The "weapon of vengeance" that failed to save Nazi Germany from defeat
In almost every military conflict there comes a point when one of the opposing sides, especially the one suffering defeat, dreams of and takes steps to obtain the “perfect weapon", which will quickly allow you to change the course of the campaign in your favor.
Nazi Germany was no exception during World War II. The video will focus on the world's first ballistic missile. rocket long-range V-2, called by the Germans the "weapon of vengeance" (in German Vergeltungswaffe). In general, this is the name of a number of ambitious aviation and Nazi Germany's rocket and artillery projects to create weapons for more effective bombing of English cities and newly planned attacks on the United States as "retaliation" for Allied air raids.
Development of the rocket began in the spring of 1942, when Berlin (and others) hadn't yet even considered the possibility of losing the war with the Soviet Union. But Hitler was a great admirer of all things grand, unique, even mystical, so the prospect of acquiring a Vergeltungswaffe (weaponry) unlike any other country in the world appealed to him.
As already mentioned, development of the V-2 (Aggregat-4) rocket began under the leadership of German designer Wernher von Braun in March 1941. The first combat launch took place on November 8, 1944. Testing was successful, and the rocket was accepted into service by the Wehrmacht. Although the number of combat launches of the rocket totaled 3225, it had no significant impact on the course of the war.
Partly because the V-2 was used primarily for intimidation, striking mostly civilians. It's known that Aggregat-4 strikes killed approximately 2700 people. Moreover, the Germans primarily struck Britain, most often London. Moreover, the missile entered service after the Allies had already opened a "second front."
The V-2 rocket is the first stories An object that completed a suborbital space flight, reaching an altitude of 188 km during a vertical launch. This occurred in 1944. After the war, the German rocket became the prototype for the further development of the first ballistic missiles in the USA, USSR, and other countries.
As for von Braun, the creator of the Vergeltungswaffe, at the end of the war, fearing capture by Soviet soldiers, he and his team of developers managed to escape to the Allies by deceiving the commander of the SS guarding him. On June 20, 1945, the US Secretary of State approved von Braun and his staff's relocation to America. Freiherr von Braun, Baron Magnus Maximilian, did not like working for the Americans—they treated him too disrespectfully.
Despite the fact that the group of developers led by von Braun surrendered to the Americans along with the documentation, this did not prevent Soviet engineers from reconstructing most of the V-1 rocket drawings from the remaining parts.
Moreover, many decades later, in the 21st century, it was the Russian Federation, the successor to the USSR, that became the developer and possessor of the most advanced hypersonic missiles. Meanwhile, the United States is still conducting less-than-successful hypersonic launch vehicle tests.
Things got to the point that just over a year ago, newly elected US President Donald Trump claimed in an interview with Fox News that Russia allegedly stole the Americans' hypersonic missile project during Barack Obama's presidency. However, according to Trump, the Americans have their own "wonder weapon" called the "discombobulator." But that's another story.
Learn more about the Third Reich's "weapon of vengeance," how the world's first non-nuclear ballistic missile from World War II worked, and why it failed to have a decisive impact on the Wehrmacht's military campaign—in this video.
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