London Blitz vs V1

Bernardz wrote in message news:MPG.1a593408a1392c869897ea@news...
In early December 1944, General Bissel produced a paper which argued
strongly in favour of the V1.

The following is a table he produced

Blitz (12 months) vs V1 flying bombs (2 3/4 months)
-----------------------------------------------------
1. Cost to Germany
...........................Blitz.................. ..V1
Sorties...................90,000.................8 025 (error: 8892)
Weight of bombs...........61,149 tons............14,600 tons
Fuel consumed.............71,700 tons.............4681 tons
Aircrafts lost............3075....................0 (error: 80, from air launches)
Men lost..................7690....................0

2 Results
Houses damaged/destroyed...1,150,000............1,127,000
Casualties.................92,566...............22 ,892 (error: figure is dead plus wounded, based on 6,184 dead/correction to 12,000 dead= close to 29,000 total)
Rate casualties/bombs tons...1.6...............4.2

3. Allied air effort
Sorties......................86,800............44, 770
Planes lost..................1260...............351
Men lost.....................805...............2233


Any comments!

34,000 V-1s were produced by Fiesler, Volkswagen, and the Mittelwerke.
Unit cost was RM 5000. Of all those produced only around 5000 found
their targets in the UK and Belgium. That makes it 20% effective of
those launched, the remaining number found stockpiled. It was a cost
effective weapon compared to a Mark IV tank (RM 100,000) but
militarily of little value. As a psychological/nuisance weapon it did
well but did not in any way deter the Allies from bombing Germany and
grabbing land. The Germans would have done better to replace the
amatol warhead with a radiological warhead. London and Antwerp would
have then been contaminated and abandoned.

Rob

In article , robert
arndt writes
Bernardz wrote in message news:MPG.1a593408a139
2c869897ea@news...

SNIP

Any comments!

34,000 V-1s were produced by Fiesler, Volkswagen, and the Mittelwerke.
Unit cost was RM 5000. Of all those produced only around 5000 found
their targets in the UK and Belgium. That makes it 20% effective of
those launched, the remaining number found stockpiled. It was a cost
effective weapon compared to a Mark IV tank (RM 100,000) but
militarily of little value. As a psychological/nuisance weapon it did
well but did not in any way deter the Allies from bombing Germany and
grabbing land. The Germans would have done better to replace the
amatol warhead with a radiological warhead. London and Antwerp would
have then been contaminated and abandoned.

Rob

The Germans conducted many nuclear experiments with minimal shielding,
so they would probably have not considered it a useful weapon. But if
they did consider it viable, could they have laid their hands on enough
material to use it in warheads?

Even if they had been able to, I don't think the allies would have
abandoned these cities - ignorance of radiation sickness reigned supreme
until the long-term effects of it were found some time after the
Hiroshima raid.

Not to say there had not been some good opportunities to find out:

People used to drink Radium cocktails for the alleged benefits in the
1920/30s, but the only person who was known to have suffered the
horrific effects was an American millionaire who used to drink about a
pint a day. He simply disintegrated.

Pierre Curie handled so much Radium in his life that his hands began to
look like reptilian claws.

Miners in areas with rocks bearing a high fissile content often
developed lung cancer due to the Radon.

But still no-one sounded the alarm bells. If any muck had been dropped
on these cities the people would have been advised to wear gas masks
when passing an impact area, and if no gas mask available a damp
handkerchief would do...

Cheers,

Dave

--
Dave Eadsforth

34,000 V-1s were produced by Fiesler, Volkswagen, and the Mittelwerke.
Unit cost was RM 5000. Of all those produced only around 5000 found
their targets in the UK and Belgium. That makes it 20% effective of
those launched, the remaining number found stockpiled. It was a cost
effective weapon compared to a Mark IV tank (RM 100,000) but
militarily of little value. As a psychological/nuisance weapon it did
well but did not in any way deter the Allies from bombing Germany and
grabbing land. The Germans would have done better to replace the
amatol warhead with a radiological warhead. London and Antwerp would
have then been contaminated and abandoned.

Rob

The Germans conducted many nuclear experiments with minimal shielding,
so they would probably have not considered it a useful weapon. But if
they did consider it viable, could they have laid their hands on enough
material to use it in warheads?

Actually, the Germans were constructing two such spherical devices in
1945 which relied on spaced uranium plates, a detonator held in a
crushing mechanism, and the entire sphere filled with kerosene. The
idea was to place the radiological sphere inside an SC-series bomb and
drop it from the Sanger bomber (a project which was reactivated in Feb
'45). Upon impact the crusher would force the detonator material into
the smashed plates of uranium and cause fission while the kerosene
blew the fission material all over the place. The target was NYC. This
could have also been placed in a V-2 launched by a Type XXI sub-towed
Prufstand XII launch container of which 3 were completed by war's end.
But the war ended before any of these plans came to anything. The
French captured the two radiological weapons under construction and
destroyed them. The Prufstand XII containers were discovered at
Stettin. And the Sanger bomber was discovered at a plant in Lofer in
the bare mock-up stage.
A more advanced radiological weapon would have been detonated over the
target cities making the weapon more effective. See Schiffer's book on
the Sanger bomber for more details.



Even if they had been able to, I don't think the allies would have
abandoned these cities - ignorance of radiation sickness reigned supreme
until the long-term effects of it were found some time after the
Hiroshima raid.

