HOW

FAR DID THE WONDER

WEAPONS HELP OR HINDER
GERMANYS PURSUIT OF
VICTORY IN WORLD WAR
TWO?

Contents
Abstract ............................................................................................................................. 2
Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 3
What Were the Wonder Weapons? ................................................................................... 4
The Scope of this Paper .............................................................................................................. 6
Wonder Weapons on the Battlefield ................................................................................. 6
Measurement of the Effectiveness of the Weapons .................................................................... 6
The V-weapons; 1 & 2 ................................................................................................................ 7
The Jets: Messerschmitt Me-262, Me-163, and Arado Ar-234 .................................................... 13
The Wonder Weapons- Effects and Opportunity Cost ...................................................... 18
Measurement of the Effects of the Weapons ............................................................................ 18
The V-1 ...................................................................................................................................... 19
The V-2 ...................................................................................................................................... 21
The V-3: A Cost with No Benefit ................................................................................................ 23
The Jets ..................................................................................................................................... 24
Conclusions ..................................................................................................................... 26
The V-weapons: ........................................................................................................................ 26
The Jets ..................................................................................................................................... 28
Final conclusion ............................................................................................................... 30
Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 33
Books: ....................................................................................................................................... 33
Internet: .................................................................................................................................... 35
Documentaries: ......................................................................................................................... 38

Abstract

This paper endeavours to determine how far Germanys development of wonder weapons in World
War Two helped or hindered their war effort. To do this, a precise definition of the wonder weapons
is provided, by compiling a set of characteristics common to the wonder weapons mentioned in
existing sources. By these criteria, five main weapons are selected for closer analysis.
The first section of the paper assesses the wonder weapons performance on the battlefield: how far
did they contribute to the German pursuit of victory? This is determined through statistics for
example the number of casualties caused by the v-weapons, or the number of combat kills made by
the jets- as well as by the effects of the weapons on morale. By both measures, the weapons are
found to have made minimal contributions to the war effort, proving ineffective on the battlefield.
The second section analyses in detail the wonder weapons secondary effects on the conflict. This is
done by collating and combining relevant facts and data, placing in perspective the weapons
positive and negative effects on the German war effort. Through this the paper discusses whether
the wonder weapons proved more of a hindrance than a help to the war effort, and the extent of
this help or hindrance. One way in which this judgement is made is though the comparison of the
relative costs to the Allies and Axis of undertaking or countering a programme, thereby determining
which side lost the most men and resources to the wonder weapons.
This section also examines the wonder weapons opportunity cost. It aims to quantify it and so state
what the wonder weapons programmes may have caused Germany to forfeit. It aims to answer how
far the decision to develop the wonder weapons was a wise one. The size of the weapons
opportunity cost is essential towards determining the extent of any hindrance they may have had on
the German war effort.
The paper concludes that the wonder weapons help to the German pursuit of victory was far
exceeded by their hindrance. This is based on the fact that they proved ineffective in combat, yet
caused Germany to incur massive costs developing them. These costs were not offset by Allied
expenditure against the weapons, and Germanys development of radical technology ultimately
proved futile.

Introduction

A neighbour of mine, who by now must be well into his 90s, is an unassuming man. He is also in
excellent shape for his age. I would never have dreamt that he lived through the Second World
War. Far less that he had served in the Royal Engineers, working for years on top-secret radar
emplacements. So highly classified was his work that to this day he is reluctant to talk of its
details. One story he did tell is of how his unit faced the task of trying to counter one of
Germany's wonder weapons- the V-2 rocket. Tracking this Mach-three, twelve-tonne
monstrosity of a missile to me seemed an exercise in futility. Certainly, he agreed, we never
shot down any.

The best that could be hoped for was to predict a V-2s trajectory, and somehow warn those in
its path. It must have been a blow to him when on November 25th 1944, 168 people died when a
V-2 annihilated a Woolworths in New Cross.1 It was the worst single bombing of London of the
war.

My war-serving neighbour also told me of some local history. On a wall around the corner from
my house stands a discreet plaque. It commemorates an incident in July 1944, when a V-1 flying
bomb hit our street. Seventy-seven people were killed, and the land on which my house now
stands was reduced to rubble.

The V-1 and 2 were just two of several radical weapons deployed by Germany in the wars final
years. As rockets struck London, Allied pilots over Europe found themselves confronted with jet
aircraft a hundred miles an hour faster than their newest fighters. In 1944 alone, the Third Reich
debuted the ballistic missile, the jet fighter and jet bomber, and the only rocket-powered
aircraft ever to see combat.

The wonder weapons Wunderwaffen, as they were known to their inventors - struck fear
into the hearts of all those who encountered them, and are remembered for this. But World
War Two saw countless tragedies. In the context of the entire war, which saw casualties of over
twenty thousand a day2 did the Wunderwaffen actually prove significant? Evidently, they were
not enough to prevent the British Empire, buoyed by Churchill and aided by its Allies, from
crushing its Nazi adversaries. But how far did they hinder, or even help, this eventuality? And
what if they had not been developed? Could the same resources have been used to better
effect, perhaps even prolonging the war? Could Germany actually have been better off without
the wonder weapons? Through research, collation and analysis, I endeavour to answer these
questions, and deliver a verdict on these fascinating weapons.

ww2today.com : 168 dead as Woolworths obliterated in V2 attack:

http://ww2today.com/25-november-1944-168-dead-as-woolworths-obliterated-in-v2-rocket-attack (accessed
04/02/15)
2
Hastings 2012 ppXV

What Were the Wonder Weapons?

Wunderwaffen was a term coined by the Propaganda Ministry of the Third Reich.3 It was used
to describe a number of weapons intended to reverse the German war efforts disastrous course
since the failure of Operation Barbarossa in 1941-3. It translates literally as wonder weapons.
Since then, this term has been used by historians in reference to a great many weapons, but,
while it is often used, it is never explicitly defined. Walter J. Boyne for example, in his book Clash
of Wings, refers to several aircraft type as longbows in the German wonder weapon
arsenal4, while Adam Tooze compares problems with a new variant of U-boat to those
experienced with all of Germanys wonder weapons5. Similarly, Danny S. Parker refers to a jet
aircraft as the most palpable of Hitlers promises of Wonder Weapons.6 No author seems to
have asked or answered the obvious question - what exactly were the wonder weapons? As
such, there is no agreed list or definition of them. Based on characteristics that are shared by
almost all of the examples given, I shall attempt to avoid the vagueness of previous discussion,
and provide an answer in this paper.

The first and most obvious criterion for a wonder weapon is the achievement of something
completely new and different. The wonder weapons were technological marvels, causing both
the enemy and those on their side to look on in wonder. In this spirit, The V-1 was the world's
first cruise missile. The V-2 was the first ballistic missile. The Me-163 was the first rocket-
powered combat aircraft. The Messerschmitt-262 was the first jet fighter, while the Arado 234
was the first jet bomber. The wonder weapons were neither improvements upon nor
modifications of earlier designs, or even similar to any previous designs at all. The fact that after
his first flight in the Me-262, test pilot Adolf Galland reported feeling as though an angel was
pushing7 demonstrates the separation of these weapons from anything before.

As well as inspiring wonder, the weapons were surrounded by an aura of fear and terror. The
wonder weapons were intended to exact revenge on the Allies for German losses, and reassure
the public with promises of victory. In his book To Win the Winter Sky,
Danny S. Parker exemplifies this: After the catastrophic bombing of
Hamburg in 1943, Josef Goebbels took to the airwaves telling of a
recent visit to a Reich factory, where he had seen "weapons that froze
him to the marrow."8 They were intended to demoralise and terrify
those who they were used against. This is clearly evident in the very
names of the V-1 and V-2: The V prefix bequeathed on them by the
propaganda ministry in June 1944 stood for Vergeltungswaffe
vengeance weapon. Leaflets9 dropped on Allied soldiers showed a
town on fire, with terrified civilians fleeing collapsing buildings.

3

Hillenbrand 1995 pp127

Boyne 1997 pp349-51
5
Tooze 2006 pp613
6
Parker 1944 pp72
7
RAFmuseum.com: Messerschmitt Me 262A-2a Schwalbe:
http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/collections/messerschmitt-me-262a-2a-schwalbe-swallow/ (accessed
15/05/15)
8
Parker 1994 pp84
9
http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/images/leaflet/v1r.jpg (accessed 12/01/15)
(accessed 12/01/15)
4

Imposed on the gap where a building once stood is a white V1, seemingly about to crush the
civilians below. The fact that the launch ramps of the first V-1 sites that were found were facing
directly towards London10 leaves no doubt as to their purpose.

