Wunderwaffen

Home Page . Just after the fall of the Third Reich the international press began to introduce more or less fantastic stories about alleged "wonder secret weapons" developed by the Nazi scientists during the last months of WWII. The early achievements got by the primitive jets, rockets and missiles, as well as the discovery of huge amounts of prototypes and, above all, blueprints, stimulated the birth and the circulation of wild stories about amazing "wonder weapons". The technological breakthroughs got by the Nazis, and their evil aura, created a sort of "fascination" and wishful thinking about the subject of the German secret weapons. It was a popular subject for most of the international press (as well as the never-ending controversy of Hitler's death or survival) in the second half of the forties and many tabloids and popular weeklies emphasized rumours and uncontrolled news about fantastic German wonder weapons. To a certain extent the German leadership is responsible for encouraging the Allies to make exaggerated claims about German technological prowess. The constant talk of wonder weapons that would turn the tide of war helped maintain home front morale. On the other hand, such claims, coupled with the very real German innovations in weapons technology, including jet aircraft, rocket planes, cruise missiles, guided missiles, and many others, were bound to lead the Allies to believe that the latest word in fascist technology would have no limits and thus any claim became plausible. There also cases where the Nazi leadership, and specifically Adolf Hitler, would attempt to gain a psychological advantage by exaggerating German technological capabilities. For example, when the Germans invaded Belgium in May, 1940, they seized the fortress of Eben Emael in 24 hours, much to the astonishment of the Allies. In a speech, Hitler attributed the success to a special weapon or Angriffsmittel, whose character he would not divulge. His coy announcement immediately created apprehension among the Allies, as well as speculation about the nature of the wonder weapon: bombs containing liquid oxygen as well as a paralyzing and non-lethal nerve gas were both suggested as possibilities. In fact, the legendary Angriffsmittel turned out to be nothing more complicated than a shaped explosive charge, but that does not mean that these other contemporary speculations are valueless to the historian. On the contrary, because they represent almost pure projection, they tell us a great deal about the widely-held beliefs in German technological and scientific prowess as well as about then common concerns with specific types of weapons.   Hanna Reitch, helped to plan the brilliant German glider assault on the Belgian fort at Eben Emael in 1940.......   When the German high command planned the invasion of Holland and Belgium, it became evident that the formidable Albert Canal defense line would have to be breached in one bold stroke. The key to the defensive system was the fortress of Eben Emael, bristling with interlocking guns dominating all crossing sites on the canal and the River Maas, and considered one of the most impregnable fortifications in the world.   The Führer took a personal interest in the operation and called in Hanna Reitsch to lend her gliding expertise. She immediately suggested a silent assault on the fort with troop-carrying gliders. Hitler was delighted, and General Kurt Student, the father of the German airborne forces, confirmed the feasibility of the plan. In a four-pronged assault launched early on the morning of May 10, 1940, German glider, parachute, and ground troops seized two canal bridges and landed nine gliders on the grassy roof of the fort. The Belgian garrison was overwhelmed in one of the earliest and most successful airborne operations of the war. It was a stunning tactical victory for the Germans. Besides the gliders, a key to the success of this daring mission was a top-secret, hollow-charge device which when detonated, imploded. That is, the charge blew inward, not up and out. These 100-pound explosives were placed against the steel-reinforced, concrete cupolas and turrets housing observation posts and large-caliber cannon. The tremendous blasts, each accompanied by a miniature mushroom cloud, instantly neutralized weapons and men, even those directly down in the bowels of the fort, with an inverted, volcanic shower of molten metal and concrete shrapnel. The DFS 230 was used extensively in North Africa and was a vital component in the assault on Crete. The growing dominance of Allied air power highlighted the vulnerability of glider designs and the type suffered heavily. The DFS 230's last significant use was to deliver the group of hand picked commandos led by Otto Skorzeny against the mountain-top hotel that was used to hold Mussolini.   We have invisible aircraft, submarines, colossal tanks and cannon, unbelievably powerful rockets, and a bomb with a working that will astonish the whole world. The enemy knows this, and besieges and attempts to destroy us. But we will answer this destruction with a storm and that without unleashing a bacteriological war, for which we are also prepared.... All my words are the purest truth. That you will see. We still have things that need to be finished, and when they are finished, they will turn the tide.  ~Adolf Hitler, March 13, 1945, addressing officers of the German Ninth Army The wonder weapons are the hope. It is laughable and senseless for us to threaten at this moment, without a basis in reality for these threats. The well-known mass destruction bombs are nearly ready. In only a few days, with the utmost meticulous intelligence, Hitler will probably execute this fearful blow, because he will have full confidence.... It appear, that there are three bombs - and each has an astonishing operation. The construction of each unit is fearfully complex and of a lengthy time of completion. ~Benito Mussolini, "Political Testament,” April 22, 1945, cited in Edgar Meyer and Thomas Mehner, Hitler und die "Bombe: Welchen Stand erreichte die deutsche Atomforschung und Geheimwaffenentwicklung wirklich? (Rottenburg: Kopp Verlag, 2002)     The Washington Post February 18, 1957 Hitler's Arms Chief Tells of Plan to Bomb U.S. By Super-Plane, Says Reich Had Flying Saucers Reuters MUNICH, West Germany, Feb. 17 - Nazi Germany developed flying saucers that flew more than 1000 miles an hour and a bomber that could attack the United States and return without refueling, it was revealed today. These and other details of Hitler's efforts to achieve a "wonder weapon" that would turn the tide of World War II in its closing stages are revealed authoritatively in a book called "The German Weapons and Secret Weapons of World War II and Their Development," by Rudolf Lusar, who during the war was head of the Technical Arms Department of the German War Ministry. The flying saucers, designed by three German engineers and an Italian, were 138 feet in diameter. The first one flew February. 14, 1945, at Prague, and reached a height of more than 40,000 feet and a speed of 1250 miles per hour. Germany, the book says, was also building the Heinkel 343, a bomber capable of reaching the United States and returning without refuelling. Several of the planes were ready at the end of the war. The book also said it was originally planned to stage the first air raid on the United States in May, 1945. The Germans also were busy at work on the super V-Nine rocket, an outgrowth of the V-One and V-529 rockets which Germany aimed at England after the Allied landings in France in 1944. Had they been completed, the book said, the V-Nine's would have been able to carry a one-ton warhead across the Atlantic to the United States in 35 minutes. The rocket was actually to have been guided by a pilot, who would jump out at the last moment with a parachute, to be rescued. If possible, by a German Submarine at sea. Other weapons described in the book include the Viper, the world's first vertical take-off plane. Ten of these were ready for action at Kircheim Unter Tech in southwest Germany during 1945, but were never used against the enemy. The book also described an acoustic cannon, which was supposed to be able to kill men with sound waves at a range of 70 yards but which turned out to be a failure and was scrapped. But the Germans did turn out a wind cannon, which could shatter wooden boards at a distance of 200 yards with jets of compressed air, the book said. The wind cannon was ready for action at a bridge over the Elbe in 1945 but was never used. Another weapon was the soundless electric cannon, which was to have expelled a conventional shell by electricity but was still in the experimental stage at the end of the war. Lastly, the book described an automatic rifle that would fire around corners - to be used principally in house-to-house fighting. Lusar said the weapons was reported to be accurate up to 100 yards. In his book, Lusar said the weapons helped bolster Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Göbbels in his fanatical belief that a "wonder weapon" would turn the tide at the last minute.

Magic weapons are a compelling component of lore, from the dawn of civilization through the present. Magic weapons materialize in the real world in the form of wonder weapons. That the builders of wonder weapons sometimes imbue with their creations with war-winning powers is typically little more than wishful thinking. During World War II, influential leaders of the German war effort were heroic believers in the fate-reversing, if not war-winning, powers of a parade of wonder weapons, including jet fighters and bombers, super tanks, and inertially guided rockets; including SAMs. Many of these weapons came as rude shocks to the Allies and were very effective in the battlespace, but all ultimately failed to stem the tide of the Third Reich’s demise, because they were deployed in too few numbers. Some have pointed out that the engineering and manufacturing resources expended on these wonder weapons actually hastened Germany’s defeat. If the myths of our ancestors -- and even our fathers -- tell us anything, it is that you do not need a wonder weapon to kill the enemy. Mundane weapons will do just fine if you attend to the basics of strategy, tactics, logistics, maintenance, and sound planning. Hitler's Death Ray ---------------------------------------------------------------------------  The British government was spooked back in 1935. Not because of Hitler’s air force or his infantry. Because of his death ray.   Newspapers screamed that the Nazis might have a super-weapon that could incinerate living tissue or detonate a bomb at long distance. Flooded by letters begging for a response, the British Air Ministry asked prominent physicist Robert Watson-Watt to see if a radio-wave-based death ray was feasible.   Within ten days Watson-Watt reported that such a weapon was unlikely. But using radio waves to locate an approaching bomber was a real possibility. And that's how radar was born. MYSTERY RAYS “SEE” Enemy Aircraft Source: Modern Mechanix 10-1935     Robert Watson-Watt is given the credit for inventing the radar. In fact, this credit should go to the German engineer Christian Hulsmeyer who in 1904, using patented an early warning system for shipping. He, in turn, used a discovery by Heinrich Hertz who had discovered in 1888 that radio waves could be bounced off objects. In 1935, Robert Watson-Watt - a Scottish physicist - was asked by the Air Ministry to investigate the possibility of creating a "death-ray" weapon using radio waves. Watson-Watt was working at the National Physical Laboratory in Slough. Watson-Watt did not create a "death-ray" weapon but he did find that his radio transmitters could create an echo from an aeroplane that was over 200 miles away. This information would give the Royal Air Force an early warning of an attack by enemy fighters. By the time an enemy force was nearing the coastline, fighters would be airborne and ready to fight. The enemy would have lost the element of surprise. This invention by Watson-Watt was vital to the RAF during the Battle of Britain in 1940. In 1940, aided by John Randall and Henry Boot from Birmingham University, Robert Watson-Watt invented the cavity magnetron. This produced a compact source of short-wave radio waves and allowed Fighter Command of the RAF to detect incoming enemy planes from a much greater distance thus giving the pilots more time to organize themselves.   Death Rays   Late 1943 The terror of the Third Reich still reigns in Europe.  But the 6th Army has capitulated in Stalingrad, the  Africa Corp  has been smashed.  And in the west, the fear of an invasion is growing.  Hitler still believes in Final Victory and in bizarre miracle weapons. With bomb carrying, invisible to Radar, Flugkreiseln  [flying discs], he wants to reconquer the skies above Europe..  In a Skoda factory in Prague, Nazi designers are assembling a prototype.  The young engineer Andreas Epp had sent the Air Forces Generals a letter with design drawings.  But they won’t let him participate. In his memoirs, Epp ( 1997) reports:  I heard they were working in Prague at my flying disks.  I was furious, because they had swiped my   idea. Epp travels to Prague and sneaks into the secret development area.  There I saw a remarkable object directly above me.  It had no wings. How did the Nazi-UFOs fly?  The English flight historian Henry Stevens:  There were 15 prototypes produced under orders from the SS. They had propellers below and jet drives. 1944 The first tests with the UFOs were successful.  Hitler travels to his ally Mussolini.  Proudly he presents the Duce with his new miracle weapon.  Luigi Romersa (84), at that time Mussolini’s armament adviser, says:  ‘It was extraordinary.  The UFO was round, with a cockpit in the middle and a  Plexiglas cupola.  On all sides were jet drives.’ But the UFOs never appear over the battle fields of the war.  Construction mistakes, lack of materiel and the advancing allies prevent their introduction.  In the spring of 1945, the designers destroy the Skoda factory in Prague, their sketches and the prototypes, shortly before the Red Army invades.  Days later Germany capitulates. Hitler dream - the nightmare of Europe, is over.  Yet even today the rumors persist, the German designer Epp has constructed his UFO, developed at Skoda, at the behest of the CIA after the war. The V-3 Hochdruckpumpe (aka HDP, 'Fleissiges Lieschen'; 'Tausend Füssler') was a supergun designed by Saar Röchling during World War II The 140 m long cannon was capable of delivering a 140 kg shell over a 165 km range. Construction began of a bunker for the cannons in September 1943 at Mimoyecques, France. The site was damaged by Allied bombing before it could be put into operation and was finally occupied by the British at the end of August 1944. Two short-length (45 m long) V-3's were built at Antwerp and Luxembourg in support of the Ardennes offensive in December 1944. These were found to be unreliable and only a few shots were fired without known effect.   The V-3 used Baron von Pirquet's concept of sequentially electrically activated angled side chambers to provide additional acceleration of the shell during its passage up the barrel of the gun. This allowed a muzzle velocity of over 1500 m/s. The projectiles of the smooth bore weapon used fins for stability, as would be the case with the Canadian Martlet series 25 years later. Lyman and Haskell of the US Army had built an unsuccessful prototype of the concept in the 1880's. It was found that the expanding gases of the base charge moved well ahead of the shell and ignited the auxiliary charges before the shell passed them, actually slowing the shell down. But in 1941 an engineer Conders at Saar Roechling proposed the use of electrically-activated charges to eliminate the problem. A 20mm prototype was built at a test site at Misdroy (Miedzyzdroje), Poland and successfully demonstrated in April-May 1943. Hitler was persuaded that this could be a third terror weapon to supplement the V-1 and V-2. Overruling the German military, he ordered fifty of the guns to be built in concrete bunkers in France in order to bombard London. The first installation of five guns was to be built 165 km from London at Mimoyecques, near Calais, under Operation Wiese. The superguns were built at a fixed angle into a 30 m chalk hill, covered by a 5.2 m thick protective concrete dome. Each 140 m long cannon was capable of delivering a 150 mm / 140 kg shell on London. The angled lateral combustion chambers were spaced every 3.65 m along the bore. The modular weapon could have the lateral chamber sections replaced as they wore out (they would burst after only a few firings). Hundreds of slave workers began construction in September 1943 by sinking an initial tunnel 30 m below the hill's surface into the chalk. French Resistance informed the Allies of the new effort almost immediately. Bombing raids to destroy the site began two months later. However the bunker proved impervious to Allied bombs, even 5400 kg Tallboy penetrator weapons. The weapons were nearing completion when, on 6 July 1944, three Tallboys happened to make it though the gun shaft openings. They penetrated 30 m to the first level of the complex and exploded, killing dozens of workers. Work on the complex stopped at this point. The Allies were unaware of this success and searched for new methods to destroy Mimoyecques and other German bunker sites. Under Project Aphrodite (USAAF) and Operation Anvil (USN) radio-controlled, television-guided B-17 or PB4Y (B-24) bombers crammed with ten tonnes of explosives were to be flown by a crew near to the target. The pilot and co-pilot would then bail out while an accompanying aircraft guided the missile to a precision strike. This approach was abandoned in August 1944 after a total lack of success and several crew fatalities (including Joseph P Kennedy, Jr, elder brother of the future president). By the end of August the Germans completely abandoned the complex in the face of the advancing British forces. Two short-length (45 m long) V-3's were built at Antwerp and Luxembourg in support of the Ardennes offensive in December 1944. These were found to be unreliable and only a few shots were fired without known effect. The British dynamited the Mimoyecques complex on 9 May 1945.    History of Chemical & Biological Warfare History of German Rocketry in World War II   Wonder weapons is the term given to very advanced weaponry whose design, production or deployment in the field of battle is impractical or ill-timed. Such weapons are radical departures or improvements of the arms or machinery used at the time and are often intended to turn the tide of a current conflict. These weapons are either never completed, or are introduced near the end of hostilities in limited capacity so the expectations far exceed the results.   The term is a calque of the German term, "Wunderwaffe" (pl. Wunderwaffen), which was coined during WWII. Amongst Germans, it was abbreviated into "Wuwa"  which belittled these projects.   