V-2 facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Aggregat-4/Vergeltungswaffe-2 |
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Peenemünde Museum replica of V-2
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| Type | Single-stage ballistic missile |
| Place of origin | Nazi Germany |
| Service history | |
| In service | 1944–1952 |
| Used by | |
| Production history | |
| Designer | Peenemünde Army Research Center |
| Manufacturer | Mittelwerk GmbH |
| Unit cost | 100,000 RM January 1944, 50,000 RM March 1945 |
| Produced | 16 March 1942 – 1945 (Germany) Some assembled post-war |
| Specifications | |
| Mass | 12,500 kg (27,600 lb) |
| Length | 14 m (45 ft 11 in) |
| Diameter | 1.65 m (5 ft 5 in) |
| Warhead | 1,000 kg (2,200 lb); Amatol (explosive weight: 910 kg) |
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Detonation
mechanism |
Impact |
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| Wingspan | 3.56 m (11 ft 8 in) |
| Propellant |
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Operational
range |
320 km (200 mi) |
| Flight altitude |
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| Maximum speed |
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Guidance
system |
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Launch
platform |
Mobile (Meillerwagen) |
The V-2 rocket (German: Vergeltungswaffe 2) was the world's first ballistic missile and first human object to fly in space. All modern rockets are based on the V2 design. The first successful launch was from Peenemünde on 3 October, 1942, reaching a height of 192 km. The V2 was designed by Nazis to bomb London, Antwerp and other European cities. It travelled at four times the speed of sound so was impossible to shoot down. The first V-2 used as a weapon exploded in Paris on 8 September 1944, with a second rocket exploding in London later that day. Over 3,000 V-2s were used by the German Wehrmacht against Allied targets in World War II, resulting in the death of an estimated 7,250 military personnel and civilians.
The victors used captured V-2 rockets to start space and missile programs. In the United States they were helped by the team of German rocket scientists from Peenemünde, led by Wernher von Braun, who had surrendered to the US at the end of the war. The first US assembled V-2, made from parts captured in Germany, was launched from White Sands, New Mexico, in April 1946. There were 66 V-2 rocket flights, the last on October 29, 1951.
Contents
Development
In the late 1920s, a young Wernher von Braun bought a copy of Hermann Oberth's book, Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Spaces). Starting in 1930, he attended the Technical University of Berlin, where he assisted Oberth in liquid-fueled rocket motor tests. In 1933 he went to work for the Army designing and building rockets. The final, biggest rocket was the A-4, later called V-2.
Production
On 22 Dec. 1942, Hitler signed the order for mass production, when Speer assumed final technical data would be ready by July 1943. However, many issues still remained to be solved even by the autumn of 1943.
Test launch was recovered by Polish resistance on 30 May 1944 and rocket from Blizna was transported to the UK during Operation Most III.
24,000 fighters could have been produced instead of the inaccurate V-weapons.
- Huzel, Dieter K. (ca. 1965). Peenemünde to Canaveral. Prentice Hall Inc.
Images for kids
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Wernher von Braun at Peenemünde Army Research Center
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Layout of a V-2 rocket
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Captured V-2 on public display in Antwerp, 1945. Exhaust vanes and external rudders in tail section shown.
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A U.S. Army cut-away of the V-2
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A sectioned V-2 engine on display at the Deutsches Museum, Munich (2006).
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23 June 1943 RAF reconnaissance photo of V-2s at Test Stand VII
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A V-2 launched from Test Stand VII in summer 1943
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The extent of damage caused to a London residential area due to a single V-2 strike in January 1945
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Rocket engine used by V-2, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin (2014)
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Operation Backfire V-2 rocket on Meillerwagen (SI Negative #76-2755).
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US test launch of a Bumper V-2.
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The first photo of Earth from space was taken from a V-2 launched by US scientists on 24 October 1946.
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R-1 rocket (V-2 rebuilt by Russia) on a Vidalwagen at Kapustin Yar
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V-2 rocket located at the Australian War Memorial Treloar Centre Annex
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The propulsion unit from a V-2 that broke up in air on display (with exhaust-exit pointed up) Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum
See also
In Spanish: Cohete V2 para niños
