the V weapons were missing London, causing them to adjust their aim and therefore actually miss London, would not work.

The V1 and V2 may not have been war winners, but I don't agree they were useless.

 

Many German aeroplanes:

Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenbeg
Me 210
He 177
Dornier Do 31E

 

The Allies could have, and did, shoot down V1 used that way. On the other hand, both would have very short successes as the Allies could simply move the material and equipment somewhere else. At best it would be an annoyance rather than a really effective counter to Allied build up.

 

They would also have to have been developed earlier; the first V-1s were launched a week after D-Day.

 

How many V1-s Germans had a week after invasion? Sure, you can move troops but the artificial Mulberry harbours, the ships could they be moved? or the ammo, food etc that was taken to the beaches? Got a plan to move them away from the flying bombs? I am sure the Germans would launch them during the night. Another problem. AA fire all through the night? Defensive planes all through the night and now thy would be away from attacking the German forces?
Just asking.

 

The Mullberry harbor components were spread out all over Southern England. In fact, the Allies made a conscious and concerted effort to disguise the purpose of the components by this very distribution. They wanted to make sure the Germans didn't figure out what all that material was actually for. They also dispersed them to make them poor targets for aerial attack.

 

As I understand it, even the simplest form of V-1 launching ramps took a week or more to assemble, after they had surveyed sites and brought in materials. If they wanted to use V-1s against the beachhead, the Allies would have that much time to build up before the bombardment could begin.

I imagine V-1s might be impacted by heavy winds and weather. Ironically in this scenario, the bombardment of the beachhead would begin about the time of the ~June 19 storm. Those clouds might have a silver lining for the Allies

 

If the storm had destroyed both Mulberries-oh my.

 

Just read the V-1 base was cheap and easy to build. It was simple, light and small.

You can find it with " V-1 launch ramp " from the net.

 

The Mulberries were working on 18th June. On 19th storm destroyed One. Close that you did not get enough supplies or reinforcements. What then?

 

The US found after that storm that it was actually faster to not use the largely damaged and now useless docking arrangements designed into the Mullberry harbor. They found instead that a combination of using LST's to beach land vehicles and men, along with using DUKW's to move supplies directly from ships to dumps ashore actually worked better than the original design had envisioned.
The process used ships anchoring out in the harbor, the DUKW's swimming alongside and having a load of material in a cargo net put in their bed by the ship. They'd go ashore and drive to the specified supply dump where a tracked crane would remove the load the same way. The cargo nets got cycled back to the ships after unloading them. That relieved large traffic jams on the few piers available.
Engineers ashore improved the roads and beach exits with bulldozers, etc., and laid gravel to make the roadbed more stable.

A Cherbourg, the German commander confidently told the OKW that the harbor was so thoroughly destroyed the Allies would never be able to use it. A combined US Army (ashore), USN, and RN effort began to restore the harbor within days of it being captured. The first thing they noted was the job of wrecking the harbor was done by what they called "amateurs." The USN and RN found no particular difficulty lifting and clearing one sunken wreck in the harbor after another. One comment on that was if the Germans had instead piled ten or twelve shipwrecks on top one and another it would have taken far longer to clear them than being able to clear several at once like they did.
The US Army bought in engineering units that specialized in harbor construction. Most of the men in these had been previously employed in this field as civilians and they quickly repaired quays, docks, and piers with little difficulty. Other engineering units brought in prefabricated buildings to restore warehouse space. Bulldozers, dump trucks, and such cleared rubble that was then used for repairs elsewhere in the harbor.

Interestingly, Le Havre was to be cleared by the British alone in planning. That changed shortly after the harbor was taken as Commodore MacKinzie, the British officer in charge found himself over his head in terms of what repairs were needed. The US Army and USN were brought in to help. An AR along with two 900-ton lift ships were brought in along with other salvage gear. Making things easier was the great tidal range at Le Havre that left many of the wrecks to be cleared lying exposed at low tide where they could be easily examined and even made ready to extract.
The initial two net tenders (lift ships) sent to Le Havre managed to salvage and remove 18 wrecks in short order before more salvage ships showed up as Cherbourg was cleared.

The Allies--particularly the US--were on a level of civil engineering that was completely unfathomable to the Germans. Their commanders really had no concept of what could be accomplished and how quickly. That left them dealing with a situation they couldn't possibly prepare for because it was beyond their comprehension.

 

Yes, 7-8 days construction time for the "Modified" Base Ramp. The "Modified" ( or "light" base) took 2 weeks total time for construction.

 

Yes, Wikipedia. According to it the second Mulberry landed 2,5 million men, 500,000 vehicles in 10 months? Takes a lot of smaller ships to do this. And tanks. Maybe Air Force was Essential , too, to clear the way inland ?

 

Lots of good responses!

Firstly, yes, I had mixed the dates a little. The danger of posting without checking. There was certainly scope to speed up their development but that is outside the scope of this discussion. Simply changing target is a smaller change than research priorities

Mind you, Portsmouth is still where reinforcement and supply comes from, definitely worth a punt post-invasion. Imagine if they severed PLUTO?

Targeting the beachhead is a good shout. The V1 would be flying over friendly territory for most of its run, really cutting interception rates. The bombardment of Antwerp showed what could be done.

Nighttime use of the V1 was considered but the Germans decided that the large exhaust flare made it too easy to intercept, ignoring the fact that daytime interception was still easier. Another small change easily made...

 

No problem.

20 years ago people demanded sources to practically every detail. Not today. But that way, even if it might take an hour or two, we did it. Just look at the "lesser known details sections " in the different fighting zones from the starting point.....and we had books mostly, not the net. So easy today.

 

That looks a bit like the total landed in Normandy for 12th and 21st Army Groups. The same wiki article notes that by D+60 considerably more material was coming across the beaches than through the Mulberry.

 

Are you sad about the Mulberry massive material? So be it, no Mulberry. Don't really care. Like I said it was Wikipedia. Beaches it is, got any numbers? 2.5 million is hard to beat. I would be happy after losing the other Mulberry. So even one Mulberry was not worth the effort.Tell it to the Mulberry builders.

 

Here's what I mean. This assumes a fully operational Mulberry harbor:


That's a typical floating pierhead. As you can see it's one-way traffic only and creates quite a traffic jam moving off or onto it.


This is DUKW alongside a freighter. Imagine a train of these moving alongside getting a load-- as many as 4 to 8 DUKW loading port and starboard at different cargo hatches at one time.

The DUKW then swim ashore and return for another load, no traffic jam involved.



Note the closest DUKW having empty cargo nets in its bed.
At the supply dump a crane unloaded the DUKW

Having the outer breakwater of the Mulberry that formed the larger harbor was well worth the effort put into it. The Spud pierhead concept on the other hand, was largely a waste of resources. DUKW's and LST's could unload supplies faster and more efficiently than using the Spuds. You were limited only by the number of DUKW's and LST's available for those operations.

 

Great pics; thanx!!