Hi guys, I recently had a few days on my hands so decided to go to France for 2 days, my itinerary took me first to Le Blockhaus (d`Eperlecques or Watten) V2 site on Day one and then to La Couple V2 site and Mimoyecques V3 site on day two, The V3 site never whent in to operation, it is estermated that in full production it could fire 600 shells a London a day from its 25 guns, this site was knocked out 0n 6th of July 1944 by tall boy bombs which killed thousonds of forced laoubors at the site Dose any one have any info on more of these sites in France I will post some pictures soon
Hi Neil This is a good web site V2ROCKET.COM - The A-4/V-2 Resource Site - The V-2 Rocket Went on the Leger war tour & it covered all the V1, v2 , v3 sites Neil
Yes, at the end of the following thread: http://www.ww2f.com/weapons-wwii/12270-german-experimental-weapons-ww2.html
the v3 was never completed or tested the us was sending a cargo plane stripped and filled whith explosives to take it out but hitler herd and abbandoned it then they Blew it up :tux:
Actually that is incorrect. The fate of the V-3 was the bombing of the Bunkers that they were to be placed in. The Guns were blown up and the Bunkers were busted. A Happy end to a terror weapon.
Interesting post i had never heard much about the V3. Seems almost a direct throwback to Saddam Husseins planned "Supergun" that never got built, during the 1980's - 90's. The Iraquis employed a scientest named Gerald Bull to mastermind this project in order to have a gun to strike Israel if and when he (Saddam) felt like it. The Israelis brought the project to a halt by murdering the scientist. There was a whole feature-length movie made about it some years ago cant remember the title.
Not a "throwback" rather the precusor to the Bull supergun. The Vergeltungswaffe 3 (Vengeance Weapon 3), or V-3, was a super-long-range cannon designed to fire across the English Channel into the Greater Lond area. To disguise its true purpose it was given the cover name Hochdruckpumpe (High Pressure Pump) The cannon's configuration and layout also inspired nicknames like "Busy Lizzie" and "The Millipede." It was designed as a multiple-chambered gun of 150mm caliber with a 150m-long barrel. There was a conventional breech and a pressure chamber at the rear end. Several auxiliary chambers were constructed and arranged at 45o to the main barrel at intervals of about 40m. The theory behind the mechanism of the cannon was that a fin-stabilized shell would be loaded into the breech, together with the appropriate propelling charge. Additional charges would be added into the auxiliary chambers. The initial charge would be ignited and start the shell soaring up the bore. As it passed the auxiliary chambers additional charges would be fired to produce extra gas and thrust to boost the speed of the shell. With all these additional boosts, the shell would leave the muzzle at a very high velocity - somewhere around 1,524m/sec was projected. The shell would be hauled into the stratosphere, where the thin air offered less air resistance and would permit the projectile to reach a range of about 280km. The idea of multi-chambered cannon is certainly not new. It was first suggested by two Americans, Lyman and Haskell, in the 1880s. A gun built on their specification was fired, but it proved unsuccessful. See: Vergeltungswaffe 3 There was (I believe) a smaller version built for testing, but it wasn't as successfull as anticipated, however the full sized model went ahead. There are some photos on the bottom of the page, and the mission with Joe Kennedy Jr. (Aphrodite) is briefly mentioned. And to the other poster, it wasn't a cargo plane loaded with explosives, it was an older B-24 Liberator loaded with torpex which exploded prematurely, killing Kennedy and his co-pilot.
I'm pretty sure there never was a weapon officially referred to as the "V-3". This "super gun" does seem to be the best candidate for the name however.
