Re: V-2 Firings into Germany from Holland -- Topic Revisited

Andrew Clark wrote:
<narrledudh@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote

Typical non-responsive reply noted.

Ad hominem.


Stephen Graham mentioned the coverage of this in the US Army
Official History volume _The Last Offensive_ by Charles B.
McDonald (OCMH: 1973).

On page 228, McDonald writes:

"From 12 through 17 March a rocket unit with weapons emplaced
in the Netherlands fired eleven supersonic V-2's in the direction
of the bridge . . . . One rocket hit a house 300 yards east of the
bridge, killing three Amercian soldiers and wounding fifteen. That
was the only damage. Three landed in the river not far from the
bridge, and one near Cologne; one was never located.34"

34. SHAEF Air Defense Division, Summary of Casualties and
Damage from V-Weapon Attack, Report for the Week Ending
19 March 1945; British War Office, The German Long-Range
Rocket Programme, 1930-1945, MIA4/14, 30 Oct 45, copy
in OCMH; Royce L. Thompson, Military Impact of the German
V-Weapons, MS in OCMH.

I didn't deny that V2s may have been fired; I said that the evidence
presented so far was unconvincing, which it was.

The V2 often left evidence in the form of its rocket motor in the area
this had a characteristic 18 sub chambers in its roof.


I have read WO 232/31 (the PRO file reference for the MIA4/14 report cited),
and I don't recall any reference to the V2 attack on Remagen. I'm assuming,
therefore, that the source for the remark about the attack on Remagen is the
two secondary sources. One is a SHAEF HQ summary of reports collated from
individual AA commands which in turn are collations from reports from AA
units, and the other is an unpublished manuscript.

That doesn't mean that the reports are wrong, but it does mean that we are
still a long way from seeing the primary sources on which the claim is
based. While official histories are good secondary sources, they can get
things wrong.

In particular, I'm still intrigued as to how the Germans achieved 4 out of
11 hits near the bridge (36% success) with an unguided weapon with a 60-mile
CEP.

The tested CEP of the A4 was 4.5km at the full extent of its range when
using the SC-66 boost phase only inertial guidence system. Again note
that within the CEP there is a slight clustering toward the aim point.

One wouldn't expect much less 4.5km as this works out as about a 1.1%
deviation at 400km range. About the same as an artillary shell at long
range.

The integrating gyroscopic accelerometer had an accuracy of somewhere
between 1/1000th and 1/10,000th and added about 400m to CEP. Cross
winds, survey issues and I think particularly gyroscope issues added
the greater part. A gyroscope with all of its inaccuracies such as
pickoff errors, drift, initial alignment or platform leveling should
still achieve a fraction of a degree. The airframe of the missile
probably adds a bit as well since the early system lacked cross range
accelerometers.

One report that I have (see ref below), by someome who worked on the A4
programm, states that the the electronic guidence beam system was
developed before the SC-66 but despit its greater accuracy in terms of
its beam was actually less accurate due to jitter and that attempts
were made to hybridise the inertial system with the electronic one.
Other claims I have seen say that that the Leitstrahl Electonic beam
system was used in 25% of launches and that it had a CEP of 2km at full
range and entered service after the SC-66. This is more plausible as
there would be no point deploying such a system (and it was) if it was
less accurate. It was simply refined.

Assuming a CEP of 2000m at 400km we would assume a CEP of 500m at 200km
range.

For 11 launches the stats should be
94% within 1000m ie 10.35 missiles/
50% within 500m ie 5.5 missiles
16% within 250m ie 1.8 missiles
4.3% within 125m ie 0.47 missiles
1% within 62.5m ie 0.12 missiles.
0.27% within 31.25 m ie 0.03 missiles.

This seems more or less in line with what was achieved. I would say
something like 4-8 times as many missiles (ie between 44 to 88) would
need to be launched for a good chance of destruction of the bridge.

It shows that the V2 did have potential to be tactically usefull in
certain circumstances.

I've seen photos of craters of V2 which exploded with residual fuel and
oxidiser left over in a half range launch would have added greatly to
the explosive effect. Photograpahs of the craters left by the
explosion of half empty A4's are still awesome

Note that bridge and its supports are a fairly big structure despite
their linear nature and that this increase the probabillity of a hit on
either the bridge itself or within 50 meters of the support pylons.

The disruptive effect on opperations in the area must also be
considered

VOL. 4, NO. 3 J. GUIDANCE AND CONTROL MAY-JUNE 1981
History of Key Technologies AIAA 81-4120

1981 Developments in the Field of Automatic
Guidance and Control of Rockets
Walter Haeussermann
The Bendix Corporation, Huntsville, Ala.

AIAA 2001-4288
The Pendulous Integrating Gyroscope
Accelerometer (RIGA) from the V-2 to
Trident D5, the Strategic Instrument of Choice
R.E. Hopkins
The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.
Cambridge, MA
Dr. Fritz K. Mueller, Dr. Walter Haeussermann
Huntsville, AL

.

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