A third important characteristic is that the Wunderwaffen were largely weapons deployed in
desperation. It is clear now and was clear then that, after the failure to defeat the Soviet Union,
a German victory was impossible. Though they would have been shot for saying so, most
German officials realised that the failure of Operation Barbarossa had condemned hope of an
outright German victory to fantasy. The best that could be expected was to extend the war, and
attempt to elicit a more favourable settlement in exchange for peace. 11

This was the exact opposite of what Germany had prepared for. The Nazi leadership were
confident that a short Blitzkrieg War would make the development of radical weapons
unnecessary. So confident were they, that in spring 1940, Hermann Goering ordered the
cessation of all weapons programmes scheduled to take more than a year12. This handicapped
amongst others the German jet engine development program. Germany would come to regret
this decision. While France and much of Europe were conquered at astounding speed, the
German war effort soon stumbled with the invasion of Russia. With its troops freezing and
starving on the Eastern front, Germany suddenly felt a need for wonder weapons. The V-1,
which according to historian Steven Zaloga13 had previously been rejected by the Luftwaffe as
technically dubious and uninteresting from the tactical viewpoint, was approved for
production only fourteen days after the concept was resubmitted in June 1942. In December of
that year, armaments minister Albert Speer received approval from Hitler to mass-produce the
V-2, despite it having performed exceedingly poorly in almost all previous tests14. On May 26th
1943, a convention ordered by Hitler to decide between the V-1 and V-2 resulted in both
programmes being funded.15 The Nazi regime had well and truly sold itself on the wonder
weapons.

In summary, the wonder weapons were:
1. Technologically new and radical
2. Weapons of terror
3. Deployed in desperation






10

Zaloga 2005 pp16

Hastings, 2012,pp164
12
Boyne 1997 pp248
13
Zaloga is an acknowledged authority on the weapons of World War II. He has a masters degree in history
from Columbia University, and has published several books on the subject. The two books of his that I have
used, V-1 Flying Bomb and V-2 Ballistic Missile, are both extensively detailed and cited, and provided
invaluable information.
14
Zaloga 2007 pp4-5
15
Zaloga 2005 pp6
11

The Scope of this Paper

In light of the above characteristics, and limited in scope by the restrictions in length and
timeframe of an extended project, this paper will focus on the weapons that fit the three
defined criteria for wonder weapons.
Some weapons, such as the Type XXI U-boat and King Tiger tank, have been considered by
historians to fit into the nebulous area of wonder weapons. Adam Tooze cites the
revolutionary U-boat as an example of a wonder weapon,16 while the King Tiger is
mentioned along with several other miracle weapons in Roger Fords German Secret Weapons
of World War Two.17 However, these weapons do not fit this papers more precise definition of
the term. The U-boat for example, did utilise new technology, but was not ostensibly a terror-
causing weapon (any more so than other submarines). The King Tiger, while remarkable as a
piece of engineering, was essentially an improvement on a previous tank model, and as such
does not meet the entirely new technology criterion. This also excludes several rifles and
propeller-powered aircraft, leaving a shorter and more united list of weapons to analyse in
detail. This careful selection of wonder weapons according to a definition enables this paper
to have a clear focus. The five main weapons that will be discussed are listed below:
1.
2.
3.
4.

The Fieseler Fi-103 (V-1) - The Worlds first cruise missile

The A-4 Rocket (V-2) - The Worlds first Ballistic Missile
The Messerschmitt Me-262 - The Worlds first operational Jet fighter aircraft
The Messerschmitt Me-163 - The Worlds first and only rocket powered interceptor
aircraft
5. The Arado Ar-234 - The Worlds first operational jet bomber

Many more weapons as radical as these were proposed, but never realised. As interesting as it
is to speculate on their possible effects, it is nearly impossible to do so accurately. This is due to
the distinct lack of reliable information surrounding their development. For this reason, only
weapons that had some palpable and measurable effects on the war will be discussed in detail.

Despite never having come to fruition, the V-3 cannon still imposed significant opportunity cost
and effects on the German war effort. Therefore it is reviewed briefly in this paper.

Wonder Weapons on the Battlefield

Measurement of the Effectiveness of the Weapons

We should not belittle or forget the lives lost to the wonder weapons. But to place their impact
accurately in the context of the entire war, they must be looked at objectively and
unemotionally. World War Two, the largest conflict in human history, saw the deaths of sixty
million people - forty million of them civilians - and it is with horrific figures such as these that
the weapons effectiveness must be compared. A judgement can be made by analysing several
vital areas: their overall scale (in terms of deaths and destruction), their success rate, (absolute

16

Tooze 2006 pp612-3

Ford 2013 pp172-3

17

and compared to other weapons), and their impact on the enemys morale. By measuring the
weapons impact against these objective criteria, rather than being subjectively impressed by
their ingenuity or appalled by their horror, we can determine how far they contributed to
Germanys war effort.

The V-weapons; 1 & 2

Introduction
The V-1 and V-2 Vengeance weapons are probably the most infamous of the Wunderwaffen.
The first of these, the V-1 flying bomb, made its combat debut on June 13th 1944, a week after
D-Day. Alex Savidge, then an eighteen-year-old engineer, remembered the seconds of terror
at the staccato throb of the unknown missile's engine18. It would go on to kill six people in
Londons Grove Road.19
Essentially a bomb with wings and an engine attached, the V-1 was guided by a gyroscopic
autopilot. The primitive pulsejet engines led to them being dubbed Buzz bombs, or
doodlebugs20 - the fuel mixture exploding inside the engine over forty times a second meant it
could be heard long before it was seen - particularly terrifying if an attack was at night. A small
propeller at the front recorded the distance travelled, and, when it was calculated to be over
England, the autopilot plunged the bomb into a steep dive. This would often overstress and cut
out the engine - a V-1s imminent impact came to be forewarned by the onset of a sudden
silence. The bombs continued to land on London for over a year, with the last one hitting
Swanscombe on March 29th 194521.
In the midst of the panic, the government evacuated some 360,000 women and children from
London22. Over 5,500 people were killed, and 23,000 homes destroyed in England23. Much of my
own street, Sloane Court East, was destroyed.
The V-1 was a terrifying weapon, but it paled in comparison to the next Vergeltungswaffe. The
A-4 rocket, known as the V-2, was to provide the basis for missile design for the forthcoming
Cold War, and prove its revolutionary technology in the 1969 moon landing. (The Saturn V
rocket used in the Apollo missions was a descendant of the V-2)24. While the V-1 could be shot
down by a well-placed (or lucky) machine gun burst, the fifty-foot V-2 was impossible to detect,
and impossible to intercept. Once airborne and travelling at over 3,500 miles an hour25, the
worlds first ballistic missile was unstoppable. Its supersonic speed meant that its onetonne

18

BBC TV - WW2 Peoples War. Submission V1 Number One, June 13, 1944.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/40/a1078940.shtml (accessed 03/03/15)
19
FlyingbombsandRockets.com: The first V1 to hit London:
http://www.flyingbombsandrockets.com/V1_maintxt.html, (accessed 01/01/15)
20
FlyingbombsandRockets.com: V-1 Flying Bomb: http://www.flyingbombsandrockets.com/V1_into.html
21
http://www.flyingbombsandrockets.com/Timeline.html (accessed 03/02/15)
22
Zaloga 2005 pp19
23
Boyne 1997 pp351
24
Marshall Space Flight centre website: http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/saturn_apollo/first_saturn_rocket.html;
(accessed 03/02/15)
25
V2rocket.com: A-4/V-2 Makeup - Tech Data & Markings
http://www.v2rocket.com/start/makeup/design.html (accessed 11/02/15)

warhead was never heard approaching. A Chelsea resident wrote how the V-2 was far more
alarming than the V-1 the missiles unforeseeable nature meant that one finds oneself
waiting for it, never knowing if sudden death is only seconds away.26 The first struck London on
September 8th 1944. In total, 1,054 hit England, with another 1,675 landing in continental
Europe.27

Effectiveness
The V-1
The V-1 caused terror when it struck, but its combat debut came over six months late. Plagued
by continuing technical problems, only four of the first ten launched actually hit England.28 Later
attempts were more successful, with one attack on June 15th hitting London with seventeen
missiles. Despite this, the programme never approached the scale intended. The German
leadership had dreamed of hordes of V-1s raining from the sky, reaping the vengeance of their
name on the Allied homelands. In one instance, Luftwaffe commander Hermann Goering
demanded that fifty thousand V-1s be made each month. In reality, the rate of launch never
really exceeded a trickle. In the course of almost 300 days29, a total of 8,617 V-1s were launched
at England30: a rate of just under thirty per day. A later phase in the programme saw another
11,988 V-1s launched at Belgium, at an overall fire rate of 110 per day.31 Despite the deaths of
thousands of Belgian civilians, this too proved unsuccessful. The key target of Antwerps port
survived largely unscathed.

In order to launch the missiles, the Germans had decided that four large and 96 small launch
sites should be built by May 1944. Within two months, the Allies had identified all of the sites,
and soon after reduced them to rubble. In response, the Germans started construction of
better-concealed, smaller sites, which would eventually launch most of the missiles. This came
too late. Just a week before the first launch, D-day had forced the abandonment of over forty
newly constructed, unused sites.32 As the Allies continued their advance, more fell into their
hands.

