U-Boat Firing V-Rockets

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Paul Lakowski
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Re: U-Boat Firing V-Rockets

#31

Post by Paul Lakowski » 06 May 2019, 03:12

Grzesio wrote:
26 Apr 2019, 21:16
You want us to believe, explosion of a 50 kg bomb covered area of some 57 square kilometres, while area of 450 sqkm suffered from "much destruction"? :)

BTW, quite an interesting discussion on the Hexenkessel (in German): https://unterirdisch.de/index.php?threa ... ombe.5055/
Better approach would be to 'discuss' definitions as Atrevida suggests.

I read about this in the LUFTWAFFE OVER AMERICA. but the impression is a unsuccessful nuclear device. Puzzled by this reference to levels of destruction, I wondered if it might be a "dirty bomb". But with further research I came across turn of the century [19th] article examining possibilities of increasing explosive force with addition of coal dust.

I wonder if this would be like a fuel-air explosive like terrorist have used in the past?

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Ironmachine
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Re: U-Boat Firing V-Rockets

#32

Post by Ironmachine » 06 May 2019, 08:52

Atrevida wrote:Conclusion: A V 2 rocket with small atomic warhead and adulterated fuel for 3,000-mile flight could be safely launched from a Lafferenz barge positioned only 700 miles out from the Norwegian coast so as to hit New York every day until the United States gave in.
Real conclusion: Well, if the Germans could make an atomic warhead strong, small and light enough to fit in a V 2 (no small feat; I'm talking off the top of my head, but IIRC the v2 carried about 1,000 kg of explosive, and for example the small U.S. nuclear warhead MK-54 used with the David Crockett gun weighed more than 20 kg), and if the Germans somehow really managed to develop an adulterated rocket fuel with an 10-times increased efficiency (a technology of which we only have some quite dubious immediate post-war references, and that seems to have disappeared since then, as AFAIK no one else has ever claimed such a miracle), and if the Germans had somehow managed to master the firing of a V 2 from a towed semi-submerged container (a complex and dangerous operation even on selected land ground), and if the Germans somehow could obtain enough weapon-grade uranium or plutonium to sustain a one-atomic-bomb-per-day campaing, then yes, they perhaps could have hit New York every day until the United States gave in.
And if my mother had wheels, she’d be a bicycle. :roll:


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Grzesio
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Re: U-Boat Firing V-Rockets

#33

Post by Grzesio » 06 May 2019, 10:22

The success of this project is self-evident from the following four examples taken from postwar publications:
i) SS-Geheimwaffenspezialist Otto Skorzeny stated (...)
ii) The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and the British Times newspapers all confirmed(...)
(iii) A NASA Mercury astronaut stated (...)
(iv) On 14 June 1945 the British Daily Mail reported (...)
These are really primary sources, leaving absolutely no doubts, so any further discussion is pointless, I'm afraid. :(
I have just one question. The A 4 rocket, as used in combat, actually reached, or even slightly passed, its structural limits, resulting in certain per cent of rockets disintegrating in flight (initially approx. 70 % of A 4s used in combat). Germans managed gradually to cure this weakness a little bit, reducing number of inflight disintegrations to 30-40%, so I wonder, how an A 4 rocket with 10 times more efficient fuel (what roughly coresponds to 10 times higher velocity) could survive its flight?
Last edited by Grzesio on 06 May 2019, 12:18, edited 2 times in total.

aurelien wolff
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Re: U-Boat Firing V-Rockets

#34

Post by aurelien wolff » 06 May 2019, 11:04

not a war head like like a us atom bomb I think.

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Ironmachine
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Re: U-Boat Firing V-Rockets

#35

Post by Ironmachine » 06 May 2019, 12:44

Atrevida wrote:An Internet article in April 2001 by an American physicist, Flanner, proposed a nuclear warhead for the V 2. Flanner considered the real purpose of Professor Heisenberg's Leipzig experiment in 1942 to have been as a plutonium breeder. If the German design had (i) arranged for the closest proximity of the plutonium enriched subcritical masses, no more than a couple of inches: (ii) with kerosene between each subcritical mass to block the Pu-240 emissions, (iii) then the critical assembly for an explosion of sorts would have been achieved at Mach 3.5 in the nose of a V 2.

The size of the atomic explosion would not have been great, possibly sufficient to destroy ten city blocks and leave a massive radiation problem, but the consistency of daily V 2 arrivals might have been enough to convince the United States to sue for peace.
Is this "physicist, Flanner" the same Pat Flanner who wrote an article about the German A-bomb that was hosted in http://www.luft46.com/armament/abomb.html (however, the link does not work now)? Forum member ohrdruf (who AFAIK was just a previous user name of Atrevida) already mentioned it in a previous thread, and in that same previous thread forum member DrG showed a number of mistakes and inaccuracies in that article. All those interested can see it here:
viewtopic.php?t=50973

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