V-1 on launching ramp, IWM Duxford – technical success, operational failure
By: shortfinals
Tags: 'acht', 'fighter belt', 'Flight' of June 29th 1944, 'free-fire' zone, 'ski sites', 'terror weapon', 'the rocket coast', 'they are fitted with 10/10th flak', 100 miles long by 20 miles deep, 100000 homes in Britain were damaged, 155 (W) Flak Regiment, 1900 lb Amatol-39 warhead, 218 Handley Page Halifaxes, 22000 people had been killed, 29th March 1945, 324 Avro Lancasters, 350 - 400 mph V-1, 40mm Bofors, 50 cycles per second, 54 Short Stirlings, 700 lbs static thrust, Adolf Hitler, ailerons, aimed across the North Sea, Air Defence of Great Britain, air launching V-1s, Allied armies, Argus As 109-014 pulse jet, Argus pulse jet, around 660 lbs of thrust, athodyde, Aviation, Avro Lancaster, ‘Vergeltungswaffe –Eins’, balloon barrage, based in Holland, Belgian, Belgium, BMG-1019 Tomahawk, Britain, built on a fixed heading, bunkers, Chance-Vought, Chance-Vought SSM-N-8 Regulus, chemical reaction, code name for the 'buzz bombs', combustion chamber, compressed air flasks, concentrated on the coastline, crude but effective, crude steel fuselage and wings, cruise missile, curved strip of land, De Havilland Mosquito night fighter, distinctive sputtering sound, Duxford, early Rolls-Royce Merlin, England, equipment and shipping, Europe, fairly low height, fastest Allied fighters available, Fiesler Fi 103, Flak aiming apparatus, Flakzielgerät 76, France, French, French Resistance, fuselage, FZG-76, German, German High Command, Germany, Germany’s Baltic coast, Gloster Meteor I, Great Britain, gyroscopically-steered elevators, Handley-Page Halifax, Hawker Tempest V, heavily bombed, Heinkel He III H-22, Hertfordshire, high-pressure steam, Holland, hydrogen peroxide, Imperial War Museum, incoming 'Divers', intelligence services, intermittent combustion/intake cycles, Kampfgeschwader 53, KG53, last V-1, last-ditch defence, launch ramp, launching sites, launching the V-1 at England, London, long gestational period, long inclined ramps, main target was to be London, main testing and experimental site, mass of men, Merlin, Mosquito PR IX, museum, Museums, night of 17/18th August 1943, No 616 Squadron, North of England, North Sea, Oberst Max Wachtel, Operation Crossbow, Operation Hydra, overrun by the advancing Allied armies, P-51 Mustang, Patchworth, Peenemünde, photographic reconnaissance, poor operational decisions, port of Antwerp, potassium permanganate, preserved V-1, propeller, proximity-fused ammunition, RAF, range 150 miles, regimental sign, Rolls-Royce, Rolls-Royce engineer, Royal Air Force, Royal Auxiliary Air Force, rudder, Second Front in Europe, Second World War, Short Stirling, simple ram-jet, Sir Stanley Hooker, Spitfire PR XI, Spitfire XIV, SSM-N-8 Regulus, static sites, storage buildings, submarine-launched cruise missile, targets were relatively small, the Allies, the target was London, too late for the Germans, tubular steel wing spar, Typhoon pilot, V-1, V-1 campaign, Vengeance Weapon One, warbird, won the Second World War, WW2
Category: aircraft, Aviation, British Isles, England, France, Great Britain, London, military, Museums, RAF, Royal Air Force, Second World War, United States, warbird
| Aperture: | f/6.3 |
|---|---|
| Focal Length: | 55mm |
| ISO: | 200 |
| Shutter: | 1/0 sec |
| Camera: | NIKON D40 |
Long before the day of the Chance-Vought SSM-N-8 Regulus, the prototypical submarine-launched cruise missile, and the present-day, incredibly effective BMG-1019 Tomahawk, there was the V-1. This was a ‘terror weapon’ that might not have won the Second World War, but could have delayed the inevitable, if not for some very poor operational decisions by the German High Command.
