German Desperation Weapons

I've heard a lot about these german desperation weapons german scientists were supposidly working on , the V1 and V2, jet fighters , and a couple assualt machine guns , just to name a few that were realeased , does anyone care to speculate , or have info on this ?

 

Try getting your hands on "German secret weapons" by Brain Ford. I dont know if the source can be trusted but there's a whole lot of wild designs in there that will satisfy your curiosity, I think.

 

most were small scale

a lot r even most of the german wonder weapons were just proposals or paper studies. a few got to prototype and a few more were accually developed and used. there are those that somehow can expand a paper study into a weapon that could have won the war except for ___________ [insert your favorite reason here]. in short there has been a lot of sound and fury about things that most likely would never have been built. some of the stuff is just plain goofy.

 

Of the German Wunderwaffen, the ones that I am aware of are:

V-1, Doodlebug, Buzz-bomb. Little more really than long ranged artillery, reasonably accurate by the standards of the day, not immune to interception, but not especially easy to intercept either. Probably more of a morale boost to show German civilians that they could strike back at British civilians whilst Bomber Command was busy trying to flatten Germany.

V-2. Accurate, impossible to intercept, required no prebuilt launching facilities, could be launched with little more than a flat-bed truck. That said again in practical terms little more than long ranged artillery. Suggestion was made at the end of the war that they could be adapted to be launched from submerged ocean going submarines, however this never got further than an informal discussion.

V-3. Large, long range cannon sited deep undergound that took huge resources to complete. Supposedly these were going to be able to shell London more or less continuously whilst being impenetrable to air and artillery bombardment. A couple of Barnes Wallis's Earthquake bombs destroyed the facility shortly before completion.

Jet Fighters.

The Me262 which saw a fair bit of combat. A good interceptor, but not a good for fighter v. fighter. Hampered by unreliable engines and undercarriage. Usually creditted as the weapon that could have saved Germany if used correctly by people who ignore the fact that there was very little that could have been done to bring it into service earlier.

The Heinkel He280 is often touted also as the plane that could have saved Germany, looks wise is similar to a straight winged Me262, armament is less impressive at 3 20mm cannon but would have been sufficient to do damage to bombers and probably down a fair few. Same problem as the Me262 would have prevented this one from having a particularly huge impact - Reliable, mass produced jet engines largely eluded the Germans throughout the critical periods of the airwar.

Last the Heinkel He162 Volksjager. The weapon for Hitler Youth pilots straight out of glider schools. The aircraft was more a political symbol than a practical proposition, it had structural weaknesses, relatively weak armament and no-one seems to have come up with a sensible suggestion for how boys used to gliding at about 20 mph were supposed to fly a jet fighter through a bomber formation at closing speeds of around 700mph and stand a chance of hitting anything.

Rocket fighters.

The Me163. Most people on here are probably at least aware of the Komet, the two operational units suffered more combat losses than kills claimed, that's just combat losses, not other operational ones. It did have things in it's favour, a phenomenal rate of climb, reasonable armament and good speed. On the against it had terrible endurance, had to use its fuel before commencing its attacks and had dreadful survivability due to the volatile fuels for the rocket motor.

The Bachem Natter. Usually get's my vote in any "Worst fighter" thread. Rocket interceptor which was to be launched, fire a cluster of rockets into the bomber stream, the pilot was then supposed to point his aircraft at an allied bomber, and at the last moment separate the cockpit and fuselage sections. A very desperate idea, very unlikely to succeed, very likely to cost the Luftwaffe more pilots than the Allies.

Other aircraft.

Interceptor GLIDERS, I kid you not, the idea was that by building an engineless fighter the nose cross-section could be reduced which in turn would reduce the likelihood of the aircraft being hit. These were supposed to be towed aloft by a parent craft then released above the bombers. Really, a very silly idea...

Piloted V-1. This would have become the Luftwaffe's "Okha". A German suicide plane, apparently development was discontinued because Hitler found the idea distasteful!

For other Aviation Wunderwaffen see www.luft46.com overall a very interesting site.

 

It wasn't really that simple, mostly because of the precise mixture of chemicals that was needed as fuel for the V2 and that had to be loaded into the rocket on the place of launch. It meant an elaborate process of fuelling that took hours to complete properly.

One V3 was actually made operational in late 1944, but it was not positioned underground nor could it fire at London. Instead it was layed out against the slope of a hill to provide elevation, and it was used to bombard the city of Luxembourg from a range of 65 kilometers (some 40 miles?). It proved to have a terribly low rate of fire as well as being dreadfully inaccurate. In total, 13 civilians were killed by its gunfire, several dozen were wounded.

 

Then there are all the various guided missiles, mostly AA, that they developed.

http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Ge ... les_of_WW2

has a few.

 

Hi.

There were also projects for wind and sound cannons and even studies for railguns (40 mm AA, 105 mm artillery) were made.

Yours

tom!

 

I seem to remember reading something in the "TOP SECRET FILES" folder by a Mr AH....

*gets dragged away by FBI*

hehehehe, seriously though. I recon that if the V2 was introduced earlier in the war, it would have had serious effects. Imagine setting up at Normandy with V2's buzzing around everywhere.

Tomba

 

Fliegerfaust - a 9-barelled recoilless 20mm weapon as shoulder-fired AA for infantry.
AFAIK the Russians tested V-2 as a sub-launched missile.
X-7 Rotkappchen anti-tank missile, with manual guidance or as Pinsel or Pfeifenkopf with TV or IR homing.
X-4 AAM with acoustic homing!!

 

I urge you guys to check out the "Horten" section @ www.luft46.com

Check the XVIII.. can anyone say B-2?

 

Or the VSTOL aircraft? My youthful exurberance and excitement at this site is uncontainable!