Armes V — Wikipedia

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This article relates to the offensive use of weapons V and the military campaign in which they were used. For the description of weapons, see V1 (missile), V2 (missile) and V3 (cannon). For the other German supers, see Wunderwaffe.

THE armes V , known by their original German names revenge weapons (in French: “weapons of revenge”, “weapons of reprisals”), were a particular set of artillery pieces designed for strategic bombing during the Second World War, in particular for bombing of terror and/or the air bombardment cities [ first ] , [ 2 ] . They included the V-1 flying bomb, the V-2 rocket and the Canon V-3. All of these weapons were intended for use in the military campaign against the United Kingdom, although only V-1 and V-2 were actually used in the 1944-45 campaign. After the landing of the Allies in France and their progress in continental Europe, these weapons were also used against targets on the continent.

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They were one of the alleged Weapons (in French : super-armes ) Nazi Germany.

Since the , a justification of the bombing of terror had been put forward for the A4 (V-2 rocket) project launched during a meeting between the head of ammunition for the army Emil Leeb and the commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, Walther Von Brauchitsch [ 3 ] . After the relative failure of the Baedeker raid on Great Britain in 1942, the development of both the flying bomb and the rocket accelerated, with the target designated Britain [ 4 ] . The , Albert Speer publicly promised reprisals to the massive bombing of German cities thanks to a “secret weapon” [ 5 ] . Then the , the Ministry of Propaganda of the Reich officially spoke of the guided missile “Vergeltungswaffe 1” implicitly announcing that there would be another weapon of this type [ 6 ] . After the first operational launch of the A-4 in , the rocket was renamed V-2 [ 7 ] , (even if no one knows exactly who gave it this name) [ 8 ] . However, the operating manual of the V-2, distributed to the shooting batteries, continued to use the name of A-4 for the rocket [ 9 ] .

Offensives using weapons V against the United Kingdom in 1944-1945 [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

and V-1 [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

From’ , the construction of launch sites for the V-1 was launched in the north of France, in the coastal area of ​​Calais in Le Havre. Air bombings on these sites by the Allied air armies had only been partially crowned with success and , they were ready for the first launches [ ten ] . Pressed by the Normandy landing of , the In the early morning, the first V- 1 flying bomb attack was launched on London [ 4 ] , [ 11 ] . Ten missiles were launched, four of which reached England. The first of them fell near Swanscombe, without making any victims. In Bethnal Green, however, a bridge was destroyed and six people was killed and nine others injured [ twelfth ] . After the , the attacks reached the pace of about 100 per day [ 11 ] . With the British first attack launched the Diver Operation which had been pre-plane (according to the code name “Diver” used for V-1).

The buzzing of the V-1 pulseactor was compared by some to the noise of the engine of “a motorcycle in poor condition”. When he reached his goal and plunged, the noise of the Pétaradant reactor, followed by a disturbing silence before the impact, was quite terrifying. The sudden silence was also a warning to find a shelter (later the V-1 were modified to keep the push during the descent) [ 13 ] . At least one company in London announced the time required for a client to access the nearest shelter. Despite this, the cloudy and rainy conditions of the months of June and July helped the effectiveness of the weapon and the losses were high. At the end of August, a million and a half people had left London and the production had been affected [ 14 ] . At the end of summer and autumn, however, increasingly effective countermeasures to combat V-1 were implemented and people began to return to London [ 15 ] .

A total of 9,251 V-1 was fired on targets in Great Britain, a large majority of London; 2,515 reached the city, killing 6,184 civilians and injuring 17,981. Croydon, in the south, on the V1 trajectory was she touched 142 times [ 16 ] .

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and V-2 [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The V-2 rocket launch sites were erected by the Germans near the Hague in the Netherlands the . The first was launched this step of shot against London And it was estimated at 5 minutes for the rocket to cover the approximately 300 kilometers separating the Hague in London. She fell the To 18 h 43 On Chiswick causing the death of thirteen people [ 17 ] . In October, the offensive became supported. THE took place a particularly devastating strike when a V-2 exploded at the Woolworth store (in) In New Cross Road (marked by a plaque on the site currently occupied by an Iceland supermarket), killing 168 people and seriously injuring 121 [ 18 ] . The interception in flight of supersonic v-2 rockets turned out to be practically impossible and countermeasures, such as the bombing of relatively ineffective launch sites. A sustained bombardment continued until . The last missiles fell the , one of them killing 134 people and injuring 49 when he struck a residential building in Stepney [ 19 ] .

