V-4 Missile Possibilities

steve gallacci wrote in message ...
First of all, it's not a "thingy". It is positively a Pabst ramjet as
evidenced by its connection to one of the Fw Triebflugel's wings seen
in the photo. And it is being windtunnel tested.

That, except for the Triebflg. wing (more likely a simple streamlined
strut)was what I was suggesting. The guy was being a dunderhead. Of
course it wasn't moving, it was a test article in a wind tunnel! Jeez.

You're possibly correct on the wing except that other simlar test rigs
don't match the Triebflugels wing. Anyway the pic is from a
Triebflugel site.

I didn't think the "V-4" ramjet looked
all that much like a Pabst ramjet though.

Really? OK, here's a comparison of all the late-war ramjets available
to the Germans:

The Pabst engines were usually proportionally shorter, but all in all,
that isn't all that important.

It is when compared to the two other available ramjet engines of which
we both agree CANNOT be the one depicted above the V-4. The Germans
didn't have any other types...

Still think it might have been
a Rheinbote like missile with a ramjet sustainer, which could have been
done with a minimum of effort.

On the Unicraft page the first depiction shows the V-4 missile with a
RATO unit slung underneath for catapult launch. Rhinebote was powered
by a rocket engine and launched off a SSM erector. The V-4 was
launched like the V-1:

You're not thinking like an engineer. The Rheinbote was a dirt simple
rocket stack, a tube with fuel and fins. To rethink the function with a
ramjet instead of solids is almost a no-brainer. That makes the
development of the "V-4" more credible, even if it wasn't done by the
Rheinbote team, anyone with some ramjet R&D and even a hint of a notion
of V-1 or Rheinbote ops could easily put it together.

Not possible at all at that time. The V-1 (aka Fi-103, FZG-76) took
years to develop. Rheinbote was started in 1943. One is a short range
artillery rocket, the other a long range flying bomb meant to hit
Sweden. There's no comparison between the two other than you thinking
it is a derivative of the Rheinbote due to (I assume) general
appearance without the ramjet. BTW, an engineer cannot simply strap on
an experimental ramjet onto a Rheinbote-like missile, add wings, and
hope it makes it to Sweden. On Misdroy they had catapults aimed
towards Sweden, not the West. The ramps were for the V-4. Misdroy was
also the testing ground for the long-range V-3 weapon which fired
shells at Luxembourg. The Rheinbote, OTOH, was made by
Rheinmetall-Borsig and used to shell Antwerp in Nov '44- 220 being
fired. Its maximum range was 135 miles. No Rheinbote was on Misdroy.
Misdroy was the testing ground for long-range missiles and shells.

The two other depictions of the V-4 on the Unicraft page suggest
postwar research done by the Russians at N-II-88. The V-4 on top of
the V-2 looks remarkably similar to the Russian EKR concept, but in
that case the V-4 was replaced with a Sanger-looking missile.


I suspect the "V-4" on top of an A-4 was little more than wishful
thinking at the time.

For that matter, the "V-4" was likely little more than a vaporware
threat rather than a credible piece of hardware.

It wouldn't make any sense to threaten a neutral nation like Sweden
with a non-existant weapon in 1945 with the Allies closing in on
Germany. If you remember postwar it was Sweden that complained about
the "Ghost Rockets" coming from the same region. Most "Ghost Rockets"
were described as long cigar-shaped burning objects. These were
suspected of being Russian modified extended-body V-1s but looking at
the V-4... it looks like a strong possibility, especially if a Swede
saw it from below, the ramjet unseen burning above the body.

Rob