The secrecy surrounding the development of new weapons sometimes conflicts with the weapon developers’ hype of new products resulting in common advancements being mislabelled as Wonder weapons.   The term is often used to describe weapons that were being developed in Nazi Germany just prior to the end of the war, such as the Wasserfall missile, the Messerschmitt Me 262 and the failed German atomic bomb project led by Werner Heisenberg.   Wasserfall (Waterfall) was a radio-controlled, supersonic guided missile for anti-aircraft purpose. It was designed to meet the demand for a missile to intercept hostile aircraft and to fly at 19,812m at 880km/h with ranges up to 48km. This specification was highly advanced for the 1940s and was not achieved by any major combat aircraft in the war. The intention was to position batteries of these missiles to defend population centers; about 200 batteries would be needed to cover Germany. Work and research were started at the Peenemünde Research Station in 1942, and the design borrowed many concepts from the A-4 missile. The first launching tests took place across the Baltic in February 1944, and an altitude of 7,010m was reached by the rocket. Seven more prototypes were made and fired by July 1944. Research and development were terminated in February 1945. Some sources suggest that several of the trial missiles were actually deployed against Allied aircraft, but there is no evidence to support this claim. The missile weighed 3,545 kg at takeoff, and contained a 306kg warhead of high explosive armed with a proximity fuze. Wasserfall would have been a powerful and fearsome addition to Germany's air defenses if only more were produced on time.     Many wonder weapons of the past become the conventional weapons of later conflicts when fully developed--this has happened to dreadnoughts, tanks, long-range missiles, and might be beginning to happen to tactical nuclear weapons. More recently, offensive developments in electromagnetism with lasers, microwave, or radio frequency radiation are often termed wonder weapons.   The cold war helped to spread such rumours, as some of those terrific weapons were said to have been captured by the Russians, the new enemy. This could be a terrible threat against the Western countries and a good argument to justify the need for attention and new resources for the military. Rumours were made easier and "more credible" by the veil of secrecy of any Soviet activity and the paucity of verifiable sources.   The enthusiasts of these legendary "weapons" say most but all of the documents and blueprints about them went lost because destroyed by the Germans at the end of the war or seized by the Allied and then never disclosed. SS General Hans Kammler took over the Nazi weapons program and used slave labor to construct underground factories etc. for such things as, the Me262 jet fighter, the V1 and V2 rockets, the Nazi Atom bomb, the Sonic cannon, and other stuff of legends like German flying saucers. All reference to Kammler was struck from any official Nuremberg documents. It is alleged that Kammler struck a deal with US General George Patton to turn over the secrets to the Americans in return for his “disappearance.”     Actually there were hundreds of "real" projects (many of them really odd and with no reasonable chance of success) for new fighters, bombers, and missiles. Additionally there were also many intriguing projects, prototypes or even small-scale productions of advanced weaponry, still quite obscure. Early  Hitler had shown a shrewd grasp of tactical military concepts and was deeply involved in the use of massed armor, innovative weapons, and tank design. As the war progressed, he refused to consider new weapons and innovations his scientists and engineers were developing, tools that might have made a difference to the final outcome. His neglect of, or interference with, German research and development of advanced tech­nology such as jet airplanes, heat-seeking rockets, sound-seeking torpedoes, ground-to-air missiles, and radar all hampered the German war effort. In 1940 Hitler's banned weapons programs which could not be completed within a year. This decision by the Führer put back the development of key weapon systems so that by the time they were finally operationional  they had minimal impact on the war.Perhaps his greatest failing, from a strategic military standpoint, was his de­cision to halt funding for Germany's atomic weapons program because he considered nuclear research "Jew­ish physics."   I have seen enough of their designs and production plans to realize that if they had managed to prolong the war some months longer, we would have been confronted with a set of entirely new and deadly developments in air warface. ~Sir Roy Feddon, chief of the technical mission to Germany for the Ministry for Aircraft Production in 1945 from "The Daily Telegraph",  October 1, 1945 The Germans were preparing rocket surprises for the whole world in general and England in particular which would have, it is believed, changed the course of the war if the invasion had been postponed for so short a time as half a year. ~Lt. Col. Donald Leander Putt, Dep. Cmmd. Gen., AAF Intelligence, Air Technical Services Command To the German scientists, the V-2 was just a toy. The V-1, V-2 and Me 262 certainly high technology for the British and Americans, but compared with the Sänger bomber, the A9/A10 rocket (both ready or almost ready in 1945) or the  flying disks, they were only toys. ~Lt. Col. John A. Keck, June 28, 1945 Mittelwerk was the name given to the underground factories and facilities located underneath the Kohnstein Mountain near Nordhausen in central Germany. Most of the factory's workers were imprisoned in the Dora concentration camp, that was located southwest of Kohnstein. The underground factory is best known for being the production facility of the infamous V-2 rocket. Germany's rocket program was formerly located at Peenemünde, north-Germany, but following the massive allied air assault on the facility in August 1943, the decission was taken to move the V-2 program to the underground facilities of Kohnstein mountain. General Hans Kammler was put in charge of Mittelwerk, as the underground factory was named. Arthur Rudolph had been in charge of the Peenemünde assembly, but the V-rocket program was the creation of mainly Wernher von Braun. The first of this range was the Fieseler Fi 103 unpiloted flying bomb, or the V-1. The weapon was grossly inaccurate and indiscriminate. London was always its intended target but in May 1943 preliminary discussions were held on the feasibility of firing the V-1 from a submarine such as the large Type XIV replenishment U-boat. The V-2 was the A-4 giant rocket 14 metres in length, 1.6 metres at the widest point of the fuselage and 3.5 metres across the tail assembly. Maximum altitude of 80 kilometres and the range was up to 305 kilometres. During powered flight the projectile was remote-controlled from the ground or regulated by an onboard gyro-compass. Late in the war, the rocket had a destructive effect on the city of London, its impact being equivalent to fifty 100-ton steam locomotives hitting the ground simultaneously at 70 mph. Tests with firing a V-2 from an underwater submarine were also carried out. Then there was the Uraniumbombe. This laboratory-produced nuclear explosive was to be the warhead in the large V-2 or A9/A10 rockets. The V-2 had a range of 200 miles while the A9/A10 could hit New York. There was no rocket of the same species for the inter-mediate ranges and this omission was fatal. By December 1944 when the Uraniumbombe was ready for use in numbers for the definitive V-2 campaign, the Low Countries and France had been lost and now the range was too long.   The A9/A/10 series was not yet in mass production, the project having only been resurrected in December 1944. A test launch seems to have been carried through near Ohrdruf on March 16, 1945. At least four witnesses gave evidence that an "Amerika" rocket was launched succesfully from Polte II MUNA Rudisleben (an underground munitions factory site). SECRET WEAPONS (April 1944) Source: Mechanix Illustrated   This article is supposedly about German secret weapons, but really is a propaganda piece expounding on the superiority of American arms and engineering: So far the Germans haven’t come through with anything approaching the new British-American jet-driven plane, which is already in production.   The Germans already had Me-262’s in the field at this point. The only American jet to be deployed in the war was the P-80 and by the end of hostilities in Europe, a grand total of 4 had made it to Europe.

 

AN INVENTORY OF NAZI SECRET WEAPONS AND THEIR HISTORICAL PROBLEMATIC     Sturmtigers of Sturmmörser Company 1002, commanded by Lieutenant Zippel, take on ammunition in preparation for the battle to come in the Reichswald, February 1945.  These fearsome monster 38cm rocket projectors could penetrate up to 2.5m of reinforced concrete. Luckily for the Allies only 18 were completed by the War's end.   There is a strangeness, if not downright implausibility, to military operations and statements of both sides during the last days of WW II. Consider the following Inventory of High Strangeness: 1.  Hitler, during a conference with his generals in the Bunker in 1945, made the wild pronouncement, when questioned by one of them as to why the strongest and best formations left to the Wehrmacht were deployed, not in defense of Berlin, but of Prague, that Prague was the key to winning the war. Allied military intelligence also confirmed that the strongest SS panzer formations were deployed in the vicinity of Prague, an order of battle that, on the plain face of things, made no military sense to them, other than, as the Allies' own estimates of the situation concluded, that Berlin had ceased to be an important economic and military target. 2.  General Patton's US Third Army literally raced through Bavaria into Bohemia, making a beeline for the famous Skoda armaments works at Pilsen, all but blown off the map by Allied bombing raids. 3.  Hitler boasted that Germany would deploy horrendous new weapons that would snatch victory from defeat at "five minutes past midnight." 4. The Germans were nearing completion of an enormous airfield in Norway. 5.   U-boats departed Germany with secret cargoes, some bound for Japan, others to the South Atlantic, right up to the end of the war. One of these, the U-234, was carrying plans for rockets, jet aircraft, scientists and engineers, and two Japanese military officers, was bound for Japan. When captured by the Americans, the U-boat's torpedo tubes were discovered to have been full of metal cylinders that, according to some reports, were lined with gold. Gold lining has but one purpose: to protect from radiation of refined uranium, yet Germany, so the allied legend goes, was nowhere near a functioning nuclear reactor, and therefore, nowhere near enough stockpiling of weapons-grade uranium. Other U-boats surrendered themselves to Argentinean authorities three months after the war, and their captains steadfastly refused to reveal their cargoes or whereabouts for the three months following the German surrender. 6. With respect to the probable use of the cylinders in U-234 to transport refined uranium, it is worth noting that as late as March 1945, American engineers in the Manhattan project complained that their stocks of U-235 were about half the necessary critical mass for a bomb, after three years of intensive stockpiling and research. So another nasty question for standard looms: where did the other half come from? 7.  Curiously, approximately a week before the German surrender, a lone Luftwaffe Ju-390 flew from Norway to within 12 miles of New York City, and then back to Norway, a non-stop flight of over 32 hours. 8.  Equally curious is the fact that the American uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima was never tested. We are implicitly asked to believe the post-war histories that the Americans dropped their one and only supply of an uranium bomb on Hiroshima without having first tested it, an exercise of military folly and incompetence unthinkable at that stage of the war. What is the bomb had not exploded, and the Japanese, eagerly at work on their own A-bomb (and according to one version, within days of testing their own version of it successfully) recovered it? 9.   Finally, and perhaps most importantly, what does one make, when all is said and done, of the sudden inability of Heisenberg, Hartek, Diebner, Gerlach, Hahn and others to produce the bomb, especially since Heisenberg was able, within a week of the news of Hiroshima, to come up with an essentially correct estimate of the critical mass of a uranium bomb and the basic design of the bomb itself?   There have been a host of books about Nazi secret weapons, detailing what is an incredible inventory of prototypical and futuristic weapons, from heat-seeking, wire-guided, radio guided, and even television-guided missiles, to tanks so gigantic that they are little more than impractical mobile pillboxes, to claims of the genuinely fantastic: flying discoid aircraft, or flying saucers, to fuel-air bombs, "death rays", particle beams, electromagnetic pulse weapons, "wind" cannon, and so on. And beyond these, there were even more incredible long-range paper studies of nuclear powered aircraft and "space shuttles", gigantic solar mirrors in orbit to turn enemy cities and regions to toast, and a host of other paper projects almost too incredible to imagine. Usually dismissed derisively, these claims persisted in the literature, long after Adolf Hitler himself personally mentioned them, in what is usually seen as the demented ravings of a known madman: We have invisible aircraft, submarines, colossal tanks and cannon, unbelievably powerful rockets, and a bomb with a working that will astonish the whole world. The enemy knows this, and besieges and attempts to destroy us. But we will answer this destruction with a storm and that without unleashing a bacteriological war, for which we are also prepared.... All my words are the purest truth. That you will see! ~Mayer and Mehner, Das Geheimnis, the quotation was overheard by Italian officer Luigi Romersa Hitler's alleged claims here could easily be dismissed, as well as those of the postwar neo-Nazi sympathizers who first broke the story of Nazi flying saucers, as the farthest thing from "the purest truth." Dealing with a known sociopath and genocidal maniac such as Hitler and his followers, it became easy to dismiss such claims especially when there was no corroborating evidence forthcoming. Then Renato Vesco's Intercept UFO was published in the 1960 later republished, and then later republished again with additional material by David Hatcher Childress under the title Man Made UFOs 1944-1994: Fifty Years of Suppression. Vesco, who unlike the neo-Nazi sympathizers who emerged after the war to first tell the story in the West German press provided a host of specifics, such as the names, types of weapons and laboratories and companies conducting the research on these advanced technologies. But again, as Nick Cook was to discover, the trail seemed to lead back to the same few sources, and it became a story impossible to corroborate. [Nick Cook, The Hunt for Zero Point]. Vesco had mentioned the British Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee (BIOS) reports as substantiation for his claims, but those were, at that time, mostly inaccessible, and in addition, "researchers had been through all the available...BIOS files with a fine-tooth comb and had found nothing..." Vesco couched his account of alleged Nazi "Fireballs" (the so-called Foo Fighters seen at the end of the war), within a tapestry of references to these other advanced missile projects undertaken by the Third Reich. But as researcher Kevin McClure put the case, Vesco's "technical" descriptions of the alleged Nazi devices behind the Foo Fighters sightings were based on "pseudo-technical descriptions" that originated "absolutely and only with Vesco." [Kevin McClure, The Nazi UFO Mythos,  "Renato Vesco, Feuerball and Kugelblitz"] Add to this Vesco's claims for " fuel-air bombs" and the story – Vesco's detailed references to scientists, companies and laboratories notwithstanding - became all too easy to dismiss once again. But then came the German reunification and the resulting declassification of documents by the American, British, and German governments. The truth is not merely incredible, but staggering, and it poses host of historical problematics, as we shall see.  A. The Missiles A Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee (CIOS) report, number XXXII-125, running to more than one hundred and fifty pages, details not only "an experimental model of an additional thrust unit which was to be fastened to either the A4(V-2) or the A-9 to give an additional range," ["German Guided Missile Research, Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee, G-2 Division, SHAEF (Rear), APO 413, XXXII-125] but also various "Amerika Rakete" projects for a guided missile with a range of 3,500 miles. These latter rockets, the report notes, with less than complete reassurance, "probably never progressed beyond the drawing board stage." But additionally, there was a V-3 weapon, "a larger version of the V1 with an incendiary warhead instead of the (high explosive) normally used. Very little information is available concerning V3 control systems." What, indeed, was this "incendiary warhead"? A thermite bomb? A fuel-air bomb? An actual atom bomb? The report is unclear. As if this were not enough, a lengthy section of the report concerns a whole range of guided missiles being developed under the direction of Dr. Wagner for the Henschel firm. These included the HS-293-B, a rocket power glider with a wire guidance system, the HS-294-A rocket powered glider "with torpedo" that included a "special device for blowing off fuselage rear section and wings as soon as body touches water surface, fuselage front section then cruising as torpedo under water," a small quantity of which were built for experimentation between 1941 and 1943!  click pic A lengthy section of the report, from page 139 to almost the end of the report, concerned the development of miniaturized television camera guidance systems for various missiles, including the well-known anti-aircraft rocket, the "Wasserfall"(Waterfall), Many of these tests failed, but by the war's end, a successful test of the television-guided "Tonne" missile was conducted by German scientists for the Allies in Berlin, with the target being a photograph of a little girl's face. The test was successful, much to the impressed, and doubtless shocked, Allied observers. [William Uricchio, "Envisioning the Audience: Perceptions of Early German Television's Audiences, 1935-1944]  To this astounding inventory, one may add radio-controlled surface to air missiles - one of which sank the Italian battleship Roma on its way to surrender to the Allies - infrared heat seeking air-to-air and surface to air missiles, wire guided missiles and torpedoes, biological and chemical warheads for the V-l and V-2, and possible fuel-air and atomic warheads as well. [Q.v. Friedrich Georg, Hitlers Siegeswaffen, Band 1] In addition, the Heinkel and Messerschmitt companies were undertaking modifications of their He-177 and Me 264 heavy bombers to carry atom bombs. Where were these modifications being made?  