I-400

[Sisko]

Well it doesn't have to be a V2 It could be a ballistic varient of the wasserfall anti aircraft missle.

But I still think that V1's would have been the way to go.

Or how about a Me262 flying bomb. A little bigger than a V1 packs more of a punch but not as big and clumsy as a V2.

[B777LR]

Me-262s are horribly expensive and hard to produce. Remember, every missile you send at the enemy, is more metal and resources for them. And you cant have the US assemble their own jet engines, based on wreckage of a missile.

One advantage the V-1 has in this scenario, over that of Britain: AA guns cant be placed all the way around New York And you dont need fixed ramps to launch the missiles (enemy does not know if they are to expect missiles from east or north-east, but Britain knew where ramps were)

[Geoff]

There was a plan to equip V-1's with dirty (radiological) warheads, and Eddie, a SIG member not on-line, did an S-100 S-Boot with a launch ramp for CW equiped warheads.

[Joe C-P]

One advantage the V-1 has in this scenario, over that of Britain: AA guns cant be placed all the way around New York And you dont need fixed ramps to launch the missiles (enemy does not know if they are to expect missiles from east or north-east, but Britain knew where ramps were)

Actually, while NYC is close to the Atlantic, there are chokepoints (Verazzano Narrows, e.g.) at the water inlets, so the V-1s couldn't avoid passing AA guns. Boston and Atlantic City are more vulnerable, Philly and Washington are upriver from the sea. I'm not certain about the layout of the other major East Coast ports.

You are right, the advantage of the moving launcher is that the defender can't know the direction from which to expect the missile.

[sequoiaranger]

The US experimented with launching V-1's even before the war was over!! The Us version of the V-1 was called the "Loon" and tests with them and US submarines began in 1944. There are pics around that show US subs launching the Loons--no reason the Japanese could not do it with the I-400 and some smuggled or license-built V-1's.

As with the ones launched from France to Britain, they are a terribly imprecise weapon only good for large, impossible-to-miss targets like cities, BIG cities.

[Sisko]

I would go with launching the V1's at night. The one thing about the targets is that finding them would not have been that much of a problem, they would have been well lit.

Also makes the detection of the Subs prior to launch a lot harder, as well as interception.

Mind you these kind of attacks would get harder to carry out after the first couple of times because the US would be on high alert.

[B777LR]

A reason for not using V-2s: more powerful versions could be developed, aka transatlantic ballistic missiles...no need for U-boots being risked launching ballistic missiles then.

Mind you these kind of attacks would get harder to carry out after the first couple of times because the US would be on high alert.

Agreed, more range is needed from the V-1. Range of course, would not necesarily need to be streched when the missile was to be launched. It could surface 10 km from NY or 1000 km away, thus making it harder to find the subs.

Could a V-1 possibly be launched from underwater in any way? We need ideas for this!

BTW, The I-400 will need better AA defenses. Radar guided guns, and perhaps a missile launcher? For missiles, perhaps a Feuerlilie or an X-4? An X-4 is small and can be carried in large numbers, and considering the enemy ASW planes would often be large converted bombers...

The I-400 needs more powerful defences against destroyers too. The Germans could probably put into service reliable guided torpedoes from 1945.

[Brian da Basher]

<snip>
Could a V-1 possibly be launched from underwater in any way? We need ideas for this!
<snip>

Launching a V-1 from underwater would be problematic as it was jet powered. Perhaps if it had RATO, but there would be other issues to resolve as well. I think the U.S. Navy did some tests with subs carrying jet-powered missiles, but they were stowed on on-deck containers and the sub had to surface to deploy them.

Still, it's an interesting scenario. I keep thinking of the U.S. Navy sub-hunting blimps. Supposedly, no ships were ever sunk in a W.W. II convoy that had blimp escort. I can see patrol dirigibles instead that are on station for days at a time, armed with rockets and airship based aircraft to incercept the German V weapons.

