The V-2 Rocket

The Controversial History of the First Ballistic Missile During and After World War II

De: Charles River Editors

Narrado por: Steve Knupp

Though extremely different men in most ways, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Third Reich Fuhrer Adolf Hitler shared a passion for science, technology, and (sometimes impractical) "wonder weapons." In some cases, this fixation paid off handsomely, as in the case of British centrimetric radar, a compact, powerful radar type that enabled fitment to individual aircraft and contributed to the defeat of German U-boats.

Most spectacularly, the Germans laid the groundwork for the era of ballistic missiles to follow with the "Vengeance Weapons" program. The advent of relatively advanced liquid and solid fuels for rocket weapons made them viable again after a period during which rifled artillery overshadowed them. An additional factor creating German interest in military rockets came from their complete omission among the restrictions placed on Germany's army by the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I. This major loophole led the Germans to hope improved rocketry could replace artillery, which the Treaty nearly banned.

The British were only too aware of the dangers and potential of the Nazi rockets because the Nazi V-weapon bombardment of London and the south coast of England in 1944 and 1945 involved some of the most frightening attacks on civilians during the war. Not only did the V-1 missiles and V-2 rockets land unpredictably on civilian areas, causing damage and casualties, but they also represented the use of strange new technologies developed by Nazi scientists. After all, if the Nazis could design and develop rockets long before the Allies, perhaps they were also working on other, even more devastating new weapons.

To counter the V-weapons, the Allies implemented Operation Crossbow, which aimed to find ways to stop or at least reduce the number of V-weapons reaching their targets, and to reassure the population of Allied nations that these terrifying new weapons could be understood and overcome.

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