Even when under German control the sites were unreliable. Of the 72 built, only around half
were operational at any one time. While the large sites were each intended to fire 480 missiles a
day at England, the most ever launched in a day was 316.33 Even this was far in excess of the
daily average.

Germany could not overcome their technical problems quickly enough, or compete against the
sheer volume of Allied power. The tonnage of Allied bombs dropped on the launch sites alone

26

Longmate 1985 pp226

Boyne 1997 pp351
28
Zaloga 2005 pp18
29
th
th
290 days, from 13 June 1944, to 29 March 1945.
30
Zaloga 2005 pp21
31
Zaloga 2005 pp37
32
Zaloga 2005 pp18, 21
33
Zaloga 2005 pp19
27

was greater than the total tonnage of V-1s launched at England - by a factor of four34. It was not
only the launch sites themselves being hit - strikes on German manufacturing had an even more
disastrous effect35, ensuring that the V-1 programme was cut down from its early stages.

Even the flying bombs that were successfully launched did not always contribute effectively to
the Wehrmacht. Of those launched at England, only twenty-five percent hit their targets. The
rest were either lost due to navigational errors, fighter interceptors, barrage balloons, or anti-
aircraft guns. Technical problems led to the V-1 having to cruise at 4,500 feet, half what was
originally intended. This allowed flak gunners to shoot them down even more effectively. In
August 1944, the V-1 shoot-down rate reached over eighty percent. A disastrous German
attempt to launch V-1s from bombers was abandoned with a success rate of only four percent.36
Interestingly, the V-1s overall accuracy of twenty-five percent was actually greater than the
average Allied precision bombing accuracy. According to the September 1945 United States
Strategic Bombing Survey, this averaged only twenty percent for the entire war37, suggesting
that the V-1 had the capacity to greatly help the German war effort.

Nonetheless, the scale, or rather lack of scale, of the V-1 programme cannot be ignored.
Defensive measures and low launch rates meant that statistically, the threat to Londoners from
the V-1 became almost non-existent. In terms of both casualties and morale, they were
achieving nearly nothing for the German war effort.

The V-2
Whilst the V-2 may have been immune once in the air, (aside from one remarkable incident
where the crew of an American bomber were alleged have shot one down with a gun as it was
lifting off38), its ground sites were just as vulnerable as the V-1s. The Allies quickly exploited this
weakness. V-2 development had been taking place under the eye of rocket scientist Wernher
Von Braun, at a supposedly secret base at Peenemunde, a small town on the Baltic Sea. Allied
intelligence though, had long held suspicions that Peenemunde was home to something more
sinister than fishing boats.39 Consequently, on the night of August 17th 1943, an armada of over

34

36,200 tonnes of bombs were expended solely on V-1 launch sites. (Boog/Krebs/Vogel pp449; Zaloga 2007
pp37). The tonnage of the explosives delivered by the 8.617 V-1s launched at England amounts to7324.45
tonnes. (0.85 x 8,617).
If we compare the total tonnage expenditure of Operation Crossbow (122,133 tonnes) (Zaloga 2005 pp15), to
the total tonnage of V-1s and V-2s launched, (23742 tonnes) (24,200 x 0.85) +(3,172 x 1) (both figures from
Zaloga 2007 pp7), then the Allied bombs expended on the V-weapons amounted to a tonnage over five times
greater than that of all the V-weapons that were launched.
35
Boog/Krebs/Vogel 2005 pp449
36
Zaloga 2005 pp23
37
THE UNITED STATES STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY Summary Report: http://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm
(accessed 01/02/15)
38
Stocker, Jeremy Missile Defence Then and Now:
http://web.archive.org/web/20090326041549/http://www.cdiss.co.uk/Documents/Uploaded/Missile%20Defe
nce%20-%20Then%20and%20Now.pdf (accessed 04/11/14)
39
An English investigation, Bodyline, headed by MP Duncan Sandys, had been established in April 1943 to
analyse the threat from new German rockets and weapons. In light of photographic evidence (Levine 1992
pp447-8) of Peenemunde, along with intelligence from sources such as the 1939 Oslo report, and more recent

six hundred British aircraft was dispatched to bomb Peenemunde. 1,875 tons of explosives were
dropped40, and V-2 development was set back by two months.41


This was not the V-2s greatest problem. The program proved more adept at delaying itself than
the Allies were at delaying it. The 1919 treaty of Versailles had forbidden Germany from
developing artillery, but did not mention the then unheard-of field of rocketry. As a result, much
German interwar scientific research had focused on this new technology42, and when the Nazis
came to power funding was officially granted to rocket development. Yet, despite having been
in some form of development since the early 1930s, innumerable problems meant that the V-2
was not ready for combat until September 1944, over a year behind schedule.43

While the V-2s early roots arguably made it less of a weapon of desperation than some of the
other wonder weapons, it was still only after the complete failure of the offensive in Russia that
the programme took on a new scale. Steven Zaloga writes that with Hitler demoralised by the
disaster in Russia, he began to see the rockets- at first a comparatively minor project- as a
panacea for their strategic failures, dreaming that they could decisively influence the conduct
of the war. In line with this, he gave official approval to the project in December 1942. As the
war s outlook grew worse for Germany, V-2 development, which had previously been ordered
halted, intensified. Progressively higher priorities were granted to the program44, and expenses
mounted commensurately.
This culminated in the September 1943 founding of the Mittelwerk, or metalwork company,
which was to fulfil an order for twelve thousand V-2 rockets.45 With the raid on Peenemunde
having convinced the Germans that sites above ground were insecure, work began on a huge
subterranean factory. Sixty thousand slave labourers were forced to work on the plants
construction, a third of who died from mistreatment and exhaustion. The Nazis decision to use
slave labour to construct the V-2 may have reduced costs, but it severely impacted the quality of
the weapons that were produced. Combined with the fact that poor production techniques
meant that parts were non-interchangeable between rockets, this meant that it took until spring
1944 for the plant to reach even half its intended production of nine hundred rockets per
month.46 In total, 6,422 were completed by the wars end.47

Fuelling the rockets would prove to be an even greater challenge than building them. Unlike the
V-1, which used conventional fuel, the V-2 required expensive and unstable liquid oxygen. To
provide this, construction had begun on three new liquid oxygen plants in December 1942.
Against the advice of his generals, Hitler insisted upon coupling these with large V-2 launching
sites, and Allied bombing raids throughout 1943 and 1944 led to their rapid destruction.48

accounts of rocket development from Polish and Danish labourers and scientists, (Zaloga 2007 pp7), Churchill
approved the bombing of Peenemunde on June 29 1943.
40
Levine 1992 pp64; Zaloga 2007 pp7
41
Levine 1992 pp64
42
Ford 2013 pp99
43
Zaloga 2007 pp13
44
Ford 2013 pp102
45
V2rocket.com: The Mittelwerk/Mittelbau/Camp Dora: http://www.v2rocket.com/start/chapters/mittel.html
(accessed 15/02/15)
46
Zaloga 2007 pp9
47
Zaloga 2007 pp9
48
Zaloga 2007 pp10

10

Steven Zaloga estimates that even if the entire European supply of liquid oxygen had been
devoted to the V-2 in summer 1944, there would only ever have been enough fuel for thirty
launches per day. In reality, Allied bombing and evaporation of the fuel meant that even thirty
was unachievable. Zaloga describes the programs contribution to the war effort as being
hamstrung by this critical shortage.49 Even if V-2 production had somehow reached the
desired rate, there would have been no way of launching them.

Launches of V-2s against England finally began in late 1944. The first strike on London was on
September 8th, killing three civilians. On November 25th, a direct hit to a Woolworths caused
168 deaths.50 One of the worst attacks happened a month later, when 561 people were killed in
an Antwerp cinema. In total, 3,172 V-2s were launched, slightly under half of the total built.
These were aimed mainly at London and Antwerp.51 The V-2 launch sites averaged a firing rate
of sixteen per day (just over half of Zalogas maximum estimate), achieving a success rate of
38%. Ultimately, the rockets caused 2,754 casualties in England52, along with several thousand
in Belgium.

After Germany's surrender, Wernher Von Braun, the V-2s designer, had his weapons crimes
ignored, and was spirited away by the USA to work for NASA.53 Like its inventor, the V-2 went
into a peaceful post-war career, ultimately proving vitally important in the development of the
Saturn V rocket. In 1969, it was to land Neil Armstrong on the moon. Ironically, the V-2 achieved
far more for the American space programme than it ever did for Germanys war effort.

The V-weapons Conclusions on Effectiveness

Whilst the Germans were firing loosely guided missiles, the Allies were making devastating raids
with four engined bombers - something the Luftwaffe sorely lacked. This meant that the Allies
ability to destroy ground targets dwarfed that of Germanys. The thirty V-1s fired at London per
day amounted to twenty five thousand tonnes of explosives delivered. This was equivalent to
the payload of only eight Allied B-17 bombers. Over twelve thousand B-17s were built54. The
Germans were effectively wielding a safety pin against a sword.

