• ISR Tour: V-2

  • Jul 30 2015
  • Length: Less than 1 minute
  • Podcast

ISR Tour: V-2

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  • Summary

  • When intelligence indicated that the Germans planned to deploy a ballistic missile against England, one of Churchill’s scientific advisors claimed it to be impossible since, in his expert opinion, it required solid propellant. According to Lord Cherwell, that made the missile too huge to hide, thus it was false intelligence. When the V-2s began falling in September 1944, an angry Churchill stated, “We have been caught napping!”27 In that situation, one individual with a wrong idea created doubt in many of the analysts that held true information. That made them hesitant to share accurate data until absolute proof of its significance existed. Because of the accurate intelligence, the British did have a good idea about the characteristics of the missile before the first attack. The examination of a V-2 that crashed in Sweden, reconnaissance photos, a dummy missile and documents taken in Normandy and Enigma messages all led to a basic understanding of what they faced. The V-2 took about an hour to erect, fuel and launch. It flew about 200 miles in under four minutes. After reaching an altitude of 60 miles, it came in at nearly Mach 3, dug 30 feet into the ground and detonated its one ton warhead. There were two explosions in a V-2 strike: the first was impact, the second was the sonic boom. The mobile Meillerwagen transporter-erector made the system very difficult to find and destroy before launch.
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