The REAL purpose of the V2 Rocket

[Mike-bcxv]

It's extra pointy to make it even scarier.

[DwayneHicksCpl]

It was an ineffective weapons system but it was the first step to a very effective space exploration system.

[jacobreisser]

One of these things landed outside my old school in Chiswick, West London.
It took out a couple of houses. There's a memorial on the site now.
My dad actually had a small piece of the outer shell, no idea where it went.

[fajaradi]

This is Flammenwerfer. It werfs, flammen
This is Panzershreck. It shreck, panzer
This is Stugs. It stugs...

[jebbroham]

The V1 was the world’s first cruise missile and the V2 was the first ballistic missile, ICBM even. It’s truly astounding that Germany started WW2 with bolt action rifles and tiny Panzer I and II’s, but ended the war with jet fighters and bombers, cruise and ballistic missiles, what would be the precursor to the modern main battle tank, and the world’s first true assault rifle. The progress made in WW2 in just 6 years is staggering. Such progress would have taken decades without the war speeding things up and as the saying goes: “necessity is the mother of invention”.

[throwback]

Fun fact, the V2 is the same shape as the 7.92mm mauser rifle bullet. They knew it was an aerodynamic shape that could fly supersonic, so they scaled it up to reduce development time.

[valicourt]

Near Calais is the Blockhaus museum. It’s the world’s largest bunker ( at the time of WWII). It is so big that the V2 was erected in the bunker and then railed out to be launched. It was also a production factory and fuel plant. The walls are so thick that allied bombs couldn’t touch the thing. Only 1, 5 drive from London. Look it up

[jamesmclemore]

I forget the exact cost, but each V2 had a price tag in the millions, enough to buy several dozen if not several hundred STG-44s that could be used against actual combatants, and had an average kill rate of about two civilians. They were also used mainly on London instead of statigic port cities in Europe that were being used to feed the Allies' advance.

[IM-lrvz]

When these were first used, the public in Britain were told the explosions were gas leaks to prevent panic.

[ethanc]

My grandfather lived throught the war, when he was 10 a V1 hit outside his house and tore the whole thing down while his family was still inside, he was fine but his brother was injured. About a year later a V2 hit in the street over from his new house, it blew out all the windows and knocked over stone walls. When he told me this he said "good thing they missed hehe."

[RichardFraser-yt]

If you plan for vengeance then you know you have already lost.

[hawkeyejo]

Timed fuzes, turboprop engines, computers and atom bombs were the real wonder weapons.

[him]

If your terror weapons gets given the nickname “doodlebug”, I think it’s safe to assume that it’s not quite instilling the level of fear into your enemies as you might have hoped.

[davidpope]

It was an impressive technological achievement and was the first man-made device to officially enter ‘space’, but it only had the same warhead size as the V-1 and had a very limited effect upon the war. It’s most important achievement was serving as the first rung of the ladder in space exploration for both the USA and Soviet Union as so many were captured and whisked away to those countries ~ along with the all-important technical staff.

[berndhofmann]

I think you describe the situation very well!

Me as German i see paralels to Putins war.

I was born after the war. And i felt, specially in the sixties through European and American culture a worldwide breakthrough!!!

Hitlers war was absolutely a waste of energy and people. For nothing. I'm a management consultant and can look at the economic data! Germany could never win this war. But this cost our nation a lot of advantages in science!

In Göttingen were i lived in the 1920ies worked nearly the half of nobel price winners!

[MrJohndoakes]

Were they irrational or just deeply buzzed from years on methamphetamine?

[just_violet]

"That's what V2 is for"

[wolfganggugelweith]

After I crossed the sea home from Sweden to Germany I landed by ferry close to Peenemünde and for sure I visited this place. 20.000 people had to work there for the V2. Incredible efforts were made to get this rockets flying. 15. of July 2024. Greetings from Linz Austria 🇦🇹 Europe!

[oneirishman]

And that's the man who started NASA.

[camwinston]

Those that can make you believe absurdities, can convince you to commit atrocities- Voltaire