BajaNomad

This Day In History - 1944 England V-1 Rocket Attacks from Germany

Pompano - 3-6-2012 at 11:23 AM

A V-1 Germany Rocket enroute to England.








? Spitfire "tipping-off" a V1. If you've never heard of this insane tactic .......

At first V1's were shot down by gunfire. Optimum range was inside 200yds, which was marginal for survival. Many planes were damaged and quite a few pilots killed.

Basically at such high speed and low altitude a plane had to fly though the explosion and hope.

With the high risk of being blown up some of the best pilots started tipping the V1's wing.

Because of damage to wing tips they later developed a tactic of disrupting the airflow by placing their wing very close to the V1's wing, causing it to topple.

Not every pilot did this. At night this was not possible, the flame from the V1 blinded the pilot to everything else, though some Mossie pilots flew past closely in front of the V1,
again causing it to topple.

The thought of doing this at 450mph, 4,000 feet
above the ground, at night and being blinded gives me the willies.

That was 1944 ...And that's what happened to this crazy world in the skies over England.

2012 is getting a little crazy, too, huh....??

desertcpl - 3-6-2012 at 01:17 PM

YIKES

that really took some balls

greengoes - 3-6-2012 at 01:27 PM

David K - 3-6-2012 at 01:46 PM

...and Werner would later design the rocket that took us to the moon!

The Sculpin - 3-6-2012 at 02:46 PM

Sorry Roberto, but you're wrong. These guys were pawns in the intellectual property fight between the US and Russia. Luckily for us, he made the right decision and surrendered to the right side - if we hadn't gotten Von Braun and others the world would be very different today. My dad worked with him very briefly - that guy was sharp! Besides - there's nothing fair about the world we live in.

On another note - those spitfires were made of wood! Imagine tipping a metal rocket wing with a stick with the throttle all forward!!

On another another note, sorry to miss the Clement Moore post - I was somewhat "detained" during that time - nothing serious.....

[Edited on 3-6-2012 by The Sculpin]

David K - 3-6-2012 at 02:59 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by The Sculpin
Sorry Roberto, but you're wrong. These guys were pawns in the intellectual property fight between the US and Russia. Luckily for us, he made the right decision and surrendered to the right side - if we hadn't gotten Von Braun and others the world would be very different today. My dad worked with him very briefly - that guy was sharp! Besides - there's nothing fair about the world we live in.

On another note - those spitfires were made of wood! Imagine tipping a metal rocket wing with a stick with the throttle all forward!!

On another another note, sorry to miss the Clement Moore post - I was somewhat "detained" during that time - nothing serious.....

[Edited on 3-6-2012 by The Sculpin]


X2...

The Soviet flag would have been on the moon instead of Old Glory... and perhaps on our White House and Capitol building!

The Sculpin - 3-6-2012 at 03:48 PM

Come on Roberto, you must be joking....You're wrong because I say you're wrong! OK - let me clarify - you're reasoning is flawed. Opinions are neither right nor wrong, rather they're either well crafted or not thought through. Yours is of the latter. A sovereign who wishes to have a technological advantage over other sovereigns will not hand that person over to an international court for trial - especially if the case against him and his staff is weak! He may have been a N-zi and in the SS but his passion was not politics, it was rockets. Many of the scientists during that time on both/all sides were not very political (other than Einstein), and even those involved in the war effort at Oak Ridge and later Los Alamos didn't fully understand the political ramifications of what they were doing. As for facts, there were not many in your analysis. You state (sort of) that he did not know about the slave labor - he most likely did. But I love your sentence construction! Did the laborers end up in the camps, or the rockets?

Fernweh - 3-6-2012 at 03:49 PM

Quote:


I just have a very hard time with all Germans who joined the N-zi party voluntarily, and not just that, but the SS as well. Forgetting that is just not in the cards for me. I have seen the consequence of the actions of people who did that too closely to just bypass.

[Edited on 3-6-2012 by Roberto]


I'm glad Roberto,

that you have not forgotten the fire bombing of the all civilian city Dresden. There were a few more collateral damages than in today's wars.
Wars are no fun, believe me and I hope never to live through those time my parents had to. And yes, they had joined the "New Hope" party......

Karl

The Sculpin - 3-6-2012 at 04:13 PM

Well there you go - proof positive that no one has all the facts!
Mosquito, eh?

The Sculpin - 3-6-2012 at 05:08 PM

I'm not making excuses for Von Braun - yes he was a N-zi, yes he was SS, but was he really a drinker of the kool-aid? That is best left to the historians. But Von Braun certainly did not have to "do whatever" to achieve his status - it was given to him by virtue of his benefit to the party. Also, the N-zi hunters would have been all over him if a case could have been made - but that doesn't mean he was innocent. As for damages, my family is all over this one. To this day there is still a deep rift between the fascists, the communists, the POW's, the Vichy collaborators and the resistance - and that's just my mothers side! I couldn't have this discussion with them and hope to survive! I think we agree more than we disagree. Fortunately for us our ability to use hindsight to interpret historical events is tempered with the realities our relatives endured.

The Sculpin - 3-6-2012 at 05:33 PM

oui, et la famille de mon pere est allman! Saperlipopette!