1,115 V-2 were fired against the United Kingdom. The vast majority of them aimed in London, but about 40 were targeted (and missed) Norwich. They killed an estimated total of 2,754 people in London and injured 6,523. In addition, 2,917 service staff were killed as a result of the V-2 weapons shooting campaign. and was rarely seen) while he was approaching his target, his psychological effect “suffered from the V-1” [ 20 ] .
The offensive based on weapons V ended in , with the last strike of V-2 in the Kent the And the last of V-1 two days later. In terms of victims, their effects were less than what their designers had hoped or that their victims had feared, even if the damage was important, with 20,000 damaged houses on the day of the terror campaign, causing a huge crisis Housing in southeast England at the end of 1944 and early 1945 [ 21 ] .

The terror of the attack on V-2 on London is the theme of Thomas Pynchon’s novel, Rainbow Gravity [ 22 ] .

and V-3 [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Canon V-3, also designed to shoot London, was never used for this purpose due to allied attacks on launch facilities, especially on the fortress of Mimoyecques, and the offensive in northern Europe In 1944 which enabled the selling sites. Consequently, its initial destination was modified, in the winter of 1944, to bomb Antwerp and Luxembourg, with minimal results [ 23 ] .

  1. ↑ (in) Basil Collier , The battle of the V-weapons, 1944-45 , Morley England, Elmfield Press, , 191 p. (ISBN  978-0-7057-0070-2 , OCLC  3492421 ) , p. 138
  2. ↑ (in) ‘ V-WEAPONS (CROSSBOW) CAMPAIGN » , All World Wars (consulted the )
  3. ↑ (in) Michael J Neufeld , The Rocket and the Reich : Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era , New York, The Free Press, , 368 p. (ISBN  978-0-02-922895-1 ) , p. 137,237
  4. ↑ a et b Basil Collier 1976, p. 15-16
  5. ↑ (in) Philip Henshall, Hitler’s Rocket Sites , New York, St Martin’s Press, , 221 p. (ISBN  978-0-7090-2021-9 , OCLC  464002042 ) , p. 128
  6. ↑ (in) David Johnson, V-1, V-2 : Hitler’s Vengeance on London , Stein and Day, ( first re ed. 1981), 203 p. (ISBN  978-0-8128-2858-0 , OCLC  610960212 ) , p. 80
  7. ↑ (in) David Irving , The Mare’s Nest , Londres, William Kimber and Co, , p. 288
  8. ↑ (in) Ernst Klee an otto note, The Birth of the Missile : The Secrets of Peenemünde , Hambourg, Gerhard Stalling Verlag, english translation: 1965 ( first re ed. 1963), p. 47
  9. ↑ (in) J McGovern , Crossbow and Overcast , New York, W. Morrow, , p. 80
  10. ↑ Basil Collier 1976, p. 160-3
  11. ↑ a et b (in) Angus Calder , The people’s war : Britain, 1939-45 , Londres, Panther, , 768 p. (ISBN  978-0-586-03523-8 , OCLC  187327339 ) , p. 645
  12. ↑ Basil Collier 1976, p. 74-5
  13. ↑ Basil Collier 1976, p. 80
  14. ↑ Basil Collier 1976, p. 11-12, 80-1, 125
  15. ↑ Angus Calder 1971, p. 646-7
  16. ↑ Angus Calder 1971, p. 647
  17. ↑ Basil Collier 1976, p. 113, 170
  18. ↑ Basil Collier 1976, p. 129
  19. ↑ Basil Collier 1976, p. 135
  20. ↑ (in) Mark Wade , ‘ V-2 » , Encyclopedia Astronautica (consulted the )
  21. ↑ Angus Calder 1971, p. 646-50
  22. ↑ Review of Gravity’s Rainbow
  23. ↑ (in) Max Hastings , Armageddon : the battle for Germany, 1944-1945 , New York, Vintage Books, , 584 p. (ISBN  978-0-375-71422-1 And 978-0-375-41433-6 , OCLC  796952538 ) , p. 196

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