Brian da Basher

[B777LR]

<snip>
Could a V-1 possibly be launched from underwater in any way? We need ideas for this!
<snip>

Launching a V-1 from underwater would be problematic as it was jet powered. Perhaps if it had RATO, but there would be other issues to resolve as well. I think the U.S. Navy did some tests with subs carrying jet-powered missiles, but they were stowed on on-deck containers and the sub had to surface to deploy them.

Still, it's an interesting scenario. I keep thinking of the U.S. Navy sub-hunting blimps. Supposedly, no ships were ever sunk in a W.W. II convoy that had blimp escort. I can see patrol dirigibles instead that are on station for days at a time, armed with rockets and airship based aircraft to incercept the German V weapons.

Brian da Basher

^^^^
BdB with (very) 1920s ideas, i wonder why...

Honestly though, using Airships sounds like a good idea Im just worrying how an Airship would behave if it was fired at with an 88mm naval gun?


But given that much of the allied naval effort would go into hunting I-400s with V-1s, could the Kriegsmarine possibly return to the sea? Im thinking a Tirpitz, Gneisenau, Hindenburg, some Hippers and Destroyers? This force could protect the I-400s too! And the bombers on the Hindenburg could launch V-1s?

[Joe C-P]

By the time we're discussing, Tirpitz had been bombed, Gneisenau a disassembled wreck, and all the other heavy units gone. And the USN and RN had more than enough ships, including escort carriers, to hunt down any German surface units out in the Atlantic.
I think you meant the Graf Zeppelin, the nearly-completed carrier. It would have been a one-way mission by the time she was ready for sea, again given Allied naval superiority in the Atlantic. The U-boats had the advantage of stealth, being able to hide underwater, whereas surface ships can't, and can be found by radar.
Also by that time, the USN was becoming very good at sinking enemy ships with aircraft, having learned against the Japanese, so a little fleet of one light carrier, one BB, maybe some CLs and DDs would have been no match.

Not to say Hitler wouldn't have ordered it! A breakout into the Atlantic of a repaired Tirpitz, Graf Zeppelin, a patched-together Gneisenau, and whatever other surface ships could join them, rather like the futile land assault that resulted in the Battle of the Bulge. They'd cause some panic, divert resources, and sink a number of Allied vessels, maybe even some capital units, before being sunk. Maybe one or two units even make it down to, say, Argentina, to be repaired and readied to for another run...

[proditor]

I've got an I-400 sitting around waiting to be finished, but I'm still trying to figure out if you can fold the wings on one of Heineman's Hot Rods enough to cram three in GUPPYied sail...

If so, it's going to look kinda neat. 

[GTX]

<snip>
Could a V-1 possibly be launched from underwater in any way? We need ideas for this!
<snip>

Launching a V-1 from underwater would be problematic as it was jet powered. Perhaps if it had RATO, but there would be other issues to resolve as well. I think the U.S. Navy did some tests with subs carrying jet-powered missiles, but they were stowed on on-deck containers and the sub had to surface to deploy them.

Still, it's an interesting scenario. I keep thinking of the U.S. Navy sub-hunting blimps. Supposedly, no ships were ever sunk in a W.W. II convoy that had blimp escort. I can see patrol dirigibles instead that are on station for days at a time, armed with rockets and airship based aircraft to incercept the German V weapons.

Brian da Basher

^^^^
BdB with (very) 1920s ideas, i wonder why...

Honestly though, using Airships sounds like a good idea Im just worrying how an Airship would behave if it was fired at with an 88mm naval gun?


But given that much of the allied naval effort would go into hunting I-400s with V-1s, could the Kriegsmarine possibly return to the sea? Im thinking a Tirpitz, Gneisenau, Hindenburg, some Hippers and Destroyers? This force could protect the I-400s too! And the bombers on the Hindenburg could launch V-1s?

Actually, it's not so much '20s as real history that BdB was referring to - see here: http://battleblimps.com/ops.html

Regards,

Greg