Reply With QuoteMaybe in war in the western front, but you still had the Russians on the east.
Had the germans build SAM's instead of V2's?
Inspired by watching the insightful posts in the ”Best fighter or fighter bomber of world war 2” thread I think there might be some interesting inputs on the following subject.
I have been thinking about what would have happened had the germans focused on surface to air rockets instead of the V2 programe.
The V2 had a 300km range with a 1 ton warhead and little chance of hitting anything beside large cities. http://<font size="1">http://en.wiki..._rocket</font>
What if the germans had instead contended with shooting a rocket or missile into tight formations of flying fortresses 10 kilometers above their own positions?
I know the germans worked on prototypes of surface to air rockets but what if they had redirected the vast resources spent on the V2 program?
Could it have changed the course of the air war in europe?
Maybe in war in the western front, but you still had the Russians on the east.
I believe the V2 had a 1 ton warhead, rather than a 1 kiloton warhead...
If the Germans had developed practical SAMs instead of their "Veangance" weapons, the air war would have been very different. The allies would have won regardless, but the cost would have been much higher.
With conventional warheads, V1 Cruise Missiles and V2 Ballistic Missiles served more as terror-weapons than defensive or offensive missile system built for engaging air, ground and maritime targets. Some examples:
V2 Guided Ballistic Rocket
Surface to Surface Supersonic Missile
Range: 200 miles
Speed: 3400 miles/hour
Weight: 12 Tones
WasserFall “Waterfall”
was a smaller version of V2 with an antiaircraft role
Range: 31 miles
Speed: 1800 miles/hour
Max Altitude : 12 miles
Enzian E-4 Surface To Air Missile (also could be used as Air-To-Air Missile)
ReihnTochter (daughter of the Rhein)
Ground to Hi-Altitude Air missile
Speed: 650-800 miles/hour
Max Altitude: 50.000ft
The Rheintochter SAM did enter service and started to have a major destructive effect on the bombers in their bombing raids over Germany by the RAF and USAF. The Germans may have even managed to enhance the Rheintochter with a radar guidance system, making it even more deadly.
RheinBote “Rhein Messanger”
A multi stage - Ground to Air missile
Range of : 100 miles
Speed: 1600 miles / hour
Hs117 Schmetterling or Butterfly
Low Altitude SAM / Air to Air
Speed 590 miles/hour
Rheinmetall Borsig Feuerlilie (Fire Lilly)
The F55 was the last stage of a surface-to-air missile project. The project aimed to research the aerodynamic and propulsion principles required for an effective surface-to-air missile. The project was still running at the end of World War II, and had been modified to include autopilot and radio command guidance. The missile never saw operational service, although principles learnt from the project were undoubtedly used in other Surface-to-Air Missile projects.
Ruhrstahl/Kramer X-4
A closeup photo of the Fw 190A-8's small joystick used
to control the X-4 in flight. An elbow rest was
also provided for the pilot on the starboard side
of the cockpit to allow better control and comfort
while guiding the X-4.
R4/M Air-To-Air/Air-To-Ground Rocket
PC 1400 FX "Fritz X" Guided Bomb
Henschel Hs 293 A-1 Anti-Shipping Missle
Henschel Hs 294 Air launched Rocket & Television guided torpedo glide bomb
Hs298 V2 Air to Air missile
Range: 2 miles
Additonal Reference:
http://www.preservedaxisaircraft.com...s/Missiles.htm
:P
would'nt have stopped uncle joes t34s
or shermans
If Hitler would have decided to put more effort in an atom bomb instead of the v weapons perhaps the world might have looked totally different.
If the Germans had invented SAMs then the Allies would have found a way to get around them.
Oops. You are right. 1 ton of course.I believe the V2 had a 1 ton warhead, rather than a 1 kiloton warhead...
I would agree that sam's instead of v2's wouldn't have changed the general course of the war. Also the need to counter massive bomber formations didn't become urgent until latter part of 1943, perhaps 1944. At which time any chance of german victory was almost nil.
In the best fighther/fighterbomber in world war two it was discussed if the Me-262 or an ordinary fighter would have served them best. The Me-262's advantage as I see it was the ability to pass through the fighter screens using their speed. Where ordinary fighters at that stage properly wouldn't get through.
I think that the sam's would belong in the same category as something that could not regain the skies of germany but engage targets that coundn't be engaged otherwise (apart from flak, but it didn't seem to be very effective, rounds per downed air craft).
The V1 and V2 projects had some of the worst cost-benefit ratio of all the operational weapon systems fielded in WW2. For the amount of man-hours, precious high-grade raw material and energy poured into these projects, the results were pathetic. Let's remember that every V1 and V2 was a very expensive DISPOSABLE weapon. None of them were reusable.
It would definitely have been more worthwhile to build SAMs and airplanes. SAMs would have been much cheaper products and cheaper to operate. They would not need to fly long distances or have complex guidance system or use as much rare metals.
We can speculate the form of these SAMs given the state of technology then. They would probably used like AA guns, firing at a certain direction to explode at a certain height. Whether radio control would be possible from the ground up to the attitude of 20,000 feet to intercept bomber formations is a good question. Even though the Germans had used radio control missile in air to surface missile, I doubt that ground guidance using sight up to 20,000 feet would have been possible, let alone practical. Radar technology then would not have been sophisticated enough to allow it to be used to guide SAMs.
The US was already using proximity VT AA shells, so perhaps this would be a better method. A barrage of cheap and unguided (perhaps with only gyros to stablise flight path) SAMs would be launched up in the path of bomber formations and streams to explode near these formations. The SAMs would have much heavier payload than shells fired from tubes, and so would have much greater lethality range. And if one explodes in the midst of the tightly packed bomber formation, it would have done much more damage than a single 105mm shell.
The Me-262 did not prove itself significantly better at destroying bomber formations than conventional piston engined fighters using zoom and boom tactics. I believe it is because of the following factors:
1. There were too few of them
2. It was - ironically - too fast. While this decrease the chances of a successful interception by escorts, it also reduces the time available to the pilots to aim and fire, especially if they intercept head-on. Only very skilled pilots could succeed - and like I've argued, Germany did not have many of these left.
3. The 30mm cannons were poor armanments. The shell was devestating for a fighter, but against a tough B-17, it was still not sufficient unless a few good hits were obtained. It had short range, and only 150mm rounds could be carried per gun. WW2 fighter pilots don't shoot their guns like rifles. Instead, they lay down a pattern of shells in an area where the target was GOING to be. The low rate of fire and short range of the 30mm was insufficient for small Me-262 fighter formations to lay down enough lead to damage a B-17 formation. The lower rate of fire also meant that marksmanship must be better - again, Germany did not have that many pilots left that could make the best use of the 30mm's striking power.
I thought missles could only be used once :PLet's remember that every V1 and V2 was a very expensive DISPOSABLE weapon. None of them were reusable
And if Attilah the Hun would have had a Piper Cub............
Yep. :POriginally Posted by Operation Ivy
Thousands of Reichsmark goes up in smoke everytime one of those things was launched.
I think that even if Hitler gave more money/doctors to the guys in Peenemunde, it had would make a little difference. You can't trust secret weapons: nothing compares to ten divisions with 1000 tanks. The USA and Sovjets had more resources, so they could play war for 20 years.
Hitler losted his oilfields, he couldn't just set up an offensive to seize the oilfields, the Sovjets were simply to strong.
Like martinexsquaddie said, you can't drive an whole army of hundredthousand men and tons of tanks back into the sea with an Me-262 or V2.
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