The Allies weren't completely ignorant on the dangers of fission
material. The US constructed a giant collector called the "Dumbo" to
collect plutonium debris in case the test A-bomb blew up in NM. I
think "Dumbo" still survives. If NYC was hit similar large Dumbo-type
containers would have been used to collect the debris and the
radiation levels would have been studied. I think the cities would
have been abandoned because we would have investigated any attack
against us more thouroughly and intensely than those conducted in
Japan after Aug 6/9.

Rob

"robert arndt" wrote in message
om...
The Allies weren't completely ignorant on the dangers of fission
material. The US constructed a giant collector called the "Dumbo" to
collect plutonium debris in case the test A-bomb blew up in NM. I
think "Dumbo" still survives. If NYC was hit similar large Dumbo-type
containers would have been used to collect the debris and the
radiation levels would have been studied.

Jumbo wasn't designed for collecting debris. It was a huge 200 ton
pressure
vessel. The bomb was to be put inside prior to the test, if the silly
thing fizzled
the pressure vessel was to prevent anything from getting out.
Moving a tub that big through a population site gathering up bits and
pieces would
have caused even more contamination. Better a group of trained people with
man-portable
gear.

Correction to last post. I mentioned the US has a fission materials
container called "Dumbo". It was actually "Jumbo" and can be seen
he


http://www.nps.gov/whsa/adhi/fig39.jpg

Rob

"robert arndt" wrote in message
om...
Bernardz wrote in message
news:MPG.1a593408a1392c869897ea@news...
In early December 1944, General Bissel produced a paper which
argued
strongly in favour of the V1.

The following is a table he produced

Blitz (12 months) vs V1 flying bombs (2 3/4 months)
-----------------------------------------------------
1. Cost to Germany
...........................Blitz.................. ..V1
Sorties...................90,000.................8 025 (error:
8892)
Weight of bombs...........61,149 tons............14,600 tons
Fuel consumed.............71,700 tons.............4681 tons
Aircrafts lost............3075....................0 (error: 80,
from air launches)
Men lost..................7690....................0

2 Results
Houses damaged/destroyed...1,150,000............1,127,000
Casualties.................92,566...............22 ,892 (error:
figure is dead plus wounded, based on 6,184 dead/correction to 12,000
dead= close to 29,000 total)
Rate casualties/bombs tons...1.6...............4.2

3. Allied air effort
Sorties......................86,800............44, 770
Planes lost..................1260...............351
Men lost.....................805...............2233


Any comments!

34,000 V-1s were produced by Fiesler, Volkswagen, and the
Mittelwerke.
Unit cost was RM 5000. Of all those produced only around 5000 found
their targets in the UK and Belgium. That makes it 20% effective of
those launched, the remaining number found stockpiled. It was a cost
effective weapon compared to a Mark IV tank (RM 100,000) but
militarily of little value.

It was of the same miliary value as the city flattening population
targeting raids of Bomber Command. (I know that the RAF had the
possibility of accuracy due to H2S etc latter in the war however the
amount of collateral damage, the million plus killed and the type of
munitions gives these the character of city flattening raids )

A V1 however did not (yet) have the possibility of accuracy which
required a more developed guidence system. No doubt that sort of
system would evenutally have evolved, several systems were under
consideration, and these would been used for special missions.

As a psychological/nuisance weapon it did
well but did not in any way deter the Allies from bombing Germany
and
grabbing land.

There were several points of technical decision which may have won
Germany the war, at least untill the atomic bomb.

1 Not abandoning their microwave and magnetron research team which had
produced low power but stable magnetrons. Even if they failed to
produce a full powered radar the team would have rapidly been able to
respond to the discovery of the British Magnetrons. Hell the Japanese
beat the Brtish to multicavity magnetrons by 1 year (but failed to
realise the significance or tell the Germans)

2 The Type XXI u-boat needed to be advanced by at least 1 maybe 2
years. This is not inconceivable since officers had warned Doenitz
directly from the dangers of radar to submarines in 1934 when
experimental radars had detected u-boat conning towers. At this point
a focus on tactics and technology to produce greater underwater
emphasis on subamarines could have been undertaken. The older
u-boats were designed to attack on the surface and use their
underwater abilities to hide. The type XXI had the speed and range to
penetrate convoys and retreat almost unnoticed. Its passive sonar
allowed it to track and range targets and evade hostile destroyers.
While opperating its creeper motors at 6 knots it was effectively
undetectable.

3 The jet engine needed to be advanced by 6-12 months. This is a
little more hard to immagine as the German Jet engine program was
fairly well thought through (in the sense that unlike the British they
had one) however they did spread their resources rather thinly at
heinkel.

4 When their "Duppel" or chaff experiments showed the vulnerability
of German radar to foil strips "Window" they could have stared
countermeasure work and dispersed their frequencies immediatly rather
than get obsessively secret and thus prevent the development of jam
resistance.


The Germans would have done better to replace the
amatol warhead with a radiological warhead. London and Antwerp would
have then been contaminated and abandoned.

I doubt it. That assumes that the Germans or Nazis did not have any
moral or ethical limitations which they did. In anycase such actions
would have lead to reprisals: the Germans would have assumed that the
allies were capable of delivering similar attacks either immediatly or
given a few months time and the Grmans were capable of working this
out. The germans had nerve gas but did not use it.



Rob