In Prague. B. Prototypical Stealth (Radar Absorbent) Materials But Hitler's boast overheard by Luigi Romersa included more than just a prototypes for the "smart" weapons that would become such staples of the American military for decades to come. It also included a claim to possess invisible aircraft and submarines. Surely this, at least, was fantasy? Not so. There exists a British Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee (BIOS) report entitled "Production and Further Investigation of Wesch Anti-Radar Material, CIOS Black List Item 1 RADAR, BIOS Target No. 1/549," whose significance is rather obvious from its title. The objective of this team was to acquire some 500 feet of this material for secret testing by the British Admiralty. ["Production and farther Investigation of Wesch Anti-Radar Material," British Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee 1/549, Report 132]  The report details the production of various RAM materials (Radar Absorbent Material) by the Germans, via techniques that involved shredding and heating rubber, and combining zinc oxide, finely ground iron powder (the powder was ground into micro-spheres), which was all then pressed into sheets, and then transferred to press moulds, trimmed and heated under small pressure. This material was actually used on the hulls of some late Type XXI U-Boats, as well as on U-boat Schnorkel devices, to scatter Allied radar to return distorted or indeed, no radar signals. Yet another type of RAM technology was being studied by the Germans for its effects on electromagnetic wave propagation. The report on this material is cited in full here: Zeulenroda: Measurements were made on materials for absorbing electromagnetic radiation. One of these materials consisted of spiral steel shavings imbedded in paraffin, which was named EISENSPÄNE. Another material tested was manufactured by I.G. Farben and was called MOLTOPREN. No papers were available on this work but the results were given from memory as shown in appendix B. The purpose of this work was for the concealment of submarines. Submarine stealth was not the only thing the Nazis were after: A large price was offered by the German Government for the development of 'Schwarzflugzeug' /Black airplane a non-reflecting material for use on aircraft. Type XXI XXI U-boats, also known as "Elektroboote", were the first submarines designed to operate entirely submerged, rather than as surface ships that could submerge as a temporary means to escape detection or launch an attack. German Type XXI U-Boat: World's first actual submarine The Type XXIs had much better facilities than previous classes, with a freezer for foodstuffs and minor conveniences for the 57-man crew such as a shower and wash basin. It was much quieter, and enjoyed a hydraulic torpedo reload system that allowed all of its six torpedo tubes, which were in the bow, to be reloaded faster than a Type VIIC could reload a single tube. The Type XXI could fire 18 torpedoes in under 20 minutes. The total war load was 23 torpedoes, or 17 torpedoes and 12 sea mines. Greatly increased battery capacity, roughly three times that of a Type VIIC, gave these boats enormous underwater range. They could travel submerged at about five knots (9 km/h) for two or three days before recharging the batteries, which took less than five hours on the radar-invisible Schnorkel.   Because of its streamlined hull design, the Type XXI could travel faster underwater than on the surface, albeit only for a limited amount of time. This, combined with longer dive times at reduced speeds, made them much harder to chase and destroy by ASW surface ships. It also gave the boat a 'sprint ability' when positioning the boat for a line-of-sight torpedo attack. Older boats had to surface in order to sprint into position. This often gave the boat away, especially after aircraft became available for convoy escort.   Between 1943 and 1945, 118 boats of this type were built by Blohm & Voss of Hamburg, AG Weser of Bremen, and F. Schichau of Danzig. The boats were built faster than earlier types as the hull was constructed from 8 pre-prepared sections which were assembled after being transported from the various factories they were made in. However, Allied mythology says only one, U-2511, had begun a combat patrol by the end of World War II. This was in part a result of the lengthened training process, as the crews had to be trained to operate the new, sophisticated technology.  Most boats were scrapped or scuttled after the war, but eight were taken by the Allies for evaluation and trials. The United States received U-2513 and U-3008, which were commissioned into the United States Navy. U-3017 was commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS-N41, and U-2518 became French submarine Roland Morillot. U-3515, U-2529, U-3035, and U-3041 were commissioned into the Soviet Navy as B-27, B-28, B-29, and B-30 respectively. Those boats influenced new Soviet submarine classes known by the NATO reporting names Zulu and Whiskey, although the Whiskey class was smaller and less sophisticated.   A ninth XXI also saw service after the war: U-2540, which had been scuttled at the end of the war, was raised in 1957 to become the research vessel Wilhelm Bauer of the Bundesmarine. It is the only XXI remaining.   This research may have paid unexpected dividends to the German secret weapons research project. In any case, the existence of actual "protostealth" Schnorkel devices on late war German U-boats attests to the success of some of these experiments.   This report also corroborates yet another allegation, often derisorily dismissed by mainstream researchers, that in May of 1945, a small flotilla of the new Type XXI U-boats, with their revolutionary hydrogen peroxide underwater "turbine" propulsion allowing extraordinary undersea cruising speeds, met, and annihilated, a flotilla of British destroyers. [Q.v. Henry Stevens, The Last Battalion (German Research Project)]. The allegations included the German use of new types of wire-guided, and magnetic proximity torpedoes.   At least one corroboration of this strange encounter occurs in the BIOS report:   Vierling has heard of electrical homing devices for torpedoes and their firing by a proximity effect. Torpedoes used magnetic fields varying at about 500 cycles per sec. Torpedoes were built by AEG in Berlin. Some work was done also at Gdynia. These torpedoes were reported to have sunk 12 Destroyers in one engagement in Arctic waters. ~"Production and further Investigation of Wesch Anti-Radar Material," British Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee 1/549, Report 132].   C. Computers   The Allies, as is known, perfected early digital computing machines during the war, which machines were instrumental in breaking the "unbreakable" German Enigma machine's ciphers, but also of incalculable value in assisting the Manhattan Project engineers with difficult calculations needed for the atom bomb. In some rarely encountered but sophisticated versions of the Allied Legend, this constitutes another reason for the German failure to develop truly long range rockets and, of course, the atom bomb. But here too, the declassified reality is quite at odds with the postwar spin. A computing machine was used at Göttingen for researches in airplane stability and ballistics. Machines could solve equations mentioned in two or three minutes with errors less than 3%. Only one such machine has been made. It uses ordinary vacuum tubes, a multiplying principle and two cathode ray rubes, one of which has a spiral scan. One tube draws the curve which is the solution and the other indicates the complex roots of the solution. The Göttingen computer, however, appears not to have been the only computer designed and built in the Third Reich. Indeed, since the reunification, reports and actual photographs have surfaced of an enormous, "Eniac" sized computer built by none other than the Deutsche Reichspost by Konrad Zuse.    The question is, why would the postal service need such an enormous, and expensive, computer?   One reason is such a computer would have been invaluable to the research that Baron Manfred von Ardenne and Dr. Fritz Houtermans were conducting for the Reichspost on the atom bomb, and for running the difficult calculations of neutron free path and cross sections that required. D. The "Superbombs" Before the curtain of silence and spin came down after the war, a number of small articles appeared in the Allied press about the actual state of German atom bomb research. One of these was an article that appeared in the Evening Standard on August 7, 1945, one day after the Little Boy atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. It is worth citing this article in full: GERMANS TIMED ATOM BOMB FOR OCTOBER The Germans had an atom bomb which would have been ready by October. A colossal blast effect was claimed for the German bomb. It was said it would wipe out everything inside a radius of six miles, said B.U.P. to-day. The German atomic plans were uncovered four months ago, when an Allied search party walked into a small silk factory at Celle, north of Hanover. A laboratory of two rooms was buried away in the heart of the factory. A famous research scientist was still at work. He was flown to Britain the same day. This man, with others, had been working on the atom bomb for months. The Nazi Government poured out money on it. Apparently they did not expect immediate results. ~Mayer and Mehner, Hitler und die Bombe There are a number of disquieting things about this article. First, one gains the impression from the report that the "laboratory" was not even known to the Allies until the factory was occupied. Second, there is already evidence of a "spin" in the report, as the German program is understood to have been underway for only a few "months." But the final and most unusual thing is that its blast effects, some 6 miles radius, or 12 miles in diameter, is far beyond the blast damage radius of even a large atom bomb, much less a fuel air bomb. The only known weapon with this extraordinarily sized blast radius is a fully-fledged hydrogen bomb.  Professor Lachner of Vienna maintained that the German atom bombs were deliberately intended by the Nazis to be used as the detonators for hydrogen bombs. But was there sufficient basic theory for the Germans to have thought of the hydrogen bomb at that early stage? It should be recalled that Dr. Edward Teller actually first thought of, and proposed to the Allies, the hydrogen bomb in 1944. 1. The "Molecular" Bomb: The Hydrogen Bomb? The idea of a "Superbomb" was first patented prior to World War Two in Austria, and a modification of the idea was patented in Germany in 1943. [German patent 905.847, March 16, 1943, cited in Mayer and Mehner, Hitler und die Bombe] Its inventor, Dr. Karl Nowak, explained the reason for his invention as being to create a superbomb without the radioactive fallout effects that were evident from atomic and thermonuclear explosions! In other words, the Nazis were already looking past the thermonuclear age toward the creation of second and third generation weapons systems that would give the same offensive and strategic "punch" but without the side effects! In theory, the bomb is workable, but was way beyond the technological capabilities of Germany, or any other power, in that time period. Basically, the idea was to create a state of matter in which, through ultra-low temperatures approaching absolute zero, matter would be super-compressed. The idea was then to detonate this material, subjecting it to sudden stress and heat, to create a sudden and massive expansion and explosion, and therewith, an enormous, H-bomb sized blast. Thus, there may have been a basis in actual German secret research for the incredible claim of the Japanese military attaché in Stockholm's 1943 report to Tokyo that the Germans were investigating the properties of super-dense matter for weaponization.   2. The Fuel-Air Bomb At the "small end" of the "bombs of mass destruction scale," however, there are equally baffling, and problematical, assertions regarding Nazi research into the fuel-air bomb, the only known conventional explosive device with enough power to produce the blast and heat effects of a small "tactical" nuclear weapon. It goes without saying that today's "tactical nuke" would have been World War Two's strategic weapon. Once again, the first allegations of this type of bomb did not come with Gulf War One in the early 1990s, but with Renato Vesco. And his claims there, as elsewhere, were quietly ignored. But once again, declassification has verified his assertions, and to an extraordinary degree:      Liquid Air bomb As the research on the atomic bomb under Graf von Ardenne and others was not proceeding as rapidly as had been hoped in 1944, it was decided to proceed with the development of a liquid air bomb. Experiments using ordinary powdered coal were not at all successful, but extremely good results were obtained from a mixture consisting of 60% finely powdered dry brown coal and 40% liquid air. The technical man responsible for this work was Dr. Zippelmeier. The first trial was made on the Doberitz grounds near Berlin using a charge of about 8 kg of powder in a thin tin plate container. The liquid air was poured on to the powder, and the two were mixed together with a long wooden stirrer.   Kreutzfeld did this himself, and was present at the ensuing test. In an area of radius 500 to 600 meters trees, etc. were all completely destroyed. Thereafter the explosion started to rise and only the tops of the trees were affected, although the intensive explosion covered an area 2 km. in radius. Zippelmeier then had the idea that a better effect might be obtained it the powder was spread out in the form of a cloud before the explosion. Trials were made with a paper container impregnated with some waxy substance. A metal cylinder was attached to the lower end of this container and hit the ground first, dispersing the powder. After a short time interval of the order of 1/4 second a small charge in the metal cylinder exploded and ignited the dark funnel shaped dust - liquid air cloud. The bombs had to be filled immediately prior to the departure of the aircraft. Bombs with charges of 25 and 50 kg. of powder were dropped on the Starbergersee, and photographs of the explosion were taken. Standartenführer Klumm kept a photograph of the result and showed it to Brandt (Himmler's personal adviser). The intensive explosion covered an area 4 to 4.5 km radius, and the explosion was still felt on a radius 12.5 km. When the bomb was dropped on an airfield, much destruction was caused 12 km away, and all the trees on a hillside 5 to 6 km away were flat. On a radius of 12.5 km. only the tops of the trees were destroyed. [British Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee, "Information Obtained from Targets of Opportunity in the Sonthofen Area," BIOS Target numbers C 28/8.211, C 25/549, C 6/137, C 30/ 338, C 4/268, C 22/2182, C 21/601].   Several important considerations are worth mentioning here. First, note the truly massive size and area of devastation caused by the relatively small fuel-air bomb, for the area covered by the second test is commensurate with the blast from a large atom bomb: 6 kilometers' radius. Second, note that Zippelmeier has had a similar insight to Dr. Nowak's "molecular bomb": compression of material and then rapid dispersion over an area prior to detonation. This is only one step short of a modern fuel air bomb with its chain molecules and electrical, instantaneous, rather than slower chemical, detonation. So in other words, regardless of whether or not the Nazis actually detonated atom bombs during World War Two, they did have a weapon of mass destruction as powerful as an atom bomb, and one that did not have radioactive side effects. Moreover, the weight of this bomb, while large, was within the capabilities of existing German bombers to carry. Finally, it is to be noted that this test took place under the direct auspices of the SS, Himmler's representative himself being present for it. And that would place the weapon firmly within the orbit of Kammler's "think tank." But possession of a fuel-air bomb by Nazi Germany now raises some important historical problematics.   E. The Historical Problematic German possession of even a prototype fuel-air bomb during World War Two causes a number of historical problems, and it is worth considering them and their implications. First, the test of such a device during the war would give lie to the contemporary "public" history of the fuel-air bomb, since they are only supposed to be the offshoot of American thermonuclear research and dating from the early 1980s. Doubtless, the modern fuel-air bomb is nothing like the early German prototype, with its chain molecules and simultaneous electrical detonation, it is a lighter, and much more powerful device. Second, if the technology existed for such enormous conventional bombs capable of wreaking strategic large scale destruction on the order of small atom bombs, why were untold billions spent on much more expensive atomic and thermonuclear bombs, whose side-effects included deadly radioactivity, and why was the charade continued for so long? The existence of such weapons indicates that at some very profound, and little appreciated, level, the Cold War was a partial sham. Third, the basic idea for such a weapon had, in fact, been explored by Austria (prior to its annexation by Germany), and then subsequently both by Italy and Germany in the years immediately prior to the war. The idea is simple, and the effects obvious. So why did it take this long to obtain the weapon? Or is there a history that has not yet come to light? Given the allegations of the German use of some weapon of extraordinary strategic explosive power on the Eastern Front, it seems likely that some similar type of weapon was already in use. The Zippelmeier test may thus only have been a test, not of the concept itself, but of how large of a weapon could actually be made. The results, as have been seen, were probably beyond even the Nazis' wildest destructive dreams. But what do all these fantastic projects indicate about the nature of German secret weapons research? We may draw a number of conclusions from the evidence presented thus far, and in so doing, speculatively reconstruct the "mission briefing" of the secret weapons think tank being run by Kammler's SS Sonderkommando: (1) Overlapping technologies were to be developed that could be employed in across a wide variety of various weapons systems (Stealth and RAM technology, etc); (2) Every available method for the creation of prototypical "smart weapons" was to be pursed (wire, radio, and television-guidance systems), i.e., German technological and engineering competence were to be exploited to the maximum; (3) This technological competence was to be pursued in (then) unconventional ways and combinations to create not only new weapons, but a new doctrine of warfare; (4) The first generation of these weapons were then to be extrapolated upon, and second and third generation technology trees and long range goals mapped out; [5] The ultimate quest was for the attainment of weapons of mass destruction beyond the acquisition of atomic and thermonuclear weapons; (6) Post-nuclear systems were then to be developed ideally, and initial research on those systems undertaken; and finally,  (7) Every known theoretical principle of physics was to be pondered and extrapolations for weaponization theorized, and, to the extent possible, experimented upon and utilized.   