In retrospect, the V-weapons seem to have been weapons of emotion above efficacy. They
punished the British populace but not its soldiers, a strategy that proved completely non-
conducive to winning the war. Over the course of the war, they resulted in the deaths of 8,398
Londoners. In comparison, the Allied bombing of Germany is estimated to have caused the
deaths of up to six hundred thousand civilians, with as many as twenty five thousand killed in

49

Zaloga 2007 pp36

ww2today.com : 168 dead as Woolworths obliterated in V2 attack:
http://ww2today.com/25-november-1944-168-dead-as-woolworths-obliterated-in-v2-rocket-attack (accessed
04/02/15)
51
V2rocket.com: Timeline for V-2 attacks, 1944-45:
http://www.v2rocket.com/start/deployment/timeline.html (accessed 02/11/14); Zaloga 2007 pp33
52
Zaloga 2007 pp33
53
This was part of Operation Paperclip, a successful American postwar institutive to find and utilize the
knowledge of German rocket scientists and physicists, making especially sure that they were found before they
fell into the hands of the Russians.
54
Boeing Website: B-17 Flying Fortress:
http://www.boeing.com/boeing/history/boeing/b17.page (accessed 11/11/14)
50

11

Dresden alone. It would be unrealistic to conceive that the deaths of a few thousand civilians in
London could have had an effect on the outcome of the war.

The German leadership, Hitler in particular55, had hoped that their campaign of terror would
undermine the Allies morale, forcing them into suing for peace. This turned out to be a false
hope. Whilst it is nearly impossible to know for certain the general publics subjective feelings
about the V-weapon attacks, there is little evidence to suggest that there was ever-serious
public demand for giving into German demands as a result. Inevitably there was anguish from
those most closely affected Norman Longmate writes of women praying in the streets for
them to stop the war, and that public confidence reached a new low point after the V-2
attacks. 56 But a large-scale movement never developed, and Steven Zalogas conclusion that the
V-weapons had no profound impact on morale57 seems more supported by the wars
outcome. Certainly, further research into the opinions of the time, of both troops and civilians,
as well as into the governments handling of the attacks would be highly useful towards more
fully understanding the V-weapons impact on morale.

From existing evidence, there seems little reason for the Germans to have expected the V-
weapons to have a war-changing impact on morale. Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels
himself announced in a speech to the German public that enemy air terror is the university of
community spirit.58 James P. Duffy claims that Hitler himself also should have known this from
experience in his own country; he writes that The Allied bombing of Germanys cities did not
break the morale of the German civilian population; instead it served to strengthen their resolve
to fight back.59 It would be logical to apply this theory on the effects of bombing to any
population - Londons included. Whilst both the books and the speechs claims are
unsubstantiated by their authors, the outcome of the war suggests that they hold true. The V-
weapons were of little if any help to the German hopes of crushing Allied morale.

Even compared with Germanys other offensive efforts the V-weapons failed to make a
significant impact. The V-weapons caused just over 8,700 deaths in London over a period of one
year, two months and nineteen days.60 The Blitz, which lasted only eight months, one week
and two days, saw casualties of over forty thousand. For all their technology, the V-1 and V-2
caused but a drop in the red ocean of war casualties. They were not enough to make the Allies
want to bargain for peace, which had been the only hope for their German adversaries. Given
that the war saw the deaths of 320,000 British soldiers, it would be unthinkable that Churchill's
mind could be swayed by such figures. On the battlefield, the V-weapons may have given the
German leaders a feeling of vengeance, but not victory.




55

Nazi Megastructures; V-2 Rocket Bases:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9KoGn64Ltw (accessed 03/12/14 )
56
Longmate 1985 pp228
57
Zaloga 2005 pp38
58
th
German Propaganda Archive: Life Goes On by Josef Goebbels, 16 April 1944:
http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb52.htm (accessed 12/1/15)
59
Duffy 2005 pp129
60
Irving 2010 pp300

12



The Jets: Messerschmitt Me-262, Me-163, and Arado Ar-234

Introduction
Messerschmitt 262
Transporting a human at one hundred miles an hour is an exceptional feat. In World War One,
this was faster than almost anything in the sky. Only a few years later, this was not the top
speed of the Messerschmitt 262, but the speed advantage it had over its closest Allied
competitor, the P-51 Mustang. Any modern jetliner still owes something to the technology of
this remarkable aircraft. Described by Walter J. Boyne61 as easily the best fighter of the war62,
it reached speeds of up to 540 mph in combat, with one pilot even claiming to have broken the
sound barrier in a dive.63 The Me-262 impressed from its first flight, with chief test pilot Adolf
Galland recounting that flying the jet was as though an angel was pushing.64

What was actually pushing him was a pair of Junkers Jumo 004 jet engines, state of the art in
1942. They were what gave the aircraft its speed and rate of climb, essential for shooting down
the Allied bombers that were paralysing Germanys infrastructure. This, unlike the
uncontrollable V-1 and V-2, was a weapon that could be highly effective on the battlefield65.
Hitler attempted to interfere with the project by insisting that the aircraft be used as a bomber -
another revenge weapon against England - but was persuaded otherwise before it entered
service. 66

Given that Germanys air force was vastly outnumbered by 1944, the Messerschmitt had to
work on a principle of quality over quantity, destroying multiple Allied aircraft for each loss.
Adolf Galland realised that 'If at all, the German Luftwaffe can triumph over its British American
opponent in the air only by means of superiority in the excellence of its armament'.67 The
Messerschmitt was certainly superior to its Allied counterparts, but to have a significant impact
on the war, it would still have to be produced in significant numbers.

Messerschmitt 163 and Arado Ar-234

The Me-262 was not the only, nor even the most radical aircraft that Germany was developing.
Perhaps the most outlandish of these to see combat was the Me-163 Komet. Unique amongst

61

Walter J. Boyne is a respected military historian. After serving in the Air Force himself, he later became
director of the National Air and Space Museum, and has published over 50 books. Clash of Wings, cited in this
dissertation, was published in 1997 and was very well received, being called the definitive, comprehensive
history of air power in World War II.
62
Boyne 1997 pp348
63
aerospaceweb.org, Me-262 and the Sound Barrier:
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0198c.shtml (accessed 03/01/15)
64
Ford 2013 pp17
65
Parker 1994 pp87
66
Duffy 2005 pp127
67
Boog/Krebs/Vogel 2005 pp338

13

any fighter before or since, the Komet was powered by a rocket engine. This enabled it to reach
speeds of nearly six hundred miles an hour, and climb at an unparalleled 16,000 feet per
minute.68 The Komets would take off from a German airbase, then climb rapidly to intercept
and destroy Allied bombers with its two 30mm Cannons. There was little that the Allied pilots
could do in response to an aircraft over three hundred miles an hour faster than their bombers.

Only slightly more conventional was the Arado Ar-234, the Worlds first jet bomber. Powered by
two underwing Junkers jet engines, it could reach speeds of over 450 miles per hour as a
bomber, and was even faster as a reconnaissance platform. 69 In comparison, the American B-17
bomber had a maximum speed of 287 miles per hour, and cruised at only 15070. Allied aircraft
had almost no chance of intercepting the Arado.71 It presented a unique opportunity for the war
effort. The aircraft had the ability to spy virtually unimpeded on Allied territory, feeding back
vital intelligence on what the Germans were facing. As a bomber, it could reach targets with
minimal resistance and risk to the aircraft.

On a one-to-one basis, the most advanced German aircraft were technologically superior to the
most advanced Allied ones. But against the Axis was the far greater scale of the Allied war
machine and resource base. To overcome this challenge, the Germans would have not only to
develop superior technology, but also apply it effectively on a scale commensurate with the
wars.

