London Blitz vs V1

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

In article ,
says...
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
Weight of bombs...........61,149 tons............14,600 tons
Fuel consumed.............71,700 tons.............4681 tons
Aircrafts lost............3075....................0
Men lost..................7690....................0

2 Results
Houses damaged/destroyed...1,150,000............1,127,000
Casualties.................92,566...............22 ,892
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


For the cost of 1 uncrewed, unrefuelled and unbombladen Lancaster the
Germans were getting more than 300 V1s. Furthermore they made little
demand on skilled labour or strategic materials. On the negative side
they had all the inherent problems of a fairly slow unaimed weapon.
Of around 10000 launched at Britain only about 2400 reached the vague
proximity of their target area. And many fell fairly harmlessly -
aided by British manipulation of intelligence. But as an economic
weapon they made much sense and if they had arrived on the scene some
months earlier in far greater numbers, when proximity fuzed, radar
guided AA was not yet available they would undoubtedly have had a
proportionately much larger effect on the prosecution of the war.

Agreed. By the way I am in the process of writing a fictional story
based on such a scenario

WWW.bernardz.20m.com



Thanks to Hitler's intervention this did not happen.

I am not so sure Hitler was wrong! The V1 could probably have come on-
line in 1943 only at a terrific price and a very limited target -
Britain. At that time Britain was a minor part of the war. The major war
was in the East and he needed resources against Russia. Before 1943,
when it looked like Hitler could win the war those resources required
could be far better spent on things that mattered like tanks and planes.

After 1943, he needed to gain time for a miracle. Maybe the Allies would
split. To do that he needed to give the German people hope and vengeance
that they could still fire back. That is what these weapons provided.


Eugene Griessel





--
A terrorist kills for publicity.

24th saying of Bernard

Bernardz wrote in message news:MPG.1a5aa8ed3b4d2ccc9897f3@news...

I am not so sure Hitler was wrong! The V1 could probably have come on-
line in 1943 only at a terrific price and a very limited target -
Britain. At that time Britain was a minor part of the war. The major war
was in the East and he needed resources against Russia. Before 1943,
when it looked like Hitler could win the war those resources required
could be far better spent on things that mattered like tanks and planes.

The flying bomb offensive, from 12th June 1944 to 1st September 1944
cost Britain almost 48 million pounds in lost production alone. In a
report by the Air Ministry dated 4th November 1944 it is stated: "The
main conclusion is that the results of the campaign were greatly in
the enemy's favour, the estimated ratio of our costs to his being
nearly four to one." Move this back 18 months when the Allies had no
fighters fast enough to shoot down these weapons and no effective
low-level AAA and a grim picture begins to emerge. I'm not saying
that the campaign would have brought the allies to their knees but
speculation is that D-Day would have been postponed for at least a
year and costs and casualties would have been high. If the A4 project
had been abandoned and the flying bomb project given top priority it
would have meant more than 30000 of these beasts arriving over Britain
a month - with Britain largely impotent to stop them. A fearful
thought.

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

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

Wayne Allen wrote:

snip
I also don't get the 351 planes and 2233 crew lost by the allies in
defense. Lost
how? Other than getting too close when shooting a ton of explosives
(weekend-spoiler)
what was the problem? 351 planes lost in 2 1/2 months is either a nutty
misprint or
criminal negligence.

From early 1944 onwards there was a concerted effort to knock out the
launching sites which required precision bombing ie medium/low/dive
bombing. The flak did the rest

--
regards
jc

John Campbell wrote in message .. .
Wayne Allen wrote:

snip
I also don't get the 351 planes and 2233 crew lost by the allies in
defense. Lost
how? Other than getting too close when shooting a ton of explosives
(weekend-spoiler)
what was the problem? 351 planes lost in 2 1/2 months is either a nutty
misprint or
criminal negligence.