The V-1, or Fiesler Fi 103, was crude but effective. It had a long gestational period, and had been cancelled at least once, but the basic principles were sound. Take a 1,900 lb Amatol-39 warhead, an Argus As 109-014 pulse jet, crude steel fuselage and wings, with a tubular steel wing spar, compressed air flasks to power the gyroscopically-steered elevators and rudder (no ailerons) and pump the fuel to the combustion chamber, and there you have it. One ‘Vergeltungswaffe –Eins’ (Vengeance Weapon One). The range was around 150 miles, which meant that if the main target was to be London – and it was, at Adolf Hitler’s insistence – then the launching sites could only be in a curved strip of land about 100 miles long by 20 miles deep, in France, Belgian and Holland.
Needless to say, the intelligence services of both the Allies and Germany were deeply interested in this programme. Photographic reconnaissance by Spitfire PR.XI and Mosquito PR. IX aircraft of the Royal Air Force confirmed that Peenemünde on Germany’s Baltic coast was the main testing and experimental site for the new weapon. It was heavily bombed by 324 Avro Lancasters, 218 Handley Page Halifaxes and 54 Short Stirlings on the night of 17/18th August, 1943 (Operation Hydra), and this set the whole programme back by several months.
The Germans also called the V-1 the Flakzielgerät 76, or FZG-76 (Flak aiming apparatus), in an attempt to conceal its real nature. When the Germans set up the unit which would be responsible for launching the V-1 at England, the 155 
Flak Regiment, they were less than discrete, in that the regimental sign was the letter ‘W’ over the figure ‘8’. The CO of the unit was Oberst Max Wachtel, and since the German for 8 is ‘acht’, this meant that tracking the movements of the unit’s vehicles by the French Resistance was fairly simple. Soon, ‘ski sites’, long inclined ramps surrounded by bunkers and storage buildings, began springing up all along what became known as ‘the rocket coast’. Since they were built on a fixed heading it was easy to work out that the target was London, and a campaign of attacking them – Operation Crossbow – began. However, the targets were relatively small, and as one Typhoon pilot recalled, in ‘Flight’ of June 29th, 1944, ‘they are fitted with 10/10th flak’.
As the V-1 campaign rose in intensity (over 100,000 homes in Britain were damaged or destroyed by 27th June), the defensive response altered. Flights of fighters were vectored onto what ‘Flight’ magazine had initially called the ‘aerial torpedoes’, when they were far out to sea. Then the V-1s encounted guns – mostly 40mm Bofors – firing the new proximity-fused ammunition, which were concentrated on the coastline, with a ‘free-fire’ zone immediately in front of them. Behind this was a ‘fighter belt’, where the fastest Allied fighters available (P-51 Mustang, Hawker Tempest V, Spitfire XIV and the few Gloster Meteor I jets of No. 616 Squadron, Auxiliary Air Force) were allowed to intercept the incoming ‘Divers’ – the code name for the ‘buzz bombs’. As a last-ditch defence, a balloon barrage was flown at a fairly low height close to the target area. At night, Air Defence of Great Britain used De Havilland Mosquito night fighters which were also capable of catching the 350 – 400 mph V-1. These Mosquitoes were fitted with heavily boosted Merlin engines, used 150 octane fuel and had specially strengthened nose cones to withstand the extra stress. When the surviving static sites were overrun by the advancing Allied armies, the Luftwaffe took to air launching V-1s at night from under the wings of Heinkel He III H-22 bombers of KG53 (Kampfgeschwader 53), based in Holland. These were aimed across the North Sea in the general direction of cities in the North of England, at London, and also at the newly freed port of Antwerp, Belgium.
Here we can see a preserved V-1 on a shortened launch ramp, exhibited at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford. It looks ready to be boosted down the track by a piston driven by a chemical reaction between hydrogen peroxide and potassium permanganate which generated a great deal of high-pressure steam. The Argus pulse jet (or athodyde) was a simple ram-jet with intermittent combustion/intake cycles (around 50 per second) which gave it both its distinctive sputtering sound, and around 660 lbs of thrust. To give you something to compare this with, an early Rolls-Royce Merlin would generate about 700 lbs static thrust at the propeller (at least, according to Sir Stanley Hooker, the genius Rolls-Royce engineer!) When the last V-1 fell on Patchworth, Hertfordshire on 29th March, 1945, over 22,000 people had been killed, but the great mass of men, equipment and shipping, all vital to the Second Front in Europe, had been ignored until it was too late for the Germans.
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