Effectiveness of the Jets in Combat

Messerschmitt 262
The road to the jet engines development was anything but smooth. In 1939, Heinkel had made
the Worlds first jet powered flight with the He-178. Germany stood at the forefront of jet
engine technology.72 Yet in 1939, propositions by Heinkel and Messerschmitt to the Luftwaffe
were largely ignored, and no orders came. In fact in 1940, all programmes scheduled to take
longer than twelve months were cancelled. If it were not for the commitment of private
companies to the programme, the jet engine may never have been developed at all. Even after
government funding was refused, the Junkers company developed the jet engine themselves,
and managed to present a viable prototype by late 194173. But development had been slow. In
1941 the Me-262 prototype suffered a double engine failure on its first flight, and did not fly
successfully until over a year later.74

By this time the German war effort was foundering in Russia, and the German leaders realised
that the intended short war would not be a reality. As historian Ian V. Hogg writes, the ban on

68

National Museum of the U.S Air Force website: Messerschmitt Me 163B Komet:
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=508 (accessed 09/03/15)
69
Ford 2013 pp21
70
Boeing Website: B-17 Flying Fortress:
http://www.boeing.com/boeing/history/boeing/b17.page (accessed 11/11/14)
71
Hogg 1998 pp60
72
Hogg 1998 pp58
73
Hogg 1998 pp58
74
Ford 2013 pp17-18

14

projects taking longer than a year was a dead number.75 Previously uninterested, the
Luftwaffe suddenly demanded a thousand Junkers powered Messerschmitt Me-262s to be built
a month, starting from Autumn 1943. 76

In August 1944, the Me-262 finally entered service, and JG 7, the worlds first dedicated jet
squadron, began operations. The aircraft however, would prove to be a constant source of
trouble. In their operational form, the jet engines had an impractically short lifespan, rarely
exceeding twenty-five hours. Even in autumn 1944, the average endurance was a pitiful eight
hours.77 Replacing them took another eight hours, ensuring that the aircraft spent much of its
time on the ground.78 The only reason that Hitlers meddling did not actually have any effect is
because the engines were so unreliable that the programme was delayed anyway. Historians
Boog, Krebs and Vogel conclude that the late entry into service was due quite generally to the
technical difficulties inherent in all new developments of this kind.79 Walter J. Boyne agrees
that the 262 was delayed because of the difficulty in producing a satisfactory number of the
radical new jet engines.80

In 1944, Germany produced a total of 44,000 aircraft.81 Total Me-262 production equates to
only three percent of this figure. By the end of the year, German officials had increased their
demands to 2,500 Me-262s a month, but in reality production barely reached one hundred per
month.82 A huge underground bunker to produce more was under construction at the wars
end, but never actually contributed anything. Even of the 1,433 aircraft that were ultimately
produced, only three hundred ever saw combat.83

There the Germans were confronted by another problem: finding pilots who could fly them. Of
the few German aces still alive, fewer still had experience on jets, and any new pilot would find
himself hopelessly out of his depth. Ultimately, the Me-262 claimed upwards of 500 kills (The
high estimate is 735) for around one hundred losses.84 Although this kill ratio was undoubtedly
impressive, its overall scale was minute. In 1944, England, Russia and the USA produced a
combined total of 163,000 aircraft, and this sheer force was to make the overwhelming of the
Me-262s inevitable.

What Max Hastings referred to as a calmative85 lack of German pilots also meant that some of
the Allies most adroit airmen could sometimes even outfly the German jets. In an amazing
display of flying skill, a Tuskegee airman describes shooting down an aircraft far superior to his
own P-51, saving the bomber he was escorting: I went down under the bombers, made a hard

75

Hogg 1998 pp58-9

Hogg 1998 pp58-9
77
Parker 1994 pp73
78
456fis.org: Messerschmitt ME 262 "Schwalbe:
http://www.456fis.org/ME-262.htm, (accessed 01/02/15)
79
Boog/Krebs/Vogel 2005, p338
80
Boyne 1997 pp349
81
Boyne 1997 pp349
82
Hogg 1998 pp58-9
83
Boyne 1997 pp349
84
Ford 2013 pp20
85
Hastings 2012 pp487
76

15

right turn, and I caught one of the jets, just as he was coming to shoot down the B-17. 86 Allied
pilots would also often target the jets on their landing runs, when they were slowest and most
susceptible to attack.87 Even if more Me-262s had been produced, the lack of skilled pilots
would likely have made them far easier prey than intended.

Me-163 and Ar-234

The Me-163 Komet was the brainchild of German scientist Dr Alexander Lippisch. It had flown as
a glider in 1941, but technical problems delayed the first powered flight until August 1943, and
operations did not begin until July 1944. Just over three hundred were built, 276 of which were
delivered.88

In 2014, I was lucky enough to meet Captain Eric Winkle Brown, a British test pilot who flew a
captured Me-163 after the war. When I asked him what Germanys most advanced creation was
like to fly, he simply laughed and replied scary. This was for good reason. The aircraft had
several fatal flaws. Its fuel, a mixture of two substances known as T-stoff and C-stoff, was so
volatile that it could dissolve a pilot in an accident.89 The rocket engine, while powerful, could
only operate for seven and a half minutes (450 seconds) before running out of fuel.90 The pilot
then had to glide back to an airbase to land, open to attack. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in an
appalling accident rate and very little success in combat.91 The entire Me-163 fleet made only
nine kills.92 Danny S. Parker describes a mission where all three dispatched aircraft were lost:
one in a take-off accident, and the other two being shot down after exhausting their fuel.93
Given the Me-163s overall track record, it is unlikely that this mission was unique in its failure.
The Me-163 made almost no contribution to the German war effort.

The Arado 234 began life in response to a 1940 request for a reconnaissance aircraft. Able to
outfly any intercepting aircraft, the jet-powered Blitz would gather vital intelligence with
minimal risk. But development was not easy. The government was reluctant to pursue jets early
in the war, and by the time the first airframe was completed in 1942 all available engines were
allocated to the Me-262 fighter instead.94 The air ministry then gave orders that the Arado be
converted from its reconnaissance role into an offensive bomber. It was not until July 1943 that
the reconnaissance aircraft (designated B1) first flew, and the bomber (B2) was not ready until
March 1944. In total, 274 aircraft left the production line.95


86

Nazi Jets (Me262) shot down by Red Tails (Tuskegee Airmen): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8AcGJNkkuc
(accessed 12/12/14)
87
Winchester 2010 pp14-15
88
National Museum of the U.S Air Force website: Messerschmitt Me 163B Komet:
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=508 (accessed 09/03/15)
89
Boyne 1997 pp350
90
National Museum of the U.S Air Force website: Messerschmitt Me 163B Komet:
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=508 (accessed 09/03/15)
91
Ford 2013 pp51
92
Boyne 1997 pp350
93
Parker 1994 pp94
94
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Website: Arado Ar 234 B-2 Blitz (Lightning):
http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm_A19600312000 (accessed 08/03/15)
95
Aviation-history.com: Arado Ar 234 Blitz:
http://www.aviation-history.com/arado/234.html (accessed 10/03/15)

16

On August 2nd 1944, the jet flew its first reconnaissance mission. The aircraft performed
beautifully. Pilot Eric Sommer encountered no resistance, and was able to successfully
photograph an Allied artificial Harbour at Arromanches, in North-western France.96 Most
following missions went similarly smoothly and uninterrupted. Walter J. Boyne writes that the
aircraft was a German engineering triumph97, flying several successful reconnaissance flights.
Yet in total, only one hundred Arados ever entered service, fewer than half the number built.98
Although they did perform well, the scale of their operations was tiny, and their entry into
service came too late for the intelligence they provided to greatly affect the war.

The bomber variant saw even less success. Only one Ar-234 bomber squadron (KG 76) ever saw
action, and only began operations from December 1944. Never intended as a bomber, the 234
could carry only two tonne payload.99 In comparison, the British Lancaster could carry over six
tonnes. The aircraft achieved only minor success in its 1945 missions to stall Allied advances
across the Rhine. So desperate was the German situation that the Arados took part in what
Roger Ford describes as suicidal attacks on bridges, alongside Me-262s.100 Most aircraft that
did not succumb to enemy fire were later destroyed by their own crew to prevent them from
falling into Allied hands.

Summary and Conclusions on the Effectiveness of the Jets

Despite their technical brilliance, the jets came too late and in too small a number to
significantly contribute to the German war effort. They terrified those who encountered them,
but these encounters represented only a fraction of the air war. The jets accounted for a total of
less than five percent of Germanys 1944 aircraft production, and achieved fewer than eight
hundred combat kills. 101

Had the jets been introduced earlier, it is certain that the job of an Allied bomber pilot over
Europe would have been made harder,102 but we can only speculate by how much. There is
certainly support for the idea that the jets, particularly the Me-262, could have had a significant
impact. Walter J. Boyne claims that the air war over Europe would have been vastly
different103, whilst Ian V. Hogg writes that the new aircraft were virtually unstoppable104 in
combat. But the jets never came close to making the Allies change their minds, and any opinion
on how they could have affected the combat is almost purely speculative.

96

Aerostories.free.fr: Arado 234, July - August 1944: no ordinary missions:

http://aerostories.free.fr/events/juvin/page2.html (accessed 10/03/15)
97
Boyne 1997 pp349
98
Aviation-history.com: Arado Ar 234 Blitz:
http://www.aviation-history.com/arado/234.html (accessed 10/03/15)
99
Ford 2013 pp21
100
Ford 2013 pp22
101
1944 Production total: 44,000. 1,433 Me-262s were produced, along with 300 Me-163s (Boyne 1997 pp349-
52). The Me-262 achieved a high estimate of 735 kills (Ford 2013 pp20), and the Me-163 nine kills (Boyne 1997
pp349-52)
102
Boyne 1997 pp349
103
Boyne 1997 pp349
104
Hogg 1998 pp60

17


In reality, German jet production was on too small a scale to affect such a large force of Allied
conventional aircraft. The earlier naivety of the German leaders, followed by a sudden
eagerness to rush as many programmes as possible into development105 meant that a previously
world-leading research programme was abandoned in hubris, then picked up again in
desperation. By then it was too late to overcome the vast technical challenges of developing the
jet engine technology106, and production never approached the levels demanded by the
Luftwaffes leaders.107 The Jets contribution to the German war effort ultimately proved
minimal. They were rendered an impressive, but hopelessly outnumbered force in the air. We
shall never surrender, declared Churchill in 1940. These weapons would give him no reason to
act otherwise.

The Wonder Weapons- Effects and Opportunity Cost

Introduction

As discussed earlier, the wonder weapons considered here ultimately failed to prove effective in
combat. Though marvellous as scientific and technological achievements, they came too late
and too few to save the German war effort. An unconditional surrender was signed on May 7th
1945. However, to say they were ineffective as weapons is certainly not to say that they had no
effect on the conflict. This section explores the possibility that the wonder weapons were to
seriously impact the German war effort.

Measurement of the Effects of the Weapons

Through analysis of two critical areas, it can be objectively determined how the decision to
develop the wonder weapons affected the German war effort. The first of these is, as discussed
earlier, their actual effectiveness in the war: how far, if at all, they contributed towards the
German war effort on the battlefield.

The second is their secondary effects on the war. For example, how much did the Allies spend
countering a wonder weapon programme, and were the costs to the enemy offset by the
Germans cost of development? Even if a weapons programme ultimately proved ineffective, if
the Allies spent more money countering it than was spent on its development, then the weapon
would ultimately have proved at least a marginal help to the German war effort. This area is
easily overlooked. Walter J. Boyne for example, in his Clash of Wings, concludes that the V-1s
effects on the war were no more than a cause of anguish to the British population.108 He does
not go into detail about its effects on the allied and German war economies. This answers the

105

Hogg 1998 pp58-59

Boyne 1997 pp349, Boog/Krebs/Vogel 2005, pp338, Hogg 1998 pp58--59
107
Hogg 1998 pp58--59
108
Boyne 1997 pp350
106

18

question of how effective the V-1 was, but does not fully cover its effects on the war effort, or
this papers aim of finding their effect on the German pursuit of victory.
This second area also includes analysis of the weapons opportunity cost: how much money was
sunk into the programmes? And could it have been spent more effectively elsewhere? If so,
exactly how great was the toll on the German war effort? By answering these questions, it can
be determined whether or not the decision to develop the wonder weapons was a wise one: did
they help or hinder a German victory?

Opportunity cost is a crucial concept to understand. It is natural to think that spending money
on any weapons programmes will help a country to wage war more effectively, but this is overly
simplistic. If money is sunk into unwise and ineffective programmes, which do not cost the
enemy at least as much as is spent developing them, then a weapon has imposed a negative
cost on its developer. Even if it does prove somewhat useful, the benefits of spending the
money more wisely are forgone.

In economics, opportunity cost is defined as the benefit that could have been gained from an
alternative use of the same resource. If the government uses money to build a road, then the
opportunity cost of this may be a school that could have been built for the same price. In a war,
much the same principles apply. If for example, resources are spent on building ships for a war
that is fought almost exclusively in the air, then the opportunity cost of those ships is the
production of more aircraft instead, which would have been more effective. Even if the ships do
play some role in the combat, the resources still would have been better used elsewhere, and
their overall effect is a negative one. In an economy, opportunity cost leads to inefficiency and
reduced incomes. In the case of World War II though, it was not so much an end of month
balance sheet that was at stake, but the future of the free world. There was little room for not
always choosing the best option. Existing secondary works contain relevant facts and a wealth of
primary data on the wonder weapons. Synthesis and analysis of these allows exploration of how
wise of an option the wonder weapons were.

The V-1

The V-1 was undoubtedly a flawed weapon. The Germans wasted precious time and money on
building ski launch sites that were never used. Many of the new sites were bombed or overrun
before they ever saw action. In combat, the V-1s relatively low speed and reduced cruising
altitude made it vulnerable to interception, and the damage caused when it did strike paled in
comparison to the Blitz of four years earlier. This however, is where the V-1s effects on the war
take an interesting turn. Its fallibility actually proved to be one of its greatest assets. To protect
Londons civilians from the terrifying prospect of a V-1 hitting their house, expensive gun and
barrage balloon defences were installed,109 and all thirty of the fastest fighter aircraft in British
service - the Hawker Typhoon - were dedicated to intercepting the robot bombs, as they had
been dubbed by the press. In all, twelve squadrons of Mosquitos, Typhoons, Tempests, and
Spitfires were kept ready to intercept the V-1s, along with 376 heavy and 1,1356 light guns.110
The RAF had to be seen to be doing all it could to protect its people from the terror weapons.


109

Zaloga 2005 pp18-19

Hogg 1998 pp24

110

19

Far more profound than the efforts of intercepting the V-1 in the air were the costs of trying to
destroy it on the ground. Greatly overestimating its capabilities,111 the Allies set out on an
immense bombing campaign. On June 16th 1944, General Eisenhower gave Operation
Crossbow, as the offensive was known, higher priority than everything but the immediate
requirements of the battle in France.112 Vital targets, including rail lines, airfields, and factories
were spared bombing as a result.113 Allied records show that, in 1944, a total of 44,723 tonnes
of bombs were dropped on V-weapons sites. In the year from August 1943, the Allies redirected
almost fifteen percent of their heavy bomber missions, with the Germans barely having to fire a
shot.114 Alan Levine notes that in the crucial months of July and August 1944, a quarter of the
tonnage of bombs dropped by the Eighth Air Force and Bomber Command was on the V-
weapon sites. Largely from missions aimed at destroying the redundant ski V-1 launch sites,
the Allies lost over 700 men, and 154 aircraft.115 The German V-1 launching unit suffered not a
single loss. The greatest effect that Allied bombing had on the V-weapons was not even from
these direct raids,116 but from the very attacks on general infrastructure that the Allies had
curtailed to pursue the rockets.

Made of inexpensive materials, the V-1 was very cheap to produce - imposing minimal
opportunity cost on the German economy. It cost only around 5,000 Reichsmarks,117 which as
Steven Zaloga points out is only two percent of the cost of a heavy bomber. As a result, David
Irving118 estimates that whilst they may have cost the Germans 12,600,670 to develop, they
caused the Allies to expend 47,635,100 against them - almost four times their cost.119 The ratio
of Axis to Allied spending on the V-1 was 1: 3.78. The ratio of GDP in 1944-5, weighted to each
year for the amount of V-1s built that year, was 1: 3.52120 - a small, but certain difference.

A study by Lieutenant Colonel L.C Helfers, a definitive source of information for many modern
writers on the V-weapons, comes to similar conclusions, albeit less extreme ones. In his post-
war report entitled The Employment of V-weapons by the Germans during World War II, he
surmises that although an exact figure could not be known, the cost of the V-1's development
came to around 200 million U.S. dollars.121 At 1944 exchange rates, this was equivalent to 49.6

111

Levine 1992 pp136

Levine 1992 pp38
113
Levine 1992 p38; Boog/Krebs/Vogel 2005 pp450
114
Zaloga 2005 pp15
115
Levine 1992 pp137
116
Boog/Krebs/Vogel 2005 pp449
117
Zaloga 2005 pp11
118
A note on the sources:
112

For figures relating to the development costs of the V-weapons, I have quoted data from The Mares
Nest by David J. Irving. Once greatly respected, Irvings reputation was destroyed when allegations of him
denying the Holocaust emerged. However, although he may personally have been discredited, the research
behind this particular book is still accepted as accurate. Steven J. Dick, a former chief NASA historian, says in
his book Remembering the space age: Proceedings of the 50th Anniversary Conference, that despite his loss of
reputation, Irving provided the most complete and accurate account on both Allied and German sides of the
V-weapons campaign in The Mares Nest. (Dick 2008 pp81)
119

Irving 2010 pp305-6

Zuljan, Ralph Allied and Axis GDP: http://www.onwar.com/articles/0302.htm (accessed 11/11/14)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140806030313/http://www.onwar.com/articles/0302.htm (accessed
16/02/15)
121
Helfers 1954 pp89
120

20

million pounds.122 Although this is still slightly higher than the figure Irving quoted for the Allies
having spent countering them, Helfers holds that "one may admit that perhaps the V-l was
worth the cost and effort spent on it." Alan Levine, a respected World War Two historian,
accords: his opinion being that the V-1 more than paid for itself123 by its draining of Allied
resources. Given the statistics available, this seems a perfectly reasonable conclusion to draw.

Though is difficult to agree the that V-1 was as much of an astounding success as claimed by
Irving, it was certainly far from the disaster that the wonder weapons are often portrayed as
being. Even if accidentally so, it did assuredly contribute to the German pursuit of victory. The
blame for its countrys ultimate failure must be placed elsewhere.