There was a book written about this weapon, but I forget its name at the moment. I read it years ago. But at any rate this article seems to hold that opinion as to the name; V-3. As each of the other Vengeance Weapons had other names as well, it isn’t that unlikely that it too was called one. Main article: V-3 cannonThe V3 was a giant cannon, designed to lob shells from its site in the Pas de Calais, France across the English Channel and hit London. Because of its target, it was also known as the "London gun". It consisted of three shafts each containing five, 500 foot long, barrels, side by side. Armoured doors in the concrete were designed to slide back when the guns were ready. Like the V-1 flying bomb and the V-2 rocket, V-3 cannon was one of the three vengeance weapons (German: Vergeltungswaffe) built by Nazi Germany during World War II. Unlike the V-1 and the V-2, however, the V-3 was not a guided missile, but a... Like the V-1 flying bomb and the V-2 rocket, V-3 cannon was one of the three vengeance weapons (German: Vergeltungswaffe) built by Nazi Germany during World War II. Unlike the V-1 and the V-2, however, the V-3 was not a guided missile, but a gun. British Intelligence first received reports of the V3 in the summer of 1943, when it was under construction below a 20-foot thick slab of ferro-concrete near Mimoyecques. Reports indicated that if the guns could keep up their maximum rate of fire, they could bombard London with 600 tons of explosives a day; in a fortnight, London would receive as much high explosive as Berlin had received in the whole war. Mimoyecques was a German fortification in Europe during World war 2,consisting mainly of large cement bunkers, mainly built for testing of the newly built jet propelled aircraft and small versions of the v-2 rocket. ... Before it became operational, the V3 was destroyed by the Royal Air Force's 617 Squadron - better known as The Dam Busters. On 6 July 1944, specially modified Avro Lancaster bombers dropped several 5 ton (5.4 tonne) Tallboy bombs (designed by British inventor, Barnes Wallis) on the V3 complex. One Tallboy ripped a corner off the 20-foot thick concrete roof and completely blocked one of the gun shafts. A near miss collapsed another shaft and made the third shaft unfit to use. The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the air force branch of the British Armed Forces. Like the V-1 flying bomb and the V-2 rocket, V-3 cannon was one of the three vengeance weapons (German: Vergeltungswaffe) built by Nazi Germany during World War II. See: StateMaster - Encyclopedia: Vergeltungswaffe So, I dunno if that term is "official"from the Nazi side, or just an assumed designaiton on the part of the allies. They seem to have refered to the system as the V-3 however.
The V-2 was a true missile. It passed the sound barrier, I think. Anyway, the V-1 was just remotely-controlled planes or something. The V-1s were to be stopped at air by anti-aircraft batteries, fighters, but the V-2 can only have been stopped at ground. It was truly a terrifying weapon. If it had been mass-produced early in the war, then the Germans would have bombed London to hell and won the war, which would have been disastrous
Some facts: The V stands for Vergeltrungswaffen or reprisal weapons as Hitler used them to punish the British for their bombing of Germany The V-1 was a small pilotless plane propelled by a primitive ramjet engine 25 feet long (excluding tailpipe), wingspan of 18 feet, carried thousand pound warhead Planned initially to launch 500 V-1s a day, but production problems, RAF raids on V-1 launch sites, and fighter and anti-aircraft defenses brought problem under control
Correct. The guidance on the V-1 consisted of pointing it in approximately the right direction and guesstimating how much fuel it would need to get to the targed. The average V-2 caused something like 13 casualties (that may be 13 fatalities and double that many casualties). Given how expensive it was to produce and the lack of accuracy I'm not convinced that earlier production would have made that much difference.
I sometimes wonder if all that effort would have been more wisely spent in some other way. Still, the V-2 eventually gave us space exploration, and that was something.
The V-2 is the only weapon in history to kill more people in its construction than in its deployment. It also cost the Third Reich nearly the same amount as the Allies MED. In cost/benefit analysis it is a total wash. Of course the deaths were for the most part slave labor deaths, the expenses were out of the Reich treasury. And while the von Braun contribution to the space exploration and American effort is significant, he himself recognized that he was standing on the shoulders of Robert Goddard in most instances. He and the widow of Robert Goddard sued the US government successfully for patent infringement, since he knew full well that the NACA and the later NASA were using over 200 of Goddard's patents in their rocketry. Capturing the unfinished V-2s was a boon, but the Soviets efforts in the same field would have probably "spurred" the West into the quest with or without von Braun. I am reasonably certain his participation "shortened" the work, but the work would probably have been done at any rate.
I think a "shortened" V3, was emplaced on the side of a hill and used to fire against Antwerp with little effect in December 1944. As I had same Ballantine MH quoted in the following site I probably read it there. V-3
