Aggregat 4 - V-2 Rocket - Anti-Aircraft Variants

M

moin1900

ACCESS: Top Secret
Joined
28 January 2008
Messages
875
Reaction score
1,061
Aggregat 4 - V-2 Rocket - Unknown - Anti-Aircraft Variants

- Aggregat 4 / V-2 Warhead with 427 small 'Planet' rockets.
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/planet-projekt.6806/
- Aggregat 4 / V-2 mit Schrapnellfüllung gegen Flugziele

January 6, 1945
Summary Report
Kammler / Geist, Kunze, Diesing
Weapons:
The Reichsmarschall had tasked SS-Gruppenführer and Generalleutnant of the Waffen-SS Dr.-Ing. Kammler with playing a key role in the front-line testing of all anti-aircraft weapons fired from the ground. A special meeting regarding anti-aircraft weapons with Dr. Kammler and Oberst Geist will be held soon at HDL Saur. Work on the A4 missile for use against aerial targets with shrapnel warheads must begin immediately

Source: Bundesarchiv
Signatur: RL 3/12; Page: 156

Direct Link:
https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/e416863c-012b-4018-aaa8-4e2b9a996efa/
 
Last edited:
Wait, so the plan was to locate a stream of B-17 and B-24, aim a V-2 at them and detonate it at 30 000 ft with a 1600 pound warhead of shrapnel ? quite a radical take at the Wasserfall guidance problem.
 
This is another one of those late-war 'fantasy' projects the Germans had. That is, they were casting around for any solution to the bombing and took at least semi-seriously almost any suggestion, no matter how insane it might be. Using an A-4 as a SAM would have been unworkable.
 
moin1900 said:
Aggregat 4 - V-2 Rocket - Unknown - Anti-Aircraft Variants

- Aggregat 4 / V-2 Warhead with 427 small 'Planet' rockets.
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/planet-projekt.6806/
- Aggregat 4 / V-2 mit Schrapnellfüllung gegen Flugziele

January 6, 1945
Summary Report
Kammler / Geist, Kunze, Diesing
Weapons:
The Reichsmarschall had tasked SS-Gruppenführer and Generalleutnant of the Waffen-SS Dr.-Ing. Kammler with playing a key role in the front-line testing of all anti-aircraft weapons fired from the ground. A special meeting regarding anti-aircraft weapons with Dr. Kammler and Oberst Geist will be held soon at HDL Saur. Work on the A4 missile for use against aerial targets with shrapnel warheads must begin immediately

Source: Bundesarchiv
Signatur: RL 3/12; Page: 156

Direct Link:
https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/e416863c-012b-4018-aaa8-4e2b9a996efa/
Click to expand...
I’ve seen mentions of these late-war ideas, but it looks like they never got past the concept or early discussion stage. Using a V-2 against aerial targets would’ve been pretty impractical given the speed, guidance limits, and cost.
The shrapnel or sub-rocket concepts are fascinating though, shows how desperate things were getting toward the end of the war. Definitely more of a theoretical direction than something that saw real use
 
RichQw1rt said:
I’ve seen mentions of these late-war ideas, but it looks like they never got past the concept or early discussion stage. Using a V-2 against aerial targets would’ve been pretty impractical given the speed, guidance limits, and cost.
The shrapnel or sub-rocket concepts are fascinating though, shows how desperate things were getting toward the end of the war. Definitely more of a theoretical direction than something that saw real use
Click to expand...
An A4 as a SAM would have been, for all intents, the world's biggest bottle rocket. The A4 lacked any sort of means to maneuver like a SAM would and that alone would have left it to being vertically launched straight up into a bomber formation. The improbability of that makes it worthless to even try as a SAM.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
This is another one of those late-war 'fantasy' projects the Germans had.
Click to expand...
last years of war the Nazi trow everything in Wunderwaffe crap, in hope what stick on wall are useable...
Like Hitler Idea of Me 262 with 50mm cannon in nose or Natter a Manned rocket interceptor or the V3 Cannon ?
This here is same category
 
Michel Van said:
last years of war the Nazi trow everything in Wunderwaffe crap, in hope what stick on wall are useable...
Like Hitler Idea of Me 262 with 50mm cannon in nose or Natter a Manned rocket interceptor or the V3 Cannon ?
This here is same category
Click to expand...
Surprisingly, the Natter might well have worked. Yea, pilot deaths and crippling injuries would have likely been 90% + but what the hey! Just round up some more teenage Hitler Youth and you're all good to go for more rocketry club fun! With the Natter, Bachem solved the major problem Germany had in getting a SAM into service: Terminal guidance. It likely could have worked, and it almost certainly would have made no difference.

At this point, after decades of these discussions, I find it humorous that there are still the Nazi fanbois out there that think some insane, paper proposal, wunderwaffen would change the course of the war.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Just round up some more teenage Hitler Youth and you're all good to go for more rocketry club fun!
Click to expand...
actually they used Hitler Youth for Heinkel He 162 Volksjäger !
first they put them in Glider, if they survived, they were ready to fly He 162
A Jetfighter test pilots say it's difficult to fly and they put teenager in it...

Something similar dit the Bundes Luftwaffe with there Starfighter pilots in 1960s
seem they never learned form there mistakes...
 
how would have anti-aircraft A4 had mission profile ?
i mean it's mach 5 ballistic missile with range of 300 km and trajectory hight of 88 km.
fired from 300 km to Bomber fleet it arrive with mach 2, somewhere in range of 5 km.

You need very good guidance system or dammed good radio control system to guide the Missile into Bomber fleet
last option could be counter by installing jammer in Bombers !

From this view point the Wasserfall Anti Aircraft missile make more sense


In Cold war they build the ultimate Anti Aircraft Missile Nike Hercules with W31 Nuclear warhead
to destroy entire Soviet bomber fleet in one blow...
 
T. A. Gardner said:
This is another one of those late-war 'fantasy' projects the Germans had. That is, they were casting around for any solution to the bombing and took at least semi-seriously almost any suggestion, no matter how insane it might be. Using an A-4 as a SAM would have been unworkable.
Click to expand...
If you could even sorta guide it, 1600lbs of warhead plus unburned rocket fuel going off in a bomber box formation would likely shred everything in it.

Be even better if they made it with smaller fuel tanks and larger warhead in exchange.
 
Use napalm as fuel and trade the 300 km range for "just 9 km high" (half joking)
 
IThere's a technical aspect to this and a political one.

- Technically, It was become clear that Wasserfall was too far away from being a deployable system and could not be manufactured or deployed in the numbers needed given the state of German industry and transport, so other more "radical" ideas were considered.

- Politically, the SS was always trying to extend its grasp. Over the years it had made several plays to wrest rocket development away from the Army. It was pretty much successful with the A4, as it controlled both the means of production (including considerable amount of slave labour provided by its camp system) and field deployment. It was less successful with Wasserfall (a joint Army - Luftwaffe project) because the army weapons establishment at Peenemunde was spun off as a wholly state owned commercial company...the EW. Specifically intended to put it beyond the reach of the SS. But this didn't stop the SS from trying. Putting Hans Kammler (repellent even by SS standards) in charge of Flak Rocket testing (previous a Luftwaffe responsibility) was another move in this game. Consideration of the A4 as a Flak weapon would perhaps be attractive to Kammler and his kind as it was by now an SS controlled weapon.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom