V-weapons

Vergeltungswaffe is German for "retaliation weapon", "reprisal weapon" or ("vengeance weapon"), and was a term assigned during World War II by the Nazis to a number of revolutionary "superweapons".

There are three weapons in the V-weapons series, however some other weapons have become associated with the series, or are known incorrectly as a vergeltungswaffe.

V1

The first cruise missile was fired by Nazi Germany, was powered by a pulse-jet, and hence called the buzz bomb, was the V1.

V2

The development of the liquid-fueled spin-stabilized sub-orbital rocket lead to the development of the most famous of the series, the V2. This was a result of the Aggregate series, and the V2 is in fact the A4.

A separate development from the V2, often linked to the Aggregate series of rockets, but separate is the Amerika bomber from Sanger, which was development as a sub-orbital skip bomber, that would bounce on the edge of the atmosphere to get to North America and bomb the US.

V3

The V3 is actually a cannon and not a type of missile, also known as the London gun and V-3 cannon. It was designed to lob shells across the English channel and hit London from the coast of France.

Initial Reports

Less than four years into the Second World War, in the summer of 1943, disturbing reports were coming out of Germany about a mysterious new weapon. British agents could not say what it was, but sensed it was something special.

Desccription

It transpired that a grotesque underworld was being burrowed under a 20-foot thick slab of ferro-concrete near Mimoyecques. Here the Germans were preparing the V3. Little has ever been told about the V3, but it was certainly the most sinister of all the German's Terror Weapons - a long range gun with a barrel, 500 feet long.

The muzzles would never appear above the earth; the entire barrels would be sunk into the ground. The Germans were putting fifteen of these guns in at Mimoyecques, five guns side by side, in each of three shafts - all trained on London. They were smooth-bore barrels, and a huge slow-burning charge would fire a 10-inch shell, with a long-steady acceleration, so there would be no destructive heat and pressure in the barrel. In that way the barrels would not quickly wear out as Big Bertha had in World War I. They were more monstrous in every way than Big Bertha; they fired a bigger shell, could go on firing for a longer time and, more importantly than that, they had a rapid rate of fire. Thick armoured plated doors in the concrete would slide back when they were ready, and then the nest of nightmare guns would pour out six shells a minute on London, 600 tons of explosives a day. They would keep that up accurately day after day after day, so that in a fortnight London would recieve as much high explosives as Berlin had received in the whole war. But that fortnight would only be the start of it.

Destruction

Fortunately, the base at Mimoyecques was destroyed in July 1944 at the the hands of the Royal Air Force's 617 Squadron, better known as The Dam Busters. The Dam Busters used 6 tonne "Tallboy" bombs (designed by British inventor, Barnes Wallis) to destroy the V3. During their successful raid, 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. Five hundred feet down, when the bombers came, 300 Germans and collaborators tried to shelter in what they thought was complete safety. They are still there, entombed.

Wunderwaffen

The Wunderwaffen were not V-waffen, but were designed to help Germany win the war at the front, and not extract revenge from the rear.