In other words, the Kammlerstab's mission brief was to think "outside the box" entirely, even if that meant outside the box of Nazi party ideology, or, when it suited it, inside it. The basis was the will to power, by whatever means possible. All these considerations raise a final problematic:   President Eisenhower, as he was leaving office, gave his celebrated warning to the American people about the spiritual and cultural dangers of "the military industrial complex." With the influx of Nazi "Paperclip" scientists, many if not most of whom - including Dornberger, Oberth, and von Braun - were members of Kammler's "think tank", this warning by someone in the know must surely be interpreted differently than current standard explanations. Having fought the world's first "military-industrial complex" and doubtless seen at least some of its extraordinary inventory of weapons and theoretical papers, President Eisenhower is surely raising another ominous, though overlooked, specter: Just whose military-industrial complex is he really warning about? What possible spiritual and cultural dangers were there to the American people from good old American companies like Boeing, DuPont, Lockheed, Hughes, and so on, unless, in importing ex-Nazi scientists and their unusual methods and insights and experimental results (often achieved at the cost of enormous human suffering), we inadvertently imported an underlying ideology at variance with traditional morality. Ice Bomb It was reported that there was interest shown in a bomb in which the thermal properties of its reaction were endothermic - that is, intense cold would be produced on detonation instead of strong heat. The purpose was supposed to be the freezing of large areas - maybe a mile radius from the site of detonation - and the quick destruction of all living beings from the affected area which would soon recover. The effect is the same as that of a neutron bomb - removal of all life forms without destroying the buildings. No efforts were ever made to even test the possibility of such a device. Just another high-flown and completely impracticable idea dreamed up by Germany as the situation became desperate. However, reports surfaced at the end of 1954 and were confirmed by former President Harry Truman that the Soviet Union supposedly got hold of the records of the ice bomb experiments and developed it further, with some success. The debate these days is all about whether or not Tehran is supplying Iraq's Armor-Piercing Bombs. But the roots of these explosively formed projectiles, or EFPs, goes all the way back to Hitler-era Germany, the Yorkshire Ranter notes. Military historian Larry Grupp explains:   Dr. Hubert Schardin was definitely not a Nazi. Nevertheless, he stood stiffly at attention in full Luftwaffe dress uniform at Gestapo headquarters in Budapest, Hungary. It was the spring of 1944 and Schardin, a brilliant German explosives physicist, needed assistance. Under direct orders from Adolf Hitler to develop new super weapons, he needed the Gestapo's help to locate a famous but reclusive Hungarian colonel named Misznay who could provide detailed information regarding the complex physics involved in shaped charge explosives.   Colonel Misznay was, by all historical indicators, so elusive that today we are even uncertain what his real first name was. In all probability, Misznay was either a double or perhaps even a triple agent. After World War II, he dropped out of sight in the Eastern Bloc. Yet his last name lives on as a result of a special explosive phenomenon he identified, called the Misznay-Schardin effect -- a phenomenon that recognizes that fragments can be thrown from the face of an explosive charge in a predictable pattern, much like a projectile from a rifle barrel. The formation process for a tactical EFP warhead from its initial pre-detonation state to the fully formed profile It is that effect which forms the heart of the EFP's deadly power; they have been used to defeat armored vehicles for more than 30 years. The EFP warhead was derived from the Misznay-Schardin device [Schardin, H. “Über das Wesen der Hohlladung.” Wehrtechnische Monatshefte, vol 51 (1954): 97-120] which consists of a right circular cylinder of explosive, with a shallow cavity in one end that is fitted with a thin metallic liner. Upon detonation, the liner dynamically transforms into an aerodynamic projectile traveling at high velocity (typically 1500-2000 m/s). With a mass of 500 g or more, a velocity of 2000 m/s, and kinetic energy on the order of 1 MJ, these projectiles are capable of penetrating more than 10 cm of armor.

Super Guns Vortex Gun   The Vortex Gun was designed and built by an Austrian scientist named Dr. Zimmermeyer at an experimental institute at Lofer in Tyrol. It basically was a mortar barrel of a large caliber sunk in the ground, and the shells contained coal-dust and a slow-burning explosive in the center. The first experiments with compressed air were failures. The shells, once fired, were intended to have the function of creating an artificial whirlwind or tornado which would hopefully make enemy airplanes lose control and thus knock them out of the sky. If all circumstances were perfect and favorable, the strange device seemed to work fairly well. Numerous high-speed films were taken and processed for analysis and study, which concluded that the rotation and forward-moving explosion of the coal dust was in fact able to start the formation of a fairly large vortex. Although it was unknown whether the pressure changes of the tornado would be strong enough to cause frame failure in aircraft caught in the air current, it was known that the pressure on wing loading might be excessive. In the years before this invention, it was known that clear-air tubulence had brought down large airliners and broken them into pieces. It seemed possible and feasible that Dr. Zimmermeyer's unlikely-sounding cannon could have the same effects too. In fact the gun would be cheaper than but as effective as shells filled with high explosive. The range of the prototype was estimated to be about 100m, even though the gun was never used in practice. But similarly designed guns using artificial firedamp explosions and shells were deployed against Polish freedom fighters in Warsaw towards the end of the war. Wind Cannon Like the Vortex Gun, the Wind Cannon was also developed by a factory in Stuttgart during the war. It was a type of gun that would eject a jet of compressed air against enemy aircraft. It was a strange device consisted of a large angled barrel like a bent arm resting in an immense cradle like some enormous broken pea-shooter lying askew. The cannon worked by the ignition of critical mixtures of hydrogen and oxygen in molecular proportions as near as possible. The powerful explosion triggered off a rapidly-ejected projectile of compressed air and water vapor, which, like a solid "shot" of air, was as effective as a small shell. Experimental trials of the cannon at Hillersleben demonstrated that a 25mm-thick wooden board could be broken at a distance of 200m. Nitrogen peroxide was deployed in some of the experiments so that the brown color would allow the path and destination of the otherwise transparent projectile to be observed and photographed. The tests proved that a powerful region of compressed and high-velocity air could be deployed with sufficient force to inflict some damage. However, the aerodynamics of a flying aircraft would almost surely neutralized the effectiveness of this cannon. In addition the effects of the cannon on a fast-flying aircraft was quite different from that on a fixed ground target. Still, the cannon was installed on a bridge over the Elbe, but with no significant results -- either because there were no aircraft or simply no successes (as one might suspect). The wind cannon was an interesting experiment but a practical failure. Sound Cannon Besides the Vortex Gun and Wind Cannon, invisible and powerful air waves were used in another devise designed by scientists at Lofer, in the form of the so-called "sound cannon." Designed by Dr. Richard Wallauschek, the cannon consisted of large parabaloid reflectors, the final version of which had a diameter over 3m. The "dishes" were connected to a chamber composed of several sub-units firing tubes. The function of these tubes was to allow an admixture of methane and oxygen into the combustion chamber, where the two gases were ignited in a cyclical, continuous explosion. The length of the firing chamber itself was exactly a quarter of the wavelength of the sound waves produced by the on-going explosions. Each explosion initiated the next by producing a reflected, high-intensity shockwave, and so creating a very high amplitude sound beam. This high and strong note of unbearable intensity was emitted at pressures in excess of 1,000 milibars about 50m away. This level of pressure is above the limits that man can endure. At such a range, half a minute of exposure would be enough to be lethal. At longer ranges (about 229m), the effect would be excruciating and a soldier would be incapacitated for some considerable time afterwards. No operational or physiological tests were ever carried out. It was suggested, however, that laboratory animals were used to prove the basic soundness of the concept. The cannon was never deployed for its intended purpose.   Toward the end of World War II, the Germans were reported to have made a type of acoustic device. It looked like a large cannon and sent out a sonic boomlike shock wave that in theory could have felled a B-17 bomber. In the mid-1940s, the U.S. Navy created a program called Project Squid to study the German vortex technology. The results are unknown. But Guy Obolensky, an American inventor, says he replicated the Nazi device in his laboratory in 1949. Against hard objects the effect was astounding, he says: It could snap a board like a twig. Against soft targets like people, it had a different effect. "I felt like I had been hit by a thick rubber blanket," says Obolensky, who once stood in its path. Sun Cannon An annoymous inventor, possibly inspired by the sun-reflector of Archimedes, designed the sun cannon during the war. The device had a big sun-reflector intended for use against hostile aircraft - on sunny days, of course. The experimental model of the sun cannon was captured by the Americans. Nothing was known about any operational use or test results with the cannon. Electric Gun   The potential and power of launching a projectile using electro-magnetic force have fascinated inventors and researchers ever since the solenoid was invented. However, none of the attempts was successful. During World War II Germany started two separate projects to study electric propulsion. The first was headed by an engineer and consultant to the Siemens company named Muck. Muck proposed a solenoid-type gun to be built in a hillside near the Lille coal fields in France, since 50,000 tons of anthracite per month would be needed to generate the electricity to power the gun. This gun was designed to attack London from a range of 248km with 204.5kg shells. In 1943 Reichsminister Albert Speer was notified of the proposal, which was rejected as impractical after examination by a number of scientists and technical experts. An electric gun for air-defense was also designed. Engineer Hansler of the Gesellschaft für Gerätbau put forward this idea in 1944. It was based on the linear motor principle and promised a 6,000 rounds per minute rate of fire from a multiple-barreled installation, a velocity of over 1829m/sec and shells containing 500g of explosive. The Luftwaffe accepted the basic concept for use as an anti-aircraft gun. Intensive tests with an electro-magnetic discharge mechanism were made on a 20mm anti-aircraft gun. The tests began in Berlin and were later continued in the foothills of the Alps, where firing tests were carried out against the slopes of the Wetterstein mountain. A muzzle velocity 2,000m/sec was attained. Preliminary assessments showed that conventional generators would easily and cheaply generate the necessary 3,900 kilowatts per gun. Later it was found that a considerable amount of energy was needed, and a new type of condenser was developed. It was hoped that the new condenser would bring an improvement, but the tests were not finished before the war's end. Work on a prototype gun began in February 1945 but was not finished before the war's end. The gun fell into the hands of the Americans. After the war the Allies closely studied the project, but eventually it was calculated that each gun would have required the services of a major city's power station. The project has never been revived.   Peenemünde Arrow Shells   The Peenemünde Arrow Shells were conceived and developed at the Aerodynamic Research Laboratories at Peenemünde from 1942 to 1945. The arrow shells were dart-like projectiles designed to be fired from special smooth-bore versions of standard German Army artillery pieces. The project was initially envisioned and designed as ultra-long-range shells using a 310mm smooth-bored version of the famed 280mm K5 railway gun (Anzio Annie). The arrow shell was 1.91m long and 120mm in caliber, with four fins at the tail 310mm across and a 310mm sabot or discarding ring around the middle of the shell (center of gravity). The ring was naturally discarded and would fell away outside the gun muzzle when fired, while the accelerating shell would reach a velocity of 1524m/sec and obtain a maximum range of 150km. Two guns were produced, and one of them fired in anger at the US 3rd Army located 125km away from the gun.   There was an anti-aircraft version of the Peenemünde Arrow Shells. The projectile was designed for the 105mm FLAK 39 AA gun, with the goal to reach extremely high velocity so as to shorten flying time and eliminate the need to calculate aiming errors. The AA gunners would be able to aim, fire, and hit without having to worry about the speed of the aircraft and its altitude. During tests and experiments the shells obtained a muzzle velocity of 1067m/sec, which was considered excellent. Nevertheless, development had to be canceled since mass-production for combat use was impossible with the available production and industrial capacity of Germany. Vergeltungswaffe 3           The Vergeltungswaffe 3 (Vengeance Weapon 3), or V-3, was a super-long-range cannon designed to fire across the English Channel into the Greater Lond area. To disguise its true purpose it was given the cover name Hochdruckpumpe (High Pressure Pump) The cannon's configuration and layout also inspired nicknames like "Busy Lizzie" and "The Millipede." It was designed as a multiple-chambered gun of 150mm caliber with a 150m-long barrel. There was a conventional breech and a pressure chamber at the rear end. Several auxiliary chambers were constructed and arranged at 45o to the main barrel at intervals of about 40m. The theory behind the mechanism of the cannon was that a fin-stabilized shell would be loaded into the breech, together with the appropriate propelling charge. Additional charges would be added into the auxiliary chambers. The initial charge would be ignited and start the shell soaring up the bore. As it passed the auxiliary chambers additional charges would be fired to produce extra gas and thrust to boost the speed of the shell. With all these additional boosts, the shell would leave the muzzle at a very high velocity - somewhere around 1,524m/sec was projected. The shell would be hauled into the stratosphere, where the thin air offered less air resistance and would permit the projectile to reach a range of about 280km.           The idea of multi-chambered cannon is certainly not new. It was first suggested by two Americans, Lyman and Haskell, in the 1880s. A gun built on their specification was fired, but it proved unsuccessful. The propelling gases from the first charge slipped passed the shell and ignited the auxiliary charges before the shell had reached them, producing the opposite result. The idea was revived several times without success. In 1941 engineer Conders of the Rochling Stahlwerke AG put up his proposal. A 20mm prototype was built by May 1943 and appeared to work well. Somehow Conders managed to get Hitler’s approval and authorization to proceed on his own, without the knowledge of the Army Weapons Office, which would have certainly killed the project immediately. Full-scale experimental guns were built and tested, all of which exploded or underwent other disasters. At the same time hundreds of workers were set to construct a fifty-barrel gun in a hillside at Mimoyecques (near Calais), 165km from London. The underground launch site would house the gigantic cannon. Five long tubes made up the barrel, and each would fire a 136kg charge. The cannon sat at an angle on the hillside, pointing directly at London. The whole underground launch site was covered by a 5m-thick concrete dome. Ultimately the Army Weapons Office had to be consulted to provide assistance and expertise. The Office somehow managed to get the weapon working, after a fashion.           The Allies tried knocking out the site with conventional bombs but failed. Then it was decided that a plane loaded with TNT would be flown to the launch site by radio control and destroy the gun. During a test flight, however, two pilots were killed (Joseph Kennedy Jr. was one) and the plan was canceled. Ultimately a converted Lancaster dropped the "Tall Boy" bomb on the construction site at Helfaut-Wizernes. The 6.4m-long bomb weighed 5,454kg, and fell at a speed of 1,200km/h. The concrete dome was penetrated and the site destroyed. Five days later, the advancing Allies overran the installation at Calais and the project was no longer possible. Hitler had wished to make the cannon his third vengeance weapon. However, only two shortened versions of the gun were built and they were hurriedly thrown into use during the Ardennes Offensive in December 1944. One or two shots were fired without documented result, and the guns were blown up and abandoned afterwards. Fragments and pieces of the experimental guns are said to be still in existence on the Baltic Coast.

