So did the Americans use German technology? If they used, it means they needed German technology.
Used and needed are two different things. The US used German technology where it benefited them, such as captured V-2's because they were for all intents, free. Another they used was German large sonar arrays like the GHG and Balkon array. The didn't "need" either and could have independently invented both. In fact, MX 774 proves the US was capable of independently designing and producing a ballistic missile, for example.
Need implies the US couldn't have done something on their own. That's not the case.
Why are you avoiding mention of the JB-2? Is it because the 1,391 units mass-produced were about to be deployed in the Pacific Theater? The production numbers clearly demonstrate how the U.S. military needed German technology.
They didn't
need the JB-2. It was simply convenient. The FACT that the whole program was greatly scaled back well before Japan surrendered shows that to be the case. With or without the JB-2, the US was going to crush Japan, so there was no pressing
need for that technology. It was simply a shortcut in copying something that worked that Germany had that the US was experimenting with.
Let's see what the White Sands Missile Range Museum has to say about this:
https://wsmrmuseum.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/LC-33-Report-June-2020.pdf
Page 138: "Although it did not rely on any captured V-2 parts or German personnel,
the MX-774 study did look to the V-2 as a design starting point. Specifically, Bossart developed structural solutions for the MX-774 vehicle that substantially reduced its weight as compared to the V-2 and would later be critical for the development of the Atlas ICBM. These included the use of integral tanking, which used the propellant tanks to form the fuselage of the missile, thus creating a substantial weight reduction over the use of tanks held within a separate airframe shell as in the V-2. The single wall steel tanks were relatively thin, but were held rigid by internal pressure as they were drained of propellant (Powell 2009:61). The MX-774 design also incorporated a gimbaled motor to steer the missile, another innovative concept. The entire motor swiveled to steer the vehicle in flight, an improvement over the V-2 design that used graphite vanes in the motor exhaust stream. Not only did the gimbaled motor provide better maneuverability, it avoided the obstruction of the exhaust stream and associated performance loss that the graphite vanes created (Neufeld 1990:47).
The missile did share a resemblance to the V-2 in its overall shape; this allowed Bossart to utilize wind tunnel data from the V-2. Assuming that the V-2 fin design possessed desirable aerodynamic properties, the Convair design team also duplicated their shape. However, the Convair team later found out that the V-2 fin design was at least partially determined by the need to fit the missile through German railroad tunnels (Kennedy 2009:62)."
I can call Jenn Jett at White Sands if you'd like and correct her on this. I could drive over and really do a full lecture on it if that'd be better...
https://wsmrmuseum.com/about-museum-staff/
I've met her and Darren. Had a nice talk.
For example, Bossart determined that the gimbaled motor Aerojet supplied was sufficient to do away with the graphite steering veins--something the Germans couldn't get to work on the V-2--was sufficient to eliminate the use of aerodynamic surfaces (fins) but kept them out of conservative design as a 'just in case.' This was a big step forward in design and something that didn't rely on German technology at all.
The whole German use of a stressed skin monocoque body of conventional aircraft design was rejected. So, no "need" for German technology there. Bossart used balloon tanks where the skin of the missile was held rigid by pressurization of the tanks. The whole MX 774 program--in its "Manhattan" version--was to be for delivery of an atomic weapon to 300 NM, besting the range and payload of the V-2.
Hughes Azusa guidance system used SCR 584 technology, again something the Germans didn't have and was streets ahead of German radar technology, to track the missile with an added telemetry and guidance link from the ground. It has some similarity to the Rüse system the Germans employed but was far more sophisticated in that it was automatic, had far more channels of data and employed the radar antenna in a dual mode rather than using a separate polarized antenna for transmission of commands.
https://everything.explained.today/AZUSA/
It was easily a decade ahead of German technology and the one part of MX 774 that remained in use up through the 1970's at least.
So, just because US engineers examined German work on ballistic missiles doesn't show they "needed" it in order to construct a ballistic missile. It was a shortcut and being thorough. If there was something they could "use," in that work, they did. Otherwise, at best it only confirmed that what they were doing already was on the right track.
It appears the Americans did indeed use "captured German junk" as their design starting point. This is not "NOTHING".
Yes, they did because it was FREE! Budget conscious managers and engineers saw it as a means to an end using free stuff that otherwise would have a big negative impact on their funding.
Aerodynamic configuration is also technology. If you possess whole German missiles, if you have German technical personnel, and if your missile essentially replicates the aerodynamic design of German missiles - then yes, I can definitively state that "you used German technology."
How much did Germany rely on NACA aerodynamic wing profiles? Just because the Germans made something to a particular design doesn't translate into the US not being able to do the same thing without German technology.
Both the Hermes A-1 and A-2 employed German-designed aerodynamic configurations. While the Hermes A-3 featured significant improvements to its aerodynamic profile, its propulsion technology remained of German origin: The General Electric XLR50 (X-405) engine used in Vanguard rockets derived from the Hermes A-3 program. And what powered the turbopump of the XLR50 (X-405)? Decomposed hydrogen peroxide gas - exactly like the V2. Can you deny the German technological lineage in the Hermes A-3's engine?
Hermes A-1 (the Wasserfall derivative) saw just 6 launches before being abandoned. As the program progressed, less and less German technology went into designs. That the US saw the German turbopump as a useful thing doesn't equate to their NEEDING that technology. Rather it shows the US was willing to use a good idea when they saw it. It doesn't mean they couldn't have invented something like that on their own.
So what American missiles with performance surpassing the V2 were actually operational before 1950? Weren't the vast majority of U.S. missile projects from that era essentially just "prototypes and concepts"?
That is a trick question of sorts. First, with the end of the war, pressure to develop cutting edge technologies in a hurry ended or declined. Unlike the V-2, developed in wartime and with a virtually unlimited budget, the US (and everybody else's) missile programs proceeded at a peacetime rate and under often severe budget restraints.
In the US up through the 50's the top missile priority was put on surface-to-air missile systems. Ballistic missiles were given a much lower priority as it was seen that bomber aircraft could carry out the strategic bombing mission instead. AAM's and SAM's enjoyed top priority during that period, not a ballistic missile.
So, it's an unfair comparison to make.
"They could", what American rockets before 1950 that outperformed the V2 without utilizing its technology? Let me know.
Had the US been on a wartime footing up to 1950, I have no doubt that something like MX 774 would have resulted in a ballistic missile with double or triple the range and payload of a V2 for the express purpose of delivering an atomic weapon accurately on a city. That compares apples to apples. What you are doing is comparing a wartime German program to a postwar, peacetime US program.
