1. Secret Weapons & Wonder Weapons
WW 2 History Club
Secret Weapons
&
Wonder Weapons
23 - Dec

2. What is a Secret Weapon?
Secret Weapons are those that are (at least initially) unknown to “the other side” and are designed to have a significant impact on the war’s outcomes.
May be of any type including non-traditional “weapons”

3. What is a Wonder Weapon?
Wonder Weapons are those that may or may not have been secret but ultimately had a significant impact on the outcome of the war.
Many are, at first glance, rather mundane and appear to lack the elegance of radical and unusual weapons.

4. What We Will Not Cover
Manhattan Project & Operations Silverplate; German atomic program
Codes/Ciphers: Bletchley Park, USA SIS, USN OP-20G
British Air Defense System
Radar generally
German jet aircraft, stealth aircraft, …
Lots more …

5. What We Will Cover
V1, V2, V3
RAF 617 Squadron (movie night and book club)
Radar support of bomber navigation
Proximity Fuse
Operation Storm
Special segment
Higgins Boat
The Jeep
C47
Willow Run

6. Ideas and Prototypes vs Deployed Weapons Systems?
History is littered with ideas and prototypes that never made it
Useless to argue, what if this or what if that
Need > idea > R&D > design > engr prototype > mfg capability > mfg prototype > pilot > full scale > field use
Logistics and maintenance
Germans never quite understood this

7. Quality vs Quantity WWII was a war of production systems
If you out produce your enemy, you win
Japan understood this and knew they had to get the US to the negotiating table early
Germany understood this; German political/military leaders did not
German designs tended to be highly engineered and complex, not easy to manufacture or maintain

8. German V1 Developed in parallel with V2
Substantial development at Peenemundee
Project under Luftwaffe “management”
Argus pulse jet (50 Hz) engine
Original cruise missle
Simple autopilot guidance system -- pendulum & gyrocompass -- power by compressed air
vane anemometer drove counter (set at launch) which cut power/controls at “target”

9. German V1 Required launch ramp (one of its problems)
Not as portable as V2
Initial altitude goal proved unreliable and was reset to approx 4500 ft (much easier to hit with AA)
Generally quite effective even though only 25% actually made it to the target; much more effective than traditional bombing
Inexpensive (~ $2500); 1900 lbs of warhead, 5000 lb weapon
Approx 8,000 sorties

10. Aggregate Family
V2 was just one of a rocket series in various stages of development from
Most famous was A4 or V2
A R&D project, alcohol and liquid O2, gyros in front, one test firing
A2 1934, similar to A1, gyros mid, two successful tests
A3 1935, 3x larger than A1/A2, much larger engine, similar liquid fuels.

11. Aggregate Family
A5 continuation of A3; used to test concepts and systems for A4
A4 only fully deployed system
A4b/A9 longer range (450 mi vs 110 mi) version of A4, used wings to increase range during descent why?
A6 A5 variant used to test different propellants, rumoured to also be a manned reconnaissance vehicle
A7 naval version, never got to full prototype
A8 “stretch” version of A4; never got to prototype
A9/A10 designed to attack USA; two stage (A9 sitting on top of A10)

12. Aggregate Family

13. Aggregate Family
A11 final stage of a 3 stage system (A9/A10/A11)
A12 final stage of a 4 stage system (A9/A10/A11/A12), orbital capability

14. V2 More portable than V1 (mobile launcher)
No practical defense once launched except “sending back” bogus results B24?
Only “defense” was to attack launch sites & manufacturing sites, and push launch sites out of range
10X more expensive than V1
Slightly larger payload (2200 lbs vs 1900)
6,000 built; 3,000 sorties
Range ~ 200 miles
At what target were most V2s launched?

15. V1 and V2 Assessment
Total program costs were approx 50% more than the Manhattan Project
Consumed huge quantities of resources that could have been better used elsewhere (lots of potatos)
Not a significant impact on the outcome of WWII but huge impact longer term

16. V3 Gun
Supergun used the multi-charge concept (100 yr old) where a sequence of “side charges” (solid rocket boosters) adds velocity
Four different designs in the queue by early 1944; range ~ 60 miles
Site constructed near Pas-de-Calis was to have 2 facilities each with 5 banks of 5 guns for a total of 50 guns all pointed at London (London was 103 miles away)
Site was destroyed by RAF 617 Sqn
Other smaller guns and sites operated sporadically until early 1945

17. V3 Gun Basic (original) Specs Actually achieved 430 feet long
150mm (~6”) shell; 310 lbs
300 per hour
Muzzle velocity ~ 4900 fps
Range ~ 100 miles
Actually achieved
Muzzle velocity ~ 3100 fps
Range ~ 60 miles