German wonder weapons: degraded production and effectiveness  Todd J. Schollars   Introduction   World War II was the greatest conflagration this planet has ever known. It started as a few hegemonic nations annexing territory for economic reasons, then became an ideological battle between right and wrong, and finally ended in a battle of survival for Germany. Facing the Allies' unconditional surrender demands, the Germans combined fervent ideology, a powerful industrial base, and cutting-edge technology to produce weapons to stave off the Allied tide. The effort was mostly concentrated in developing air weapons, where Germany tried, and ultimately failed, to meet the dual and competing needs of strike and air defense. Germany developed several wonder weapons to overcome Allied quantitative superiority. Some of these weapons were obviously flights of fancy, while others served as the basis for many US and Soviet weapon systems in the Cold War. German wonder weapons were a cut above anything the Allies had, yet they were not able to change the tide of war because there were not enough of them on operational status. This fact generates two questions. First, why couldn't the Germans produce and deploy their advanced technology in any effective numbers? Second, if German wonder weapons had reached the front in quantity, would they have made a difference in the war's outcome?   The Wonder Weapons   Germany produced a large number of high technology weapons during World War II. However, unlike the Allies' atomic bomb, electronic warfare, or Norden bombsight, the Germans were unable to reap benefits from their investment.   The Messerschmitt Me 262 is, along with the V1 and V2, the best known of Germany's wonder weapons. It could fly at more than 540 miles per hour (compared to the P-51's 437 miles per hour); had an operational ceiling of 37,000 feet; and packed a punch with its four heavy, fast-firing 30-millimeter MK 108 cannon concentrated in the nose. (1) It was so far advanced beyond other fighters that General Adolf Galland, commander of Luftwaffe fighters, declared on his first flight, "It felt as if an angel was pushing." (2) The technology behind this superb aircraft was the turbojet engine, which produced more power than piston engines and created less drag than a propeller. The amazing performance of the turbojets shocked Allied aircrews when they first saw the Me 262. It could easily outrun escort fighters, allowing Luftwaffe pilots to dictate the terms of combat. This was especially important for overcoming the Allies' quantitative advantage. Once they were in close, they could deliver devastating fire from their cannon and rocket armament; only a few hits could bring down a heavy bomber. (3) The Me 262 clearly made Allied air leaders nervous because it represented the potential for Germany to regain air superiority. However, the aircraft was not without problems.   The turbojets of the 1940s were still in their infant stage and required delicate care from pilots and maintenance personnel alike. Any sudden throttle movements could cause an engine flameout, resulting in deceleration and a lengthy engine restart--not ideal when a pilot was in combat. The high speeds made formation flying difficult, complicating the concentrated attacks essential to breaking up bomber formations. (4) Both these limitations required highly experienced pilots, something Germany would find in short supply late in the war. Additionally, maintaining the Junkers Jumo 004 engine was time-consuming and needed considerable skill, also in short supply. Each engine had a life of about 15 to 25 hours before needing replacement, (5) creating both maintenance and logistics supply headaches. Rarely did an Me 262 geschwader (wing with 60 to 90 aircraft) have more than 16 serviceable aircraft for a mission. (6) Even with these problems, the Me 262 was still a potential war winner, if not for production and operational obstacles.   Germany was an early pioneer of air-to-air and air-to-ground rockets and missiles. One of the simplest, yet most effective was the R4M unguided rocket. The Me 262 could carry 24 of these small, simple, easy-to-produce weapons. Their size belied their strength: fired from outside the range of American .50 caliber defensive guns, one R4M had "indescribable efficiency--firing a salvo would hit several bombers--one rocket would kill them." (7) The attacks had the added benefit of breaking up bomber formations, making them more vulnerable to other Luftwaffe fighters. R4Ms also had the same ballistic characteristics as the MK 108 cannon, meaning the Me 262 could use the same sight for both weapons. (8) A more advanced weapon was the X-4, a finstabilized, liquid propellant, air-to-air missile, having a speed of 600 miles per hour and a range of 3.7 miles. After firing it from an Me 262 or Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the pilot would guide it to the bomber target via a wire connecting the missile and launching aircraft. Then the missile would detonate on impact or with an acoustic fuze. (9) The guidance system had the major disadvantage that the pilot could not maneuver his airplane while guiding the X-4, a serious problem considering Allied escort fighters. Germany was developing an acoustically guided version, using a type of sonar to reach the target and explode, but the war ended before it was ready. Had the Germans deployed the R4M or X-4 in significant numbers, it could have dented the Allied bomber offensive. Moreover, since the Luftwaffe was primarily a striking force, German scientists did not confine themselves to air-to-air missiles.   Germany developed two air-to-ground guided weapons during World War II, both used primarily to stem the tide of Allied shipping crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The first was the Henschel Hs 293--a 1,100-pound bomb with 10-foot wings, a tail, and a liquid rocket engine. The launching aircraft would fire the Hs 293 from outside the target ship's antiaircraft range (possible with the bomb's rocket), then remote control it via radio during its terminal glide to impact. The Hs 293 only impacted at 450 miles per hour, so it had less penetrating power than conventional bombs and was effective only against merchant ships. (10) The Germans overcame the penetration problem with the Fritz X guided bomb. This weapon did not have any propulsion. Rather, the aircraft dropped it as a normal bomb, then the bombardier guided its steep descent by radio remote control. (11) Both the Fritz X and Hs 293 had spectacular success, but Allied defenses overcame these weapons because of limitations cited later. Interestingly, the primary carrier of both weapons was the Heinkel He 177, a bomber whose serviceability greatly limited the bombs' employment, indicating Germany's integration problems.   The Germans also used rockets to propel their fighters. Two specific rocket fighters stand out as examples of what Germany was first able to design, then what shortages drove them to implement. First, the Me 163 was a high-performance interceptor. It relied on its flying wing design and single Walter R II-203 rocket engine to produce astonishing performance. It could reach more than 620 miles per hour and climb to 20,000 feet in a little more than 2 minutes. Allied fighters could not touch it, and it presented bomber gunners with a near impossible leading aim calculation. Like the Me 262, however, its propulsion system was not perfect. The fuels were hard to manufacture, extremely corrosive, and would explode if not properly mixed. (12) Further, two of the fuel tanks were beside the cockpit; any vapor or liquid leaks were life-threatening to the single pilot. The rocket burned more than 18 pounds of fuel per second, giving it not much more than 100 seconds of total burn time before the Me 163 became a vulnerable glider. Therefore, while it was a good basic design, lack of further development made the Me 163 operationally ineffective.   The second German rocket fighter was driven purely by economic and pilot shortages. The Bachem (Ba) 349 Natter launched vertically, climbed at more than 15,000 feet per minute, then flew at 600 miles per hour into the Allied formations, where it released its noseful of unguided rockets. Once its fuel was spent, the Natter glided back to base where the pilot ejected himself and the rocket engine--both then parachuted to earth. (13) The reason for this event was threefold. First, the aircraft structure was cheap and made of noncritical materials, so it could be disposed of. Second, the rocket was difficult to manufacture, so it needed to be saved. German engineers also knew that the shock of landing was likely to detonate any residual fuel, with dire results for the engine and pilot. Finally, the Natter was designed for inexperienced aviators. Since the vertical takeoff required no skills and landings were not attempted, pilot training could concentrate on intercepting the enemy. (14) This was clearly an extreme circumstance brought on by Germany's desperate situation late in the war.   The final wonder weapons of note were the V1 and V2 rockets, likely the best known of any German weapons. The V1 or Vergeltungswaffe (vengeance weapon) 1 was the world's first cruise missile. It employed a novel pulse jet engine (which made a distinctive sound, hence the name buzz bomb) and short wings to carry its 1,874-pound warhead to targets up to 150 miles. (15) While the overall idea was advanced, the V1 was actually unguided and flew a straight course until its primitive range-setting device locked the controls and crashed the missile into whatever was below, detonating the V1's warhead. This obviously was not a precision-strike weapon, but it did kill 6,184 people in and around London. This is still a record number of cruise missile deaths, impressive considering the number the United States has launched in the last 13 years. (16) The V2 was a prewar project designed to attack targets beyond the range of artillery. It was an unguided ballistic missile and the forerunner of today's intercontinental ballistic missiles and tactical ballistic missiles (the Scud is a direct descendent). The 28,500-pound missile lifted its 2,200-pound warhead (17) in a ballistic trajectory, then plummeted to each at more than 2,200 miles per hour. (18) V2s were unstoppable after launch; the only way to halt them was bombing the factories or launch sites. V2s inflicted 2,754 deaths in London, Amsterdam, and Antwerp, a record that stood until the immense Scud exchanges of the Iran-Iraq wars. (19) The V1 and V2 were the only mass-produced and employed wonder weapons. As we will see later, there were several reasons why they were not able to produce the effects Germany needed to turn the tide of war.   It is evident the Germans developed air weapons without equal. However, their failure to mass-produce and deploy these weapons is a monument to what could have been. It is important to remember that while the air effort received the most attention, the Germans also developed land and submarine wonder weapons, all theoretically capable of providing the push Germany needed to overcome the Allies.   Production Problems: Why Germany Could Not Deploy the Wonder Weapons   Germany arose from the ashes of Versailles to become a huge economic power. Its industry, technology, and mass-production capacity led Europe and most of the world in the 1930s. So why could Germany not produce its wonder weapons in significant numbers? The problem was not capability. Rather, it was the restrictions and obstacles Germany placed on its industry that affected the production time line of extremely sensitive weapons. Four reasons behind Germany's lack of production are discussed here: political and military interference; the difficulty of mass producing advanced weapons; a lack of strategic vision; and finally, damage and dispersion resulting from the Allies' Combined Bomber Offensive. Any one of the reasons was enough to hamper generating high-technology arms; all four in concert were absolutely crippling.   Political interference was a great obstacle to producing weapon systems and was particularly fatal to advanced systems that required long development times. The political obstruction started early and at the top of the Nazi hierarchy. On 11 February 1940, Hitler canceled all development work that could not get aircraft to the front within 1 year. (20) Work stopped on a half dozen major projects, from jets to long-range bombers, all of which would have made the Luftwaffe more capable of fighting a lengthy war. When Germany became desperate for advanced weapons, its hurried response would produce aircraft that had not benefited from full development processes. So confident in early victory were Germany's leaders that they cut the legs out from under the Luftwaffe before the major war really started, denying it any chance of victory in a drawn-out conflict.   High-level conflicts marked the Nazi regime, as Hitler dueled with his advisors for control of the German military's strategic direction. Hitler cut through many of these disagreements by removing dissenters and consolidating power to himself. For example, he already had taken command of military operations when he took control of critical production programs. Although Hitler had a weak technical knowledge of aviation, (21) he realized the importance of jet engines and personally controlled jet engine allocation after June 1944. (22) His tight control took allocation away from production experts. The result was haphazard distribution to manufacturers and operational units, with a corresponding drop in production and aircraft in-service rates. Compounding Hitler's central control was his top officials' fear of or refusal to confront him on decisions they knew were wrong. At best, dissenters received Hitler's extreme verbal abuse, at worst, removal from office. By 1943, Hitler distrusted the Luftwaffe, and there were many cases of Hermann Goering's passively watching Hitler sow the seeds of his air force's destruction. (23) Even the outspoken Erhard Milch, chief of Luftwaffe production, took orders without objection. When Hitler uncanceled the Me 209 program in August 1943, Milch said, "But I have my orders. I am a soldier and must obey them." (24) He knew the restart would split Messerschmitt's production between an obsolescent fighter that would never see operational service (the 209) and a potential war winner (the 262). The best and most damaging example of this phenomenon is seen in the saga to produce the Me 262.   The Me 262 jet started development as a fighter and had capabilities far beyond contemporary piston engine aircraft. It was the top priority for production after Galland's first flight and subsequent endorsement. Milch canceled the Me-209 program to devote full attention to the new jet. However, Hitler interfered and restarted Me-209 production, largely out of fear of another failed advanced aircraft (such as the He 177) and its associated risk. There were already several problems with getting the Me 262 into production. Milch knew Hitler's decision to continue the Me 209 would take up space on Messerschmitt's assembly lines and delay operational employment of the Me 262 but went along, happy the Me 262 was still a fighter. (25) Unfortunately, Hitler's interference in the program had only started.   Hitler observed Me-262 demonstrations in December 1943 with several staff members, including Goering, Milch, and Galland. After seeing the Me 262, Hitler remarked, "I see the Blitz bomber at last! Of course, none of you thought of that!" Galland, referring to the plane's obvious fighter characteristics, remarked in his autobiography, "Of course, none of us had." (26) Milch actually went behind Hitler's back and continued developing the Me 262 as a fighter. When Hitler found out and confronted him at a meeting on 24 May 1944, Milch responded that the plane required extensive modifications and delays to become a bomber. Hitler exploded. "You don't need any guns. The plane is so fast it doesn't need any armorplate either. You can take it all out!" He then turned to the Luftwaffe's director of research, who responded that Messerschmitt could make the modifications without difficulty (actually, removing the guns and armor to make way for bombs would have changed the center of gravity so much Messerschmitt would have had to move the wings). Goering and Galland were so browbeaten, they remained silent, but Milch finally had enough, saying, "Even an infant could see it was a fighter." (27) Hitler fired him 2 weeks later. Thus, Hitler's meddling and his highest advisors' ineffectiveness at objecting caused significant delays in a potential war-winning aircraft and led to the dismissal of his best aircraft production coordinator. The Me 262 would eventually become a fighter but too late to be produced in numbers sufficient to wrest air superiority from the Allies. There were other systemic problems with producing the jet fighter, but Hitler's interference made it impossible for Messerschmitt to stick with a firm production schedule. This was only one of several obstacles that kept the wonder weapons out of the air.   