The V-2

The V-1 was an error, but one that managed to turn in Germanys favour. The Nazi leadership
made a mistake in believing that it would prove effective as a weapon. As discussed in the first
section of this essay, it did not. It just so happened that this mistake was largely offset by the
Allies making an even greater one in response. Determined to protect civilians, the Allies vastly
overestimated the threat the V-weapons posed, and overspent in proportion. It cost valuable
bombs, time, and lives. The V-1s were excellent at absorbing Allied resources, both bombs and
fighter aircraft, which would otherwise have been directed at German cities and industry. Its low
costs were offset by the great expenses the Allies incurred countering it. Though it may not have
been an effective weapon, its overall effect on the war was in favour of its creator. The V-2 is a
very different story.

As a weapon, the V-2 must have appeared almost perfect. Completely immune to interception,
the Allies could do little but watch as it obliterated anything in its path. V-2 production though,
never reached significant amounts, and the threat it posed came to pass. Whilst the Allies had
spent money on barrage balloons and gun emplacements to intercept the older, slower, V-1s,
the V-2s unstoppable nature meant that few costs were incurred trying to stop it,124 at least on
the home front.

The fact that the Allies did not spend money intercepting them may not have mattered, had the
V-2 been cheap to produce. It was anything but. The V-1 programs low cost was outweighed by
Allied bombing efforts, but the Allies would have to have bombed Germany with crates of
hundred dollar bills to offset the cost of its successor. Whilst of course the Allies did bomb V-2
as well as V-1 sites, the widely differing budgets of the two V programmes meant that one was
easily offset, whilst the other imposed massive costs. Steven Zaloga puts the unit cost of the V-2
at a full twenty five times that of its predecessor, making it more than 100,000 Reichsmarks,
compared to just over 5,000 for the V-1. Factoring in costs such as fuel and development,
Helfers estimated that each V-2 cost a more conservative ten times more than the V-1, though
this still amounted to 500,000 U.S. dollars each.125 By Zalogas calculations, which, having been
completed more recently and from a wider array of sources, are likely to be more accurate, the

122

Miketodd.net, 2: Dollar Exchange Rate from 1940:

http://www.miketodd.net/encyc/dollhist-graph.htm (accessed 16/02/15)
123
Levine 1992 pp139
124
Levine 1992 pp139
125
Helfers 1954, pp103

21

V-2 cost half the same as an entire medium bomber.126 Given that the Heinkel-111, a typical
German bomber, could carry a payload twice that of the V-2, and be reused, the folly of the
German ballistic missile is plain to see.

The V-2s advanced technology would in the war serve only to hasten Germanys demise.
Estimated by a U.S. enquiry to have cost as much as two billion dollars - the same as America
spent on the Manhattan project127- the V-2 was a colossal drain on German resources when
they were needed most. Whilst it is unrealistic to assume that Germany could have developed
an atomic bomb with this money,128 it certainly could have been used more effectively
elsewhere. The German armaments minister himself, Albert Speer, later said that the V-2 had
been "one of [his] most serious mistakes."129

One of the few historians to come out in the V-2s favour is Norman Longmate. In his 1985 book
Hitlers Rockets: The Story of the V-2s, he concludes that the V-2 was incomparably the most
effective weapon so far devised, causing a great deal of damage to allied infrastructure and
morale. He attributes this to the fact the V-2 was totally unbeatable in combat,130 and to its
impact on the morale of Londoners exposed to it.

Yet when Longmate makes the claim that the V-2 could have become a war winning
weapon131, he fails to consider the immense opportunity cost of the programme, or to place its
effects into context. A large proportion of his book is dedicated to detailing personal reactions
of horror to the V-2, and his conclusion is formed largely from the fact that a number of people
found the attacks on London distressing. Yet in reality, there was never any serious movement
to end the war. It would appear that he has allowed his judgement to become subjective, being
influenced by the personal testimonies of the few people most closely affected by the V-2.
Longmate is keen to extoll the V-2s virtues as a weapon, but does not fully consider the
debilitating effect of its costs on the German war effort.

The money and material spent on the V-2 could have been used more efficiently in numerous
ways. Even staying with weapons that had already been proven, instead of emotionally trying to
rush radical and abstract technology into the war, would have been a far more effective
strategy.

Vengeance weapons were not what were needed for Germany to continue fighting.132 Just one
example of something that was is tanks. Adam Tooze, a professor of German History at Yale,
claims in his book The Wages of Destruction, that there can be no doubt that the Wehrmacht
needed more of them. This claim does not go unsubstantiated. In January 1943, (while the V-
weapons were under development), Germany had only 495 panzer tanks - and not even all of
these were serviceable.133 In 1943 at Kursk, Russia, the German panzer divisions 2,451-strong
tank force was outnumbered more than two to one by the Soviets. The Panzer IV, the most

126

Zaloga 2005 pp9

Zaloga 2007 pp36; Helfers 1954 pp50
128
Walker 1989 pp233
129
Parker 1994 pp86
130
Longmate 1985 pp382
131
Longmate 1985 pp382
132
Parker 1994 pp87
133
Tooze 2007 pp595
127

22

widely produced German tank of the war, cost approximately 103,000 Reichsmarks to build.134
For the cost of even the 3,172 V-2s that were actually launched, over two thousand tanks could
have been built. The Wehrmacht had been prepared to gamble away even more than this: In
October 1943, with the order for the production of 12,000 V-2s, 480 million Reichsmarks135
were signed almost into oblivion. While this may have had the merciful effect of shortening the
war, its service to the German pursuit of victory was only to further condemn it.

Still, one can understand why the Germans may have acted as they did. Aware of their inferior
resource base, the German leaders must have realised that they could never build enough
conventional weapons to win the war. By turning to radical technology, they could at least hope
that they could somehow overcome the Allies. As Adolf Galland said in defence of the Me-262,
Germany could triumph only by means of superiority in the excellence of its armament.136 The
concept of the wonder weapons is perhaps not as flawed as one might initially judge. It just so
happened that, especially in the case of the V-weapons, this concept was implemented
disastrously, and the German war effort paid the price.

The V-3: A Cost with No Benefit

Lesser known that its V siblings, the V-3 owes its relative obscurity to the fact that mercifully,
it never fired a shot at its intended target. As such, it is not included in the effectiveness
section of this paper. Inspired by a design for an American civil war gun,137 the V-3 was to be an
enormous cannon, capable of firing 140kg shells across the English Channel at London.138 In
September 1943, work began in France on tunnels for the 150m long gun barrels, which were
too heavy to support their own weight above ground.
After only a demonstration of a scale model, Hitler ignored the advice of his generals, and
ordered that fifty V-3s be constructed.139 Though the allies were informed immediately about
the sites construction, the decision was taken to wait until they were as complete as possible
before launching air raids.140
After raids with conventional bombers reported failure, the allies embarked on Operation
Aphrodite, a radical plan to destroy the launch sites. On August 12 1944, a B-24 Liberator took
off from England, bound for the V-3 site in Mimoyecques. It was no ordinary bomber. The inside
had been completely stripped out and filled with explosives, and an advanced television and
remote control system had been fitted. After the crew parachuted to safety, another plane
behind would guide the Aphrodite aircraft directly into the V-3 site. The mission did not go
according to plan. The crew armed the bombs and prepared to bail out, but before they could
make it to safety, a fault detonated all of the explosives. All on board were killed.

134

Frankson, Zetterlin 2000 pp61

Irving 2010 pp151
136
Boog/Krebs/Vogel 2005 pp338
137
Ford 2013 pp158
138
Ford 2013 p158
139
Encyclopedia Aeronautica: V-3:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/v3.htm (accessed 19/02/15)
140
Hogg 1998 pp48
135

23

Tragically, Operation Aphrodite would prove to have been completely unnecessary.

Unbeknownst to the allies, a previous raid with conventional bombs on July 6th had struck the V-
3 site directly, causing its abandonment for the rest of the war.141 Believing the site still to be
potent, Operation Aphrodite went ahead. Amongst those killed when the explosives-laden B-24
exploded was an American Lieutenant, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. The eldest son in one of Americas
most prominent political families, his father had hoped that he would go on to politics after the
war. With his death, this hope passed on to his younger brother, and in 1960, John F. Kennedy
became the youngest ever President of the United States. Through a twist of fate, the V-3
programme would shape much of the 20th century.
In the war though, its effects would be far less significant. Unlike the other v or wonder
weapons, there are almost no arguments to be made for the V-3 contributing at all significantly
to the German war effort, with the programme proving to be little but another sink for money
spent in desperation. Though the U.S may have lost a future president, the effects of this on the
war were non-existent. My research has not found any information relating to the costs of the
V-3 programme, and it would make an interesting primary research project to find out exactly
how much money was squandered. It is known that at the time of a failed test in May 1944,
twenty thousand shells had been produced or were in production for the V-3142. Not one ever
hit England. We do know that hundreds of workers and significant quantities of metal must have
been committed to the programme,143 but exact overall figures are uncertain. While for now we
cannot know the precise extent of the V-3s detraction from the war effort, we can be assured
that it was present.