From early 1944 onwards there was a concerted effort to knock out the
launching sites which required precision bombing ie medium/low/dive
bombing. The flak did the rest

IIRC they tried radio-controlled bombers (obsolete marks of B17 rings
a bell) on the ski-sites? A vast effort was expended trying to knock
these out and perhaps an even greater one on the modified sites.
Something over 60000 bombing sorties and over 100000 tons of bombs.
I'm speaking from a poor memory now - that may include the bombing of
the concrete V2 bunkers and even the V3 site.

In article ,
says...
Bernardz wrote in message news:MPG.1a5aa8ed3b4d2ccc9897f3@news...

I am not so sure Hitler was wrong! The V1 could probably have come on-
line in 1943 only at a terrific price and a very limited target -
Britain. At that time Britain was a minor part of the war. The major war
was in the East and he needed resources against Russia. Before 1943,
when it looked like Hitler could win the war those resources required
could be far better spent on things that mattered like tanks and planes.

The flying bomb offensive, from 12th June 1944 to 1st September 1944
cost Britain almost 48 million pounds in lost production alone. In a
report by the Air Ministry dated 4th November 1944 it is stated: "The
main conclusion is that the results of the campaign were greatly in
the enemy's favour, the estimated ratio of our costs to his being
nearly four to one." Move this back 18 months when the Allies had no
fighters fast enough to shoot down these weapons and no effective
low-level AAA and a grim picture begins to emerge. I'm not saying
that the campaign would have brought the allies to their knees but
speculation is that D-Day would have been postponed for at least a
year and costs and casualties would have been high. If the A4 project
had been abandoned and the flying bomb project given top priority it
would have meant more than 30000 of these beasts arriving over Britain
a month - with Britain largely impotent to stop them. A fearful
thought.



This is very similar to a fictional work that I am in process of
writing.

Draft version 1 is available at

www.BERNARDZ.20m.com

Note there are quite a few mistakes that I am currently fixing in
version 2.


--
A terrorist kills for publicity.

24th saying of Bernard

In article , ex401
@freenet.carleton.ca says...
Afternoon all,

I've been trying to do a little research on this General Bissel and his
paper
on the V1 attacks, I have to admit defeat so-far. Does anyone have any
information on him? I take it this is not the American General because the
name
is incorrect and he would have had his hands full out in the Asian Theater
at the time.

Bissel was an American general.

Part of the report from which this table was taken is available in a
book.

Hitler's terror weapons

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...007112629/qid=
1072775679/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-4381301-5271121?v=glance&s=books





There are a few things I don't get with these figure either, the
numbers I get
from British sites claim only over 1000 homes destroyed, a difference of
over a
multiple of a thousand!

I just quoted the figures as stated. The figure quoted was damaged or
destroyed. It more then likely that this figure is heavily inflated.
Part of the reason is that the British government gave money to people
who put claims in for damages. So people put in claims. Another issue is
that a V1 tends to explode on the roofs of houses. So the explosive
force is shot in the air and comes down on many other houses. This may
cause many more houses to be hit superficially.


I also don't get the 351 planes and 2233 crew lost by the allies in
defense. Lost
how? Other than getting too close when shooting a ton of explosives
(weekend-spoiler)
what was the problem? 351 planes lost in 2 1/2 months is either a nutty
misprint or
criminal negligence.

It seems very large. I am wondering if that includes the allied bombers
trying to blow up the V1 and V2.

Anyone have a contact or copy of the original report?

Yes please!


The report itself was done in 1944. I am sure that better figures are
available now.




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
Weight of bombs...........61,149 tons............14,600 tons
Fuel consumed.............71,700 tons.............4681 tons
Aircrafts lost............3075....................0
Men lost..................7690....................0

2 Results
Houses damaged/destroyed...1,150,000............1,127,000
Casualties.................92,566...............22 ,892
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








--
A terrorist kills for publicity.

24th saying of Bernard

paper
on the V1 attacks, I have to admit defeat so-far. Does anyone have any
information on him? I take it this is not the American General because the
name
is incorrect and he would have had his hands full out in the Asian Theater
at the time.

Clayton Bissell, beloved of the Flying Tigers?

He became Marshall's intelligence officer toward the end of the war,
and postwar the air attache in London, so it's possible that he had
something to do with a V-1 study.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

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