High-level interference and bickering were not the only impediments to production. The Luftwaffe's officers contributed as well. Galland remembers rival fanatical groups within the officer corps, some more dedicated to Nazi idealism than actually producing an effective air force. This led to a crisis of trust and leadership, two elements on which depends the fighting strength of any unit. (28) Its result was no single voice speaking for the operational and strategic needs of the Luftwaffe; it also made it difficult for the Luftwaffe to present a united front to deflect high-level interference in weapons programs. Furthermore, we often remember the Luftwaffe as an honorable band of eagles. However, several pilots accepted checks from aircraft companies to endorse their products--planes that were often inferior? (29) This, combined with Goering's financial interest in several aviation factories, meant Germany based production choices on personal profit, rather than capabilities. Making inferior planes not only put the Luftwaffe further behind but also took assembly line space away from advanced projects. Military interference also played on a grander scale before the war even started by creating a war industry that could not meet the demands of mass production.   Germany's advanced technology production problems lay both in the character of the industry and pervasive military interference from project inception through delivery. First, German industry was craftsman-based to deliver very complicated weapons. (30) This was ideal for creating wonder weapons but made it nearly impossible to mass-produce them. Second, the armaments industry spread its capacity over several different specialized designs. Instead of a core of proven aircraft, German industry had 425 types, (31) once again hindering mass production and limiting the number of advanced aircraft produced. The reason behind this structure was military fastidiousness--the Wehrmacht liked working with specialized craftsmen because they could respond to the field's demands for weapon changes. (32) These changes did make the weapons more effective, but the constantly changing specifications made mass production impossible. No engineers or industrialists were consulted before making changes, (33) creating inefficiencies that further limited production. Finally, the Luftwaffe's first transformation came during the 1930s, when it could upgrade its equipment in peacetime. Conversely, the Allies had to transform early in the war; then stuck with late 1930's technology pushed to its limits, a huge production capacity overcame any qualitative shortfalls. However, Germany tried to transform to wonder weapons late in the war. Transitioning to a superior model in war actually can cause substandard combat readiness and degraded logistics as operators and maintainers learn to deal with new technology. (34) The result was German industry produced too little, too late, and actually decreased the Luftwaffe's capability.   Political obstacles, military interference, and an industry ill-equipped to make advanced weapons combined to hinder the wonder weapons' deployment. The cause of these problems was a complete lack of strategic vision, which prevented effective campaign planning and long-term weapons production. The lack of vision began at the highest levels and set a tone of short-range thinking that permeated the Luftwaffe, ultimately crippling its ability to prosecute any kind of strategic warfare. Goering was an extremely able fighter pilot. During World War I, he took command of Manfred von Richthofen's Jasta when the Red Baron died in action. However, Goering never gained the technical and logistical perspective needed to command an entire air force. (35) Before the war, he abandoned the 10-year prewar plan for a well-staffed and exercised strategic air force in order to attain shortterm goals quickly. (36) The discarded plan included high-tech weapons, long-range strike aircraft, and the ability to put the German economy on a war basis before hostilities began. Even in early 1941, Goering could have pursued an aggressive program to increase German production but failed to do so. Luftwaffe military leaders also were more interested in active operations than preparing for the long term, because they desired tactical superiority at the expense of strategic readiness. This resulted from the massive catchup game Luftwaffe personnel played between the wars and made the officers technocrats and operations experts with limited vision. They could not relate airpower to national strategy, and the resulting defects were fatal. (37) When losses outstripped production in 1942, the Luftwaffe finally demanded construction increases. By the time the numbers caught up, there were not enough aircrews to fly them. (38) The only vision Germany had was a fanatical desire for a technological breakthrough to turn the tide of war, (39) relying on a belief in German superiority rather than reasoned strategic planning. Their fanatical desires not only diverted resources from realistic weapons programs but also gave the Allies targets for the Combined Bomber Offensive--the final impediment to German wonder weapons production.   Any discussion of German weapons manufacturing difficulties is incomplete without considering the Allied bombing campaign. Basically, the Combined Bomber Offensive made an already bad situation untenable for manufacturing wonder weapons. The reader must understand the Combined Bomber Offensive did not stop aircraft production--in fact, more aircraft rolled off the lines in 1944 (39,807) than in any previous year (15,904 in 1942, 24,807 in 1943). (40) However, it caused many operational problems for the Luftwaffe, as we will see in the next section. The Combined Bomber Offensive did cause two major problems with production, negating the impact of increased numbers. First, the bombing forced German industry to disperse, a measure contradictory to mass production. (41) Unlike America's huge aircraft plants like Willow Run, Germany had small factories in many places. While this made Allied targeting more difficult, it also hindered component integration. Different manufacturers also used different tolerances, meaning parts often did not fit together when assembled in the field. (42) Second, as soon as the Allies saw German wonder weapons in action, they were quick to find and strike the factories. After seeing Me 262s successfully attack a US bomber formation at 100 to 1 odds, General James H. Doolittle told Air Marshal Arthur Tedder, "Something must be done, and done quickly." (43) The result was dedicated, systematic attacks on wonder weapon facilities. It is very difficult to mass-produce sensitive, technically advanced weapons with dispersed industry subject to intense bombing. Increased Allied pressure also caused heavy operational losses with which replacements could not keep pace. This attrition was the final explanation for why the Germans could not produce their wonder weapons in significant quantities and turn the war in their favor.   Operational Difficulties: Would the Wonder Weapons Have Made a Difference?   This article has shown the obstacles Germany faced that made wonder weapon mass production and deployment nearly impossible. Even so, it did get limited numbers of its advanced hardware into service. This section will examine whether or not additional weapons would have attained Germany's goals. We must consider both the equipment and other factors such as available crews, training, and the operational constraints imposed by the Luftwaffe's ineptitude and the Allies' air superiority actions.   The first questions we must ask are, were the wonder weapons really that advanced, and if so, were they practical? In many individual cases they were advanced beyond the Allies' equipment, but they were incomplete packages lacking systems integration to other technology. For example, the Me 262 had the devastating 30-millimeter cannon. However, it never reached its full potential because the world's best optics industry could not design a good gyro gunsight that would fit in the jet. (44) A few experienced pilots learned to overcome the deficiency, but increasing numbers of rookies could not, leading to poor combat performance of an otherwise devastating weapon system. Further, the advanced Me 163 quickly ran short of fuel, then glided back to base. Similarly, the Me 262 flew slowly in the landing pattern, and its sensitive jets precluded any sudden power increases. US fighter pilots knew this and, thus, overcame the rocket and jet menace by orbiting their airfields, waiting to bounce the vulnerable fighters returning to base. This, in turn, forced the Germans to use Fw 190Ds for combat air patrols over their fields, (45) further exacerbating the fuel shortage. The air-to-ground weapons likewise had their faults. After releasing the Fritz X or Hs 293, the bomber had to fly a predictable course at only 165 miles per hour until bomb impact, (46) making the lightly armed bombers easy prey for naval fighters. Therefore, while the German wonder weapons were sophisticated, the failure to integrate them into total weapon systems presented vulnerabilities easy for the Allies to exploit.   The advanced technology also presented maintenance headaches for Luftwaffe ground crews. The previous section showed how production problems led to limited spares fabrication and parts incompatibility. Additionally, the emphasis on producing great numbers of new aircraft meant manufacturers were unwilling to waste production line space on spare parts, including jet engines. (47) The result was lower in-service rates for aircraft, because without spare parts, damaged aircraft were not repaired. Instead, ground crews cannibalized what they needed to keep other planes in service. (48) Cannibalism invariably led to fewer and fewer operational aircraft. The following story shows the effect of these maintenance troubles. Galland visited JG-7 (Kommando Nowotny) to see the Me 262 in action. The wing's leader, 250-kill ace Major Walter Nowotny, wanted a maximum effort to show why the Luftwaffe needed more Me 262s. This maximum effort consisted of 4 planes out of a unit of 80 aircraft; 2 of the 4 subsequently broke before takeoff. US pilots, having overwhelming numbers, then shot down one of the two remaining aircraft when Nowotny's engines malfunctioned during the dogfight. (49) Germany thus had lost one of its best fighter leaders, who was flying the best aircraft of his career but was let down by a system that could not integrate and maintain it.   Resource shortages forced Germany to use lower technology to gain increased performance. Fuel scarcity led Messerschmitt to experiment with simple steam turbine engines that used 65 percent coal and 35 percent petrol to deliver 6,000 horsepower. (50) They used the Me 264 long-range bomber as a test bed but were not able to produce and integrate the efficient engines before the war ended. Junkers also developed the long-range Ju 390 and worked on a refueling version to take Ju 290 bombers across the Atlantic. Even if the rumored Ju 390 flight to within 12 miles of New York is true, (51) this wonder weapon still could not hit America where it hurt--the industrial areas of the upper midwest. The same would hold true had the airplane used the coal and petrol engines. Similarly, the He 162 jet fighter was another step back: its wooden construction used noncritical materials and unskilled labor. (52) Hitler Youth were the intended pilots, problematic considering the plane's tricky handling. Hitler considered the aircraft and pilots expendable to stop the Combined Bomber Offensive. Fortunately for the young crews, they never flew in combat. While these wonder weapons allowed Germany to concentrate more material and fuel on other projects, they contributed no real capabilities to the Luftwaffe.   The most salient reason the wonder weapons would not have given Germany any advantage was the decreasing skill and experience of Luftwaffe pilots by the time the advanced systems arrived. There were two main reasons for waning crew proficiency. First, many of the best pilots had been killed in action or rendered unfit for duty. Operational losses meant there were few experten left in service. In fall 1944 alone, the Luftwaffe lost 12 pilots with 1,146 kills among them. (53) This not only decreased Germany's combat capability but also meant there were few old hands left to pass on hard-won knowledge to the new pilots. Most had been flying since 1939-1940 (some even had Spanish Civil War experience), giving them unmatched combat experience. However, the lengthy combat time placed a tremendous physical and psychological stress on them. Indeed, Galland noticed the lack of fighting spirit, even in 1943, when he saw several fighters fire on bombers from too far away to be effective, then leave for home. (54) However, there were some pilots ready to fight, and the limited wonder weapons gave them the spirit to return to duty. When assembling his Me 262 wing, Jagdverband 44, Galland rounded up the most raffish, battle-hardened veterans, several from the pilots rest home. "Many reported without consent or transfer orders. Most had been in action since the first day of the war, and all had been wounded. The Knights Cross, so to speak, was the badge of our unit. Now after a long period of technical and numerical inferiority, they wanted once more to experience the feeling of air superiority. For this, they were ready once more to chance sacrificing their lives." (55) Unfortunately for them, there were far too few pilots and even fewer superior weapons, those being not advanced enough to matter. Germany had again failed those who served her so well.   The second reason for the decreasing pilot skill was the poor state of the replacement program. Starting early in the war, the Luftwaffe's faith in early victory kept it from increasing the frontline force, so there was no pressure to raise training output. (56) When heavy losses set in, there was no reserve from which the Luftwaffe could draw. Later, when it realized it needed replacements quickly, the Luftwaffe lowered training time to only 112 hours, with 84 percent of the time spent in basic aircraft instead of high-performance combat types. (57) This was half the time Allied pilots received. The air force also converted bomber crews to fighters, but the 20 hours' training they received was not enough to prepare them for the rigors of outnumbered fighter combat. Hitler even ordered all fighter groups on the Eastern Front to send two of their best pilots to the Reich's defense forces, (58) making the German lack of air superiority in Russia even worse. Finally, the Combined Bomber Offensive created a fuel shortage, leading to training curtailment as early as 1942. (59) Lack of fuel decreased instruction flights, further reducing new pilot skill and experience. All the above meant pilots arriving at the front were not skilled enough to handle basic aircraft, much less employ the highly sensitive wonder weapons (Galland relates how even his veteran pilots had trouble lining up for kill shots in the very fast Me 262). (60) This happened at the time Allied pilots were becoming more numerous and better trained as a result of combat veterans rotating home to instruct new pilots. Allied pilots also were becoming more experienced because of lower combat losses and were flying more aircraft of the same caliber as most German fighters. As the Luftwaffe's losses mounted, it closed the advanced schools, then the basic schools, moving the pilots and aircraft to operational units. (61) Replacements stopped just when the wonder weapons were arriving in numbers. Therefore, even with larger numbers of advanced aircraft, the Luftwaffe did not have the crews to fly them, negating their potential effect on the war's outcome.   Several operational reasons kept the wonder weapons, even in greater numbers, from changing the course of the war. Most of these explanations arose from Allied air superiority and the Combined Bomber Offensive's incessant attacks on German industry and transportation. The struggle for air superiority in 1944 made the Luftwaffe commit 82 percent of its manpower and aircraft to defending the Reich. (62) While this estimate seems high, it does reveal how Germany had to retain forces to protect itself. Further, several wonder weapons, such as the Me 163, were point defense weapons. They were effective defenders but were incapable of extending air superiority over Allied territory or protecting the German Army from Allied close air support and interdiction. Lack of air superiority also meant the Luftwaffe could not conduct offensive operations. This left Germany with no route to victory, as the Allies' goal of unconditional surrender meant Germany could not play a defensive waiting game. Last, defending Germany used many weapons that would have been useful for ground defense and offense. For example, the Luftwaffe employed 10,000 88-millimeter guns as antiaircraft artillery; these guns were also the most effective antitank cannons of the war. Moreover, 500,000 people manned the air defense system, depriving Germany of needed ground troops and factory workers. (63) Hence, wonder weapons in sufficient quantity would provide adequate defense but would not have enabled Germany to go on the offensive and push the Allies away from its borders. As it was, Allied close air support and interdiction left Germany no avenue to overcome the numerical superiority of US and British ground forces.   