V1 targeting and steering

Can anyone shed any light on the steering and targeting controls of the V1 doodlebug, was it just aimed at london and hoped it hit the london area, i know they had a gyroscope device fitted, but cant quite get a grip of how it would work,

 

Without checking my books, as I understand it all V1s aimed at South-East England were targeted at Tower Bridge ( and one actually did land within yards, sinking a tugboat ! ).

The gyroscope was 'set' to the correct compass reading prior to launch. The non-magnetic concrete areas supposed to be used for this can be seen at 'ski'-launching sites in France.

( This site has some info about the steering/aiming mechanism which may be of interest : -

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/aircraft/WWII/v1/v1_info/vi_info.htm )

 

great info thanks !!!

 

An interesting bit on the V-1. The Allies actually conducted a study on jamming the V-1 to cause it to miss its target. The system proposed was to use about 300 miles of railway around London coupled up to a medium sized power plant and run about 30 megawatts of power through the rails to create a gigantic powerful magnetic field.
It was expected that this field would be sufficently strong that a V-1 flying over it at or below 2000 feet would have its magnetic compass scrambled which in turn would tumble the gyros through the missile making violent maneuvers to follow the compass. This would have caused the V-1 to crash shortly thereafter.
Thankfully, sanity prevailed and it wasn't tried.

 

No wonder......think of the havoc this stupidity would have wreaked with radar, radio, power supplies to industry, the train network, and fuel supplies.
Hopefully, the guy who dreamed it up was certified soon after.

 

Although of course the British did use the 'double-cross' system which caused so many V2s to fall short.

Even today many people who lived in the Ilford/Wanstead/Redbridge area to the East of London do not realise that this was the reason so many of these weapons fell there......

 

Dr RV Jones has an excellent chapter on this in "Most Secret War" and the follow up (which i cant remember) I think electric razors was another wild idea.

Fiesler also built a few Fi103 Reichenburg which was a manned V1 which was planned to be controlled by a pilot who baled out just before impact. With his cockpit immediatly infront of the engine intake, this would rate as one of the more stupid German designs. (About 175 were built, hopefully all destroyed on the ground)

 

Martin, can you elaborate, please? I never heard of this. Thanks!

 

The efficiency of the British intelligence networks at identifying and turning the German agents in the British Isles has always had a lengendary quality for me. I had not heard of it myself until six or seven years ago. I know they did it and that they used a vast majority of them to pass along misinformation after catching them. I don't know how they did it, but they did.

Since the V1 and V2 missiles were essentially artillery they could have their accuracy improved by spotters. Reports back to the launch sites would allow them to adjust the burn time of the rockets or make slight corrections in the flight angle. Turned German agents would send back misinformation that caused the launch personnel to adjust the rocket systems causing the missles to miss the city center. I saw a map once that was marked with the impact sites of the missiles and it was like a circle around london. Very few were actually inside the desired target area.

 

Yes - a complete book has ben written about this ( 'The Double Cross System' ) but briefly : -

British intelligence 'turned' a number of German agents discovered in the UK ( basically, work for us or we'll hang you ).

Certainly when the V2 campaign started, the British authorities were alarmed at the prospect of large numbers falling in West London on such areas as Whitehall, Parliament, Downing Street, the Admiralty etc etc.

The Germans asked their agents to report back with the locations in which the V2s were falling - which they did, but with impact points subtly altered. So considerable numbers fell short, and were reported as hitting West London.

As the Germans had no effective photo-recon by this stage of the war, it was brilliantly effective. But word did not get out until long after the war - British people may be phlegmatic, but occupants of West Essex probably wouldn't have been too happy at being set-up as targets by the Government.......

 

Also, just remember, that the Allies had sufficent information and captured wreckage of V-1's to produce a copy (Ford Motor Corp did this) just 60 days after the first V-1 flew. There was a plan to mass manufacture the US copy and launch 5000 a month back on Germany. But, the Allies decided that it wasn't worth carrying out; heavy bombers were more efficent.

 

I think this was discussed somewhere earlier but wasn´t there also a political explosion in the UK whether it was ok to let the people outside of London die rather that people in London because of the V2´s. So the "double cross system" almost was not brought into action??

 

I cannot believe that on something as sensitive as this that any kind of politically explosive discussion would have taken place. There must have only been a very select few with knowledge of the campaign. I am sure there must have been some discussion about how to redirect the incoming missiles. My guess is that the area where they landed was much less populated (rural). This would be one of those unpopular decisions someone would have to shoulder in the name of the overall benefit.

 

Sorry,

did not mean any public discussions in 1944 or so...

Anyway, found the article I was talking about:

http://www.ww2forums.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=15;t=000721

 

Well, imagine the scene today ; Tony Blair announces to the Commons that the terrorist threat has been aveted - a secret way has been found by which all terrorism will be directed at Edinburgh.

Could be some political fallout.....

 

That was a good discussion about that last year Kai. Wish I could have seen the link from that discussion but it was out of date. I guess they couldn't make the deviation too great or they would have seen through it.