18. Bomber Navigation
Daylight bombing did not work -- both Germans and British figured this out quickly
Bombing at night was a navigator’s nightmare
Butt Report (1941): 5% of bombs fell within 5 miles of their target
German bombing was far more accurate, why?
Significant use of radio beams to direct bombers
1930s: Commercial blind landing aides
Extensions in 1939/1940

19. Knickebein One beam along which bombers flew.
One beam to tell bomber where to drop
Investigation was Operation “Headache”
Countermeasures were “Asprin”

20. X-Gerät One beam along which bombers flew.
3 beams to tell bomber where to (automatically) drop
Countermeasure:
Send out false “Elbe”

21. Y-Gerät
Essentially a radar system that tracked aircraft and sent instructions to the pilot how to alter course and where to drop
Countermeasure:
RV Jones, et al, figured out what the Germans would try next and were ready with countermeasures. 2nd signal sent to German ground station confused the ground station. When Luftwaffe eventually realized that British were jamming the system all along, they lost confidance in such systems and did not deploy further systems

22. British Gee
Radio beams used to form “2D grid over target area; eventually expanded to substantial size “grid”
Aircraft able to compute a “fix”
Initially deployed with pathfinder groups
Ultimately quite successful even as Germans developed countermeasures for local navigation in the UK; bomber losses due to navigation problems dropped by 65%

23. British Oboe Radio transponder approach
Ground control would fix the bomber location; ground would instruct pilot re course and target
Accurate to about 35 yards at 150 miles
One aircraft at a time; OK for pathfinders

24. British H2S Airborne ground-mapping radar Deployed in 1943
More important as bomber raids went deeper into Germany (Gee and Oboe were range limited)

25. Proximity Fuze
Miniature radar system in the nose of a projectile that senses when the projectile is “sufficiently enough” and detonate the war head
Used in anti aircraft, anti-armour, anti personnel and general HE
Both US and British had working systems. US system was adopted by both allies.
Significant improvement over previous methods, even radar directed AA used by Germans

26. Higgins Boat
"Andrew Higgins ...", Eisenhower said, "is the man who won the war for us." "...If Higgins had not designed and built those LCVP's, we never could have landed over an open beach.  The whole strategy of the war would have been different."
The LCVP, aka Higgins Boat, was an adaptation of a 1930s workboat design originally used in the swamps of southern Louisiana.  More ...
The Higgins Boat Industries manufactured a large percentage of the US Navy's vessels during WWII including PT boats, patrol boats and many different types of landing craft.  Higgins built over 20,000 boats during WWII  More .

27. The Jeep What was the Seep? 50,000 sent to Russia
WWII was a war of mobility and motorized armies
More than half of German transport was horses
Not many horses in the US Army during WWII
The Jeep was a “go anywhere, do anything” vehicle that was the solution to more problems than anyone imagined.
Cheap, light, robust, reliable, very adaptable, easy to manufacture, easy to maintain
Willys Overland made 360,000
Ford made 280,00
German manufactured 51,000 Kübelwagens in total
What was the Seep?
50,000 sent to Russia

28. C47 Skytrain
The C47 Skytrain, aka Dakota, R4D, Gooney Bird, … was the military version of the Douglas DC3.
Like the Jeep, it was versatile, robust and easy to maintain; an aircraft that was easy to fly and would do just about anything asked of it
Approx 10,000 built
Major impact on many campaigns
Guadalcanal
Bulge
The Hump
Berlin Airlift
It is still in service in a half dozen countries
Why R4D? Why Dakota?
Approx 50 variants
C-53 Skytrooper
Carry paratroopers
Tow gliders
XCG-17 assault glider
AC-47 Gun Ship

29. Willow Run
Widely assumed that Henry Ford was behind Willow Run and the amazing B24 factory. Not so …
Henry Ford was anti-semetic, mildly pro Nazi and a complete nut case.
He refused to make Merlin engines for the British, … so Packard did
Without intervention from Wm Sorensen and Ford’s son, Edsel, Willow Run would probably not have happened.
Can’t build aircraft “that way”, … meeting with Consolidated
Consolidated’s goals vs Sorensen’s plan
The result:
one B24 rolled off the assembly line every 57 minutes
Much better quality aircraft

30. End

31. Operation Storm Japanese plan to bomb US cities and Panama Canal
Only reasonable approach was to launch bombers close to target
How to get close: how about a submarine that carried bombers?
Japanese I400 submarines