Allied interdiction and the ground offensive also kept the wonder weapons from making a meaningful contribution. Allied armies overran many of the Luftwaffe's front-line airfields after the D-day invasion, forcing the Germans farther to the rear. Their subsequent operations from unprepared fields caused lower serviceability, so the Luftwaffe could not meet Allied quantitative superiority with higher intensity operations. (64) Relatedly, Ultra intelligence revealed German movement plans and allowed the Allies to attack Luftwaffe ground units en route to their new airbases. (65) This prevented supplies, parts, and mechanics from arriving to service their airplanes. Finally, the Allies' dedicated attacks on German transportation, especially the railroads, kept new aircraft components from reaching their assembly points (necessary because of the dispersed factories discussed previously). They also destroyed completed aircraft before they could reach combat units. (66) The wonder weapons were no exception--the Allies knew their value and were intent on killing the airplanes on the ground instead of facing them in the air. Consequently, wonder weapons in greater numbers would not have had the chance to become operational. If they had, they would be starved for gas; lacking pilots; operating from bases with no ground support; and thus, incapable of making a difference.   History shows that superior aircraft did reach operational units. However, there were employment problems that would have increased had Germany deployed more of the advanced aircraft. First, Hitler was overtly hostile to any defensive measures. This, combined with his control of advanced production, meant fighter and antiaircraft deployments were piecemeal. Hitler believed a more effective defense was to meet terror with terror, causing him to deploy his new weapons in less than optimal ways. (67) Once airborne, the defenders did have the benefit of aircraft acting as airborne command posts to coordinate attacks. (68) However, it was only a local measure and did not affect the overall defense of Germany because it could not provide theater-wide situational awareness. Galland sums it up best: "We not only battled against technical, tactical, and supply difficulties, we also lacked a clear picture of the air situation, of the floods coming from the west--absolutely necessary for the success of an operation." (69) More wonder weapons inefficiently employed would not have improved the situation. They likely would have caused more confusion for the limited C2 system coordinating attacks on the bomber forces.   The final reason for the ineffectiveness of the wonder weapons comes from their secretive development and combat employment. Except for Göring and Milch, the Luftwaffe did not know about the Me 262's development until it was already in advanced testing. (70) There was no way for the units to develop training or tactics for the new aircraft if the operators did not know the planes were coming. Often a pilot's first experience with the aircraft would be in combat, with less than optimal results. Additionally, when Galland set up his JV-44 jet fighter unit, it was not subordinate to anyone--many felt it had finally shaken the micromanagement that had ruined the program. However, Hitler would not allow JV-44 to have contact with other units, fearing their defensive mindset would contaminate strike units. (71) This isolation was an effective quarantine, meaning the best pilots could not share their skill and experience with other units, especially those trying to employ complex equipment with rookie crews. The new pilots then had little chance to improve except in one-sided combats with Allied fighters. Lack of tactics for the advanced aircraft and the moratorium on sharing expertise would have made more wonder weapons just as ineffective and would have given the Allied fighter pilots easier targets.   The Luftwaffe was unable to prove what it could have done with more wonder weapons, as production difficulties kept it from reaching the operational numbers that could have made a difference. Incompletely integrated technology, decreasing crew skill and experience, a deficient training program, and Allied attacks kept the advanced aircraft in service from effective operations. These problems would have handicapped greater numbers as well. Galland's comment at the war's end concludes it well. When his unit finally received Me 262s, he said: But this was 1945! In the middle of our breakup, at the beginning of our collapse! It does not bear thinking what we could've done with jet fighters, 30-millimeter quick-firing cannons, and 50-millimeter rockets years ago, before our war potential had been smashed, before indescribable misery had come over the German people through the raids. (72)  Fortunately for the Allies, the wonder weapons did not arrive on the scene until it was too late to make their mark. Vergeltungswaffe 2 (A-4) The V1 and V2 Case   So far, we have seen several reasons why the wonder weapons would not have made a difference, even if Germany had deployed them in significant numbers. However, there is a case showing two wonder weapons Germany managed to develop, produce, and use in large quantities: the V1 cruise missile and V2 ballistic missile. This section will further prove the point that greater numbers of advanced armaments would not have made a difference by demonstrating how 35,000 V1s (73) and 10,000 V2s (74) could not change the war's outcome. The primary reasons were the missiles' technology, the theory behind their combat employment, and production interference. It is logical to assume the other wonder weapons would experience similar problems had Germany mass-produced them.   The first topic is numbers. As we saw earlier, Germany built 35,000 V1s and fired 9,200 of them, killing 6,184 people in England. (75) Likewise, 1,300 V2s hit England between October 1944 and March 1945, killing more than 2,700 and wounding 19,000. V2s had some success degrading Allied logistics with attacks on Antwerp but, on the whole, were another futile effort to turn the war in Germany's favor. Why couldn't huge numbers of these weapons make a difference, especially considering the V2 was unstoppable?   No other countries developed cruise or ballistic missiles during World War II. In fact, the United States and Soviet Union used both the V1 and V2 to create their own systems after the war. However, closer examination reveals the missiles had several of the other wonder weapons' problems: relatively low technology, little systems integration, and minimal reliability. To start, Allied fighters could easily catch the slow (400 miles per hour) V1s and shoot them down. If they were out of ammunition, a few pilots dared to tip the V1s over by placing their wing under the V1's wing and then flicking it up, causing the missile to spin out of control. (76) The British set up dedicated warning nets to detect the incoming V1s and then sent out interceptors. Royal Air Force (RAF) action thus dispatched 4,000 of the 9,000 V1s fired. (77) Interestingly, the British kept all their new Meteor jet fighters in England to deal with the missile threat. (78) However, this was not a victory for the wonder weapons, as the Meteors did not have the range to escort bombers and were not ground attack aircraft either (the Allies already had plenty of aircraft to cover those missions). Vulnerability to interception was not the V1's only problem. A greater fault afflicted it and the V2: lack of accuracy.   While the English could not shoot down the V2s, they and the V1s that penetrated the defenses were extremely inaccurate: V1s had a 12 kilometer of circular error probable (CEP), while V2s had a 6-kilometer CEP, (79) meaning only half the rounds fired fell in a circle with the CEP's radius. The reason was neither advanced system had a guidance computer. The V1 flew straight at a constant speed (the engine actually lost efficiency as it burned, keeping the missile at the same speed even though it was getting lighter as it burned fuel), (80) then plunged to earth after the primitive air log propeller in its nose had counted the appropriate number of rotations. Once the air log reached the preset number, it locked the V1's controls so it would dive into whatever was below. (81) The Army's V2 was designed as long-range artillery (82) and essentially lobbed its warhead beyond gunfire's range. Considering the problems of ballistics, highspeed reentry, and rocket efficiency variations from poor fabrication, it was lucky any V2s hit their targets. Even a simple guidance system would have made the missiles more accurate and, certainly, more a threat to Allied targets. These limitations point to the fact that the V weapons were not that technologically advanced--an issue that reduced their effectiveness.   The V weapons caused relatively few deaths or damage, especially compared to the Combined Bomber Offensive. Three reasons caused the lack of destruction. First, the horrendous accuracy made pinpoint attacks impossible. The Germans did develop a missile-mounted transmitter that stopped signaling when the V1 hit the ground, allowing corrections for the next shot. (83) The ever-resourceful British electronic-warfare teams countered this tactic, spoofing the signal to make the weapons miss by even more. (84) Second, both missiles had very short range: the V1 required launch sites in Holland, with the V2s not much farther back. Even that close to England, the missiles could not reach the heavy industrial areas. Once the Allies liberated Holland, then the rest of Western Europe, the missiles had no way to reach their targets. The only exception was He-111-launched V1s (the first air-launched cruise missiles), which were impractical because of Allied air superiority. (85) Third, the Allies knew well the capabilities of the V1 and V2, capabilities that would increase if Germany could improve the missiles' guidance. The RAF and the US Army Air Forces also knew where the Germans built and launched the weapons and subjected the installations to unrelenting attack. Once again, the Combined Bomber Offensive created a final obstacle for wonder weapons and made a system that was not making a difference completely useless. With their inherent problems, why then did Germany focus so many resources on building and launching the V weapons? The answer lies in the unique political and military views of the Nazi party.   The lack of accuracy did not bother the Nazis, as the weapons' main purpose was terror, a goal that denied the Germans any chance of effectiveness. Hitler believed they were the decisive weapons that would bring him ultimate victory by destroying England and the Allies' will to fight. (86) Had Hitler looked at his own people, he would have seen the Combined Bomber Offensive's tremendous destruction had not broken their spirit, (87) even under daily attacks that dwarfed the entire VI and V2 campaigns. In addition, he should have learned a lesson from the Battle of Britain, where his extreme efforts could not touch the English spirit. While the V weapons did cause psychological strain, (88) the V1 counter campaign actually had a solidifying effect on British morale. The population eagerly tracked the operation's progress, hailing each interceptor's kill, especially the tippers. (89) England had no counter for the V2, but the people soon realized the low threat from the inaccurate missile, seeing it could only strike populated areas. They had dealt with terror raids before, and with the war going the Allies' way, they saw the V2s for what they were: weapons that could terrorize but not effectively hurt the Allies. Therefore, Hitler's purpose for employing the V1 and V2 actually helped the Allies' cause. At the same time, the weapons hurt Germany's chances for developing other wonder weapons.   The V weapon programs impaired other advanced projects by consuming vast resources and manpower that Germany could have used to make effective armaments. When Hitler saw a V2 demonstration film on 7 July 1943, he directed that the program receive whatever labor and materials it needed. The program cost more than 5 billion reichsmarks and absorbed tens of thousands of workers (many of them slaves, an additional factor in the poor workmanship)--enough to have produced 24,000 aircraft. (90) The effort compromised the rest of Germany's war economy and prevented programs from having real strategic worth. One such weapon was the Hs-117 radio-controlled surface-to-air missile, (91) something the Germans needed to counter the Combined Bomber Offensive. The resource expenditure did not stop with the basic missile. Germany pursued two extreme measures to improve the weapons. First, it developed a manned V1 much like the Japanese Ohka kamikaze rocket plane. Unlike the Japanese, the Germans found few volunteers to man the aircraft, even after a test program led by famous pilot Hannah Reitsch. (92) One can predict the program would have improved accuracy but would have resulted in many deaths from Allied interception before the missiles reached their targets. The second scheme involved a Type XXI submarine (another wonder weapon) towing a V2 that rode in an underwater launch center to its liftoff point near the US east coast. (93) Although the designers knew it would have minimal accuracy, they justified the expenditure by saying the weapon's harassing effect would have strategic and political results. Germany produced one of these weapons in the 5 months preceding the war's end but never used it. These problems highlight Germany's complete lack of strategic vision and judgment of what made a successful weapon. The same problems would have affected the other wonder weapons had they reached mass production and deployment.   The V weapons were the only wonder weapons that saw mass production and employment yet had insignificant effect on the war's outcome. The basic problems of integration, poor accuracy, futilely striking morale, and wrongly prioritized expenditures made these wonder weapons, at best, useless, and, at worst, a war loser for Germany. We can see the same problems affecting the other advanced projects as well, showing again what little effect they would have, even in large numbers. In the final analysis, the wonder weapons only promoted the fantasy of the next technological breakthrough that would change the war. (94) This fantasy was at the expense of practical weapons that could have given the Luftwaffe and Germany a real chance at victory.   Relevance for Today: The US Defense Transformation   Examining the past for historical interest is fine, but it has true value when one applies it to similar events happening today or that could happen in the near future. Adapting a common phrase, one can see that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it or, at least, will miss opportunities. World War II Germany attempted to transform its war effort with technology but did not have the strategic vision, operational integration, or production capacity to pull it off. One can easily draw a parallel between Germany's efforts and the current US transformation employment. This section will examine the ongoing US military transformation with respect to producing technology, integrating it with other innovations and current weapon systems, then using it to execute national security strategy in a challenging world. Additionally, it will compare German efforts to do the same, showing the pitfalls on the way toward dominance in all phases of warfare.   Producing high technology has been America's trademark since World War II. During the Cold War, the United States counted on quality to defeat the Warsaw Pact's quantity. Whereas the Germans canceled all programs that could not be completed within 1 year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wants to cancel all projects that do not take the military to the next level. (95) This is a result of the US strategic orientation toward the long term, rather than focusing on near-term issues. However, the Department of Defense (DoD) must avoid going to the other extreme, because putting all its hope in next-generation weapons will be to the detriment of current and proven technology. Two reasons support this point. First, advanced technology is very expensive, making it difficult to replace combat losses. (96) The Luftwaffe demonstrated this lesson, and the DoD would be wise to learn it. Second, wars are now come as you are, leaving little time to develop new weapons to meet current threats--it could be disastrous to get caught between technological advancements. The key for producing technology is how the United States spends money. Germany could not control its wonder weapons' escalating costs, and it skewed the entire war economy. If the DoD cannot control the exponential cost growth in next-generation weapons, it could price itself out of the defense business altogether. The United States needs to make astute decisions regarding successor weapon systems, in some cases making ruthless choices to ensure it spends money in the right places to produce effective forces within a reasonable time. (97) Producing technology is important; more crucial is how the military integrates that technology into operations.   Germany failed to integrate its world-leading technology into effective weapon systems, leading to arms that were not as effective as they could have been. Component shortcomings, lack of aircrews, and maintenance problems contributed as well. The current DoD transformation has a better focus. According to Rumsfeld, transformation is more than building high-tech weapons. It is about finding new ways of thinking and fighting. The goal is not to transform within 1 year or even 10 years--it is an ongoing process. (98) While DoD works the process, it cannot assume new is always better, because integration will always limit high technology (99) until all weapon components are at the same development level. Additionally, a smaller force of less sophisticated weapons leaves more money for maintenance and upgrades. (100) A good example of this is the recent reduction in the B-l force, allowing the Air Force to upgrade the remaining bombers to be more effective against moving and time-critical targets. Relatedly, buying versatile weapons can bring down costs, improve integration, and increase effectiveness. The new push for an F/A-22 (vice an F-22) shows the Air Force is moving toward versatile platforms. (101) Integrating the technology is vital; equally crucial is taking care of the people who run the weapons. It would be a mistake for DoD to neglect training, retention, and services to pay for new weapons. Germany was unable to use its advanced aircraft for want of experienced aircrews. Current weapons are even more advanced and require the best people to make them effective when the military uses them.   Developing, producing, and integrating technology does no good unless the United States uses its transformed power in an effective way. There are four ways it can employ power to make the fullest use of the transformation. First, the services need clear concepts of operations (CONOPS) to guide both using the technology today and as a roadmap to the future. (102) Without thoroughly developed CONOPS describing how to employ new weapon systems to meet long-term goals, the DoD runs the risk of short-term thinking. The Air Force is pursuing eight CONOPS, covering everything from space to global strike and mobility, to realize its vision. (103) Second, the military must use a combination of old and new technology to get the job done. For example, Global Positioning System-guided munitions are superior high-accuracy weapons. However, they are much less effective without a man in the field using simple sighting equipment to find and pass target coordinates to orbiting aircraft. This supports the idea of not placing all hope in fantastic equipment. Third, while fighting the war on terror, the United States cannot become stuck in a defensive mindset like Germany did and lose its capability to strike its enemies. The Secretary of Defense and many other high-level government officials have stated the best defense against terror is a good offense, (104) an appropriate attitude that the United States has so far followed. Moreover, America should be realistic in planning to employ its power. The DoD has finally moved away from the two major wars scenario to a more realistic approach of fighting one major conflict while holding ground in other contingencies.(105) The DoD is doing this by replacing its Cold War threat-based approach with a capabilities-based view. This concept looks beyond current uncertain needs in order to maintain strategic flexibility and resistance to asymmetric surprise. (106) Thus, the capability-based approach directs readiness for the most likely military needs instead of preparing to counter threats that do not pose a realistic danger. Finally, the United States is strongly advocating effects-based operations (EBO). (107) These operations concentrate on achieving effects that will force the enemy to do our will, instead of just destroying targets that produce arbitrary effects. This requires the military to integrate all systems to find, target, and attack those centers of gravity that will make maintaining the status quo impossible for our adversaries. Attacks requiring pinpoint accuracy to eliminate collateral damage are tailormade for advanced technology, but the United States must ensure it is hitting the right things. Germany squandered its ballistic and cruise missiles trying to attack British morale and ultimately did not attain its goal. The same fate awaits the United States if it does not do its homework to find those things that truly hurt its enemies.   Developing technology while not becoming over reliant on it, integrating advanced weapons to get full use out of all systems, and using the systems most effectively will allow the United States to avoid Germany's problems. Building a transformation to keep America ahead lets it fight on its terms and keeps enemies off balance and struggling to catch up. The United States must be ready for asymmetric threats and let other countries fantasize about finding their own wonder weapons to change their fortunes. If the DoD transforms correctly, it will not only be ready for them but also may even deter adversaries from using counter technologies against America.   Conclusion   We now know the dominant weapons on the battlefield are the ones that can be mass-produced, operated by motivated fighters, kept in action with spares and supplies, and used in concert with other weapons. (108) Ignoring the above advice in pursuit of superior weaponry courts disaster. In the words of General George S. Patton, "How easily people can fool themselves into believing wars can be won by some wonderful invention rather than by hard-fighting and superior leadership." (109) Nazi Germany possessed the technical prowess and industry to produce several wonder weapons during World War II. Its jet and rocket fighters, guided missiles, and cruise and ballistic missiles were all ahead of their time and superior to Allied armament. However, Germany could not transform its military into an effective force to stem the rising Allied tide for several reasons.   Germany's first significant problem was producing and deploying its wonder weapons. Many times, Nazi politicians interfered in projects, creating obstacles to efficient production. Further, the military itself played too large a role in design and production specifications, with changing demands making any kind of mass production nearly impossible. Corruption also played a role in keeping incompetent designs afloat, taking valuable production capacity away from truly useful projects. All this boiled down to a lack of strategic vision rising from the Germans' overconfidence in quick victory, a problem that plagued both weapons production and military operations. Finally, the Combined Bomber Offensive made an already horrible system untenable and was the straw that broke Germany's wonder weapons capacity.   Weapons are no good if a country cannot use them. Had Germany actually mass-produced its wonder weapons, it is doubtful they would have done any good. First, the weapons were not that advanced as systems because of German industry's failure to integrate them into total packages. Second, long-term pilot losses led to decreasing crew experience. This, combined with an inadequate training system, meant there were insufficient pilots to fly the wonder weapons. The Luftwaffe compounded the problem late in the war when it completely stripped its training units, sending all pilots and planes to fight. Third, Germany's focus on defense left it little capability to conduct offensive operations to truly hurt the Allies. When it did attack with its only mass-produced wonder weapons, the V1 and V2, it sought only terror effects. Its targeting mistake made the V missiles even more ineffective than their inherent inaccuracy dictated. Additionally, the missile program diverted enormous resources from other projects that could have dented the Allies' progress. In the end, the blade that cut through Poland, France, and the rest of Europe could not be sharpened by the wonder weapons and was ultimately too brittle to survive the exhausting conflict. (110) It dulled against the Allies' steel and concrete and was shattered in its turn, ending any chance of German victory.   The lesson Germany failed to learn is relevant today, as the United States moves to transform its military. We must heed the lesson that it is not enough to produce high technology with a short-term strategy. Instead, the United States must make careful choices on what to develop in the budget-constrained economy and fully integrate new weapons with the support systems and people on which they depend. Then it must effectively and realistically employ its transformed military to keep adversaries off balance. Producing, integrating, and employing new wonder weapons to strike targets for effects rather than brute destruction will bend adversaries to US will and allow the United States to attain its national security objectives. Germany lost the opportunity to become and remain a truly advanced power. America is totally dominant in many factors but must continue its ongoing transformation process to stay ahead and provide unmatched military effectiveness.   Notes   (1.) Bill Gunston, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Combat Aircraft of World War II. London: Salamander Books, Ltd, 1978   (2.) Generalleutnant Adolf Galland, The First and the Last, trans, Mervyn Savill, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1954.   (3.) Jeffrey L. Ethell and Alfred Price, The German Jets in Combat, London: Jane's Publishing Company Limited, 1979   (4.) Interrogation of Generalleutnant Galland, 16-18 Sep 45, typed transcript, 570.619A, in USAF Collection, Air Force Historical Research Agency (AFHRA), Maxwell, AFB, Alabama, 2.   (5.) Interrogation of Hans Fay, test pilot for Messerschmitt, Me 262 jet-propelled aircraft and Me 163 rocket-propelled aircraft, 1 May 45, typed transcript, 170.2281-31, in USAF Collection, AFHRA, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, 3.   (6.) Ethell and Price.   (7.) Galland, The First and the Last   (8.) Ethell and Price   (9.) The Diagram Group, Weapons, New York: St Martin's Press, Inc, 1980   (10.) Alfred Price, Luftwaffe Handbook 1939-1945, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1977   (11.) Ibid.   (12.) Ethell and Price   (13.) Interview of Dr Ing Hermann Lorenz (RLM), Information on Natter German Rocket Interceptor, 7 May 45, typed transcript, 170.2281-30, in USAF Collection, AFHRA, 1.   (14.) Joachim Dressel, Natter Ba-349, Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd, 1994   (15.) Diagram Group.   (16.) James F. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi, Dirty Little Secrets of World War II, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc, 1994   (17.) Diagram Group.   (18.) Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, A War to Be Won, Cambridge, Massachusetts, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1983.   (19.) Dunnigan and Nofi   (20.) David Irving, The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe: The Life of Field Marshal Erhard Milch, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1973   (21.) Generalfeldmarschall Erhard Milch, An Apologia for the Defeat and Deficiencies of the Luftwaffe, 15 Nov 45, 570.619B, in USAF Collection, Air Force Historical Research Center, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, 1. Milch states Hitler gained much of his aviation knowledge from his personal pilot, who was not much of an aviator or strategic expert. Hitler, not for the first time, trusted a close personal assistant instead of his true experts.   (22.) Galland, The First and the Last.   (23.) Ibid.   (24.) Irving   (25.) Ibid.   (26.) Galland, The First and the Last   (27.) Irving.   (28.) Galland, The First and the Last   (29.) Irving   (30.) Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1995   (31.) Overy.   (32.) Ibid   (33.) Ibid.   (34.) I. B. Holley, "Some Concluding Insights," Air Superiority, ed, B. Franklin Cooling, Washington DC, Center for Air Force History, 1994   (35.) Williamson Murray, Strategy for Defeat of the Luftwaffe 1933-1945. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 1983   (36.) Irving   (37.) Murray   (38.) W.A. Jacobs, "Operation Overlord," Air Superiority, ed, B. Franklin Cooling, Washington, DC: Center for Air Force History, 1994 .   (39.) Overy   (40.) Murray and Millett   (41.) Overy   (42.) Price  (43.) Galland, The First and the Last   (44.) Interrogation of General Lieutenant Galland, Special Weapons for Combating Four-Engined Bombers by Day with Single Engine and Twin Engine Fighters, 14 Sep 45, typed transcript, 570.619A, in USAF Collection, AFHRA, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, 7. Ethell and Price cite similar information on pages 47 and 59, as does Perrett on page 253.   (45.) Hugh Morgan and John Weal, German Jet Aces of World War II , London: Osprey Publishing, 1998.   (46.) Interrogation of German PoWs, ADI (K) Report No 44A/1944. Hs 293 Radio Controlled Bomb,28 Dec 43, typed transcript, 512.6522, in USAF Collection. AFHRA, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, 3. Report No 1534 in the same location gives information on the FX radio-controlled bomb, gathered from eyewitness accounts of an attack and examination of a crashed Do-217K-3 and unexploded FX bombs in England.   (47.) Interview of Reichsmarshal Herman Goering, no date, typed transcript 570.619, in USAF Collection, AFHRA, Maxwell AFB, Alabama   (48.) Stephen L. McFarland and Wesley Phillips Newton, "'The American Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany in World War II," Case Studies in Strategic Bombing, ed, R. Cargill Hall, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1998.   (49.) Morgan and Weal.   (50.) William Green, The Warplanes of the Third Reich. Garden City. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc, 1970   (51.) Ibid   (52.) Bruce D. Callander, "The Jet Generations," Air Force Magazine, 85, 10, Oct 02, 70.   (53.) Geoffrey Perrett, Winged Victory, New York: Random House, 1993.   (54.) Irving   (55.) The Editors of Time-Life Books, The Luftwaffe, Alexandria, Virginia, Time-Life Books, 1982   (56.) Jacobs   (57.) Price   (58.) McFarland and Newton   (59.) Murray   (60.) Galland   (61.) Price   (62.) McFarland and Newton, 237. Overy (Why the Allies Won) also states that by Sep 44, 80 percent of the Luftwaffe fighter force was based in Germany for antibomber missions.   (63.) Murray and Millett   (64.) Jacobs   (65.) Ibid   (66.) Murray and Millett   (67.) Overy.   (68.) Perrett   (69.) Galland   (70.) Morgan and Weal   (71.) Galland   (72.) Ibid  (73.) John Keegan, The Second World War, New York: Penguin Books USA, Inc, 1989  (74.) Murray and Millett   (75.) Dunnigan and Nofi, Keegan cites similar numbers.   (76.) H.E. Bates, Flying Bombs Over England, Westerham, Kent, England: Froglets Publications Ltd, 1994   (77.) Keegan.   (78.) Gunston   (79.) Dunnigan and Nofi   (80.) Price.   (81.) Interrogation of German PoWs, A.D.I. (K) Report No 2246, German Flying Bomb (no date, typed transcript, 512.6521, in USAF Collection, Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, 1. Also contains information from examination of downed and captured V 1s.   (82.) Dunnigan and Nofi  (83.) War Department Memo, HQ AAF, German Pilotless Aircraft, 8 Jul 44, 142.0423-5, in USAF Collection, AFHRA, Maxwell AFB, Alabama  (84.) Price   (85.) Crossbow report, Study: Flying Bomb and V2 Rocket, 8 Jan 45, 142.0423-4, in USAF Collection, AFHRA, Maxwell AFB, Alabama   (86.) Keegan   (87.) Earl R. Beck, Under the Bombs, Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1986   (88.) Crossbow   (89.) Bob Ogley, Doodlebugs and Rockets, The Battle of the Flying Bombs, Froglets Publications Ltd, 1992   (90.) Overy   (91.) Report from Captured Personnel and Materiel Branch, US War Department Intelligence Division, Trends in Development of German Weapons for Countering Allied Bombers, 5 May 45, 170,2281-23, in USAF Collection, AFHRA, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. 2.   (92.) Dieter Holsken. V-Missiles of the Third Reich, the V1 and V2, Sturbridge, Massachusetts, Monogram Aviation Publications, 1994   (93.) Holsken   (94.) Overy   (95.) John A. Tirpak, "The Force Seeks a New Baseline," Air Force Magazine, 86, No 1, Jan 03   (96.) Ibid.   (97.) Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2000   (98.) Donald H. Rumsfeld, "Transforming the Military: Riding into the Future," National and International Security Studies, Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air Command and Staff College, 2002.   (99.) "Long Arm of the Air Force," Air Force Magazine 85, No 10, Oct 02   (100.) Ibid   (101.) Ibid.   (102.) Lambeth   (103.) HQ USAF XPXT, "The USAF Transformation Flight Plan, In Joint Force Employment, Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air Command and Staff College, 2003   (104.) Rumsfeld   (105.) Ibid   (106.) James G. Roche, "Transforming the Air Force," Joint Force Employment, Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air Command and Staff College, 2003   (107.) Maj T. W. Beagle, "Effects-Based Targeting: Another Empty Promise?" in Air and Space Operations, Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air Command and Staff College, 2002   (108.) Murray and Millett   (109.) Lambeth   (110.) Irving