The Jets

I have been unable to find from research any exact figures for the development costs of either
the Me-262 or the other German Jets. As a minimum, we know that fourteen hundred Me-
262s144, three hundred Me-163s,145 and two hundred and twenty Ar-234 bombers146 were built.
For all this, even the highest estimates place their total combat kills at fewer than eight
hundred, almost all from the Me-262. 147
The Me-262 performed well in combat, with only around a hundred being shot down. Taking a
conservative estimate of them achieving five hundred kills, this gives the 262 an excellent kill to
loss ratio of 5:1. But this is superficially high. A more useful figure would be number produced to
number of kills. This accurately reflects the return on the Germans investment, showing how
much utility they got from each aircraft produced. For the Me-262, this is a somewhat less

141

Ford 2013 pp158

Hogg 1998 pp46
143
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Website: Arado Ar 234 B-2 Blitz (Lightning):
http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm_A19600312000 (accessed 08/03/15)
144
Boyne 1997 pp349
145
National Museum of the U.S Air Force website: Messerschmitt Me 163B Komet:
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=508 (accessed 09/03/15)
146
http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm_A19600312000
147
The Me-262 claimed 735 victories in combat (Ford 2013 pp20)
142

24

impressive 2:1 half a kill for every one produced. For the program to have been financially in
Germanys favour, the Me-262 would have to have a had a unit cost less than half that of the
allied planes it shot down. In reality, the jet powered Me-262 would certainly have cost far more
per unit that the allied propeller aircraft. It is almost certain that the programme had a negative
effect on the war effort. But even this seems a good investment compared to the Me-163 rocket
fighter. It achieved a comparatively appalling kill to production number ratio of 33:1: Only 0.03
kills for every unit produced.
If one normal aircraft had been constructed instead of each wonder weapon aircraft (for
certain a gross underestimation of what could be done with the jets development costs), then
the Luftwaffe could have two thousand proven aircraft on its books. But this is an
oversimplification. Even if more conventional aircraft had been built instead of the jets, they
would surely have faced the same pilot shortages that crippled the Me-262. Still, the resources
used in their production could have been diverted elsewhere, and the money invested in their
development could have been spent more productively. Instead of rushed, risky and late
investments in the jets, the use of money and resources in an area where a return is all but
guaranteed (such as in the simpler explosives and tank production industries, which were facing
critical shortages)148, would likely have made a greater contribution to the war effort.
As we do not know the cost of the jet programme, we can only speculate on exactly what could
have been achieved instead. More research for example an academically authored book or
PHD- is needed to find out how much the Germans dedicated to the jets. Whether for a simple
absence of interest, or a lack of reliable information, it appears that more academic attention
has been given to their V-weapon counterparts. But for now, given the combat statistics, it is
almost certain that the decision to develop radical aircraft had a worse effect on the German
war effort than on the allied one.
It is also important to consider another, unquantifiable opportunity cost of the jets: the time of
Germanys leading scientific minds, much of which must have been devoted to the development
of these desperate weapons. While it can be said for certain that the development of the jet
aircraft impeded the German pursuit of victory, the exact extent of this impediment cannot be
said with as much confidence as that of the V-weapons.










148

Tooze 2006 p555

25

Conclusions

The V-weapons:

The V-1
The V-1s overall impact on the war is an area open to interpretation. It was ineffective at
achieving its objectives as a weapon, but had an overall positive effect on Germanys war effort.
David Irving and Alan Levine claim that the V-1 programme paid for itself by causing excessive
Allied expenditures, and so contend that it was a wise venture. Steven Zaloga argues against
this, writing that even if the allies did expend more money and material overall, they could
afford to divert resources while Germany could not, making the programme an exercise in
folly.149
In its favour, V-1 was very cheap to produce, imposing far less opportunity cost than the V-2 on
the German economy. Despite technical problems, it ultimately achieved a success rate higher
than that of Allied precision bombing. It was a weapon that was practical, and could be
deployed with minimum risk to the troops operating it. Respected historian Walter J. Boyne
speculates that, had it been deployed in larger numbers, it could have had a tremendous
effect on the Allies invasion of Germany,150 and this view is echoed in other books on the
subject.
The first V-1 though, was not launched until the week after D-day, and the 24,000 that
ultimately were launched151 carried the equivalent of a tiny fraction of the explosives that were
dropped by the Allies on Germany.
Crucially, the first V-1s were launched not at advancing Allied troops, but at London. Further
research into the V-weapons impact on morale would more fully determine how far they
achieved their objective of terrifying the population, and civilians who lived through the attacks
still survive to facilitate this. But the fact that no large anti-war movement arose suggests that
Steven Zaloga is likely correct his assessment that the V-1 had no profound impact on
morale.152 The weapon was operated under the flawed principle that Britain could be
terrorised into negotiating. As a result, even if deployed earlier and in larger quantities, it would
likely not have achieved its objective of eliciting a peace settlement. It appears that the
Germans had a weapon that had the potential to be effective, but deployed it ineffectually.
They lacked the technology to deploy the V-1 widely or early enough, and lacked the insight to
deploy it most effectively.
Yet through sheer luck, the V-1 programme still succeeded in slowing the course of Germanys
defeat. Its diversion of Allied resources cost the Allies materials and bought Germany time. The
V-1 was helping the war effort, but not in the way that it was intended to. Whilst Steven Zaloga
is correct in his realisation that the Allies could afford to divert resources to countering the V-

149

Zaloga 2005 pp38

Boyne 1997, pp350
151
Zaloga 2005, pp18
152
Zaloga 2005 pp38
150

26

weapons, this also implies that they had enough resources to quell any other threat posed by
Germany. That the Germans developed a weapon which diverted so much Allied attention while
incurring minimal costs and casualties themselves indicates that, even if only through
unintended consequences, the V-1 did prove itself a small but relevant help to the German war
effort. While certainly not enough to prevent defeat, the V-1 did keep the dream of victory alive
for a short but precious while longer.

The V2
The V-2s case is clearer cut. It was likely the most terrifying weapon of the war. As historian
Norman Longmate wrote, it was the most formidable and fearful weapon of its time.153 Its
killing of 2,754 British civilians shocked London, while fulfilling the Nazi leaderships quest for
revenge.154 It demonstrated technology not years, but decades ahead of its time. Yet there is
almost unanimous agreement amongst modern historians that not only was the V-2 not an
effective weapon, but that it had major negative effects on the war effort - It was a significant
hindrance to the German pursuit of victory.
In combat, the V-2 was described by Alan Levine as a technological marvel but a bust as a
weapon. 155 Stephen Zaloga labels the programme as utter folly.156 Where effects on the war
effort are mentioned, comments such as a costly drain on German resources (Alan Levine)157,
or an absurdly disproportionate effort to manufacture (Danny S. Parker)158, abound.
Wolfgang L. Samuel affirms the argument that, even had the V-2 been built in larger quantities,
it was redundant to what was needed to stem the Allied bomber offensive or to inflict
comparable damage.159 It was not the weapon that Germany should have placed its hopes on.
My research has revealed little reason to doubt the V-2s failure. The facts have only increased
its clarity. German desperation saw the missile, a concept dismissed by Hitler as late as summer
1942 as fanciful160, placed at the forefront of the war effort. The V-2 consumed an ever-greater
proportion of the German economys resources. This would eventually amount to a monetary
cost of over two billion U.S. Dollars.161 The money could otherwise have been spent on battle-
proven, practical weapons. Two billion dollars was also the same amount that the United Sates
spent on the war-winning Manhattan project.162
Adam Tooze writes that it became the single biggest armaments project of the Nazi regime.163
To quantify this, the GDP of Germany in 1944 was around sixty billion dollars.164 This means that

153

Longmate 1985 pp382

Zaloga 2007 pp33
155
Levine 1992 pp139
156
Zaloga 2007 pp36
157
Levine 1992 pp139
158
Parker 1994 pp86
159
Samuel 2004 pp12
160
Tooze 2006 pp619
161
Zaloga 2005 pp38
162
Zaloga 2007 pp36; Helfers 1954 pp50
163
Tooze 2006 pp619-20
164
Zuljan, Ralph Allied and Axis GDP:
http://www.onwar.com/articles/0302.htm (accessed 11/11/14);
154

27

the two billion dollars spent on the programme equates to three percent of German GPD for the
year,165 a massive expenditure for any single project. The extent of the V-2s hindrance to the
war effort was huge. The contribution to the war effort of the V-2s that were launched (just
under half of the total actually built) was on an infinitesimal scale, far offset by its devouring of
vital German resources.
It is likely that even the most damming of reports on the V-2 still underestimate the true extent
of its impediment of the German war effort. Existing sources have only estimated as best as is
possible the monetary cost of the programme. In reality, not only did the programme cost an
inordinate amount of money, but must have also consumed an untold amount of the time of
both Germanys scientists and military leaders. It is impossible to place a monetary value on
Wernher Von Brauns or Albert Speers time, but it is certain that both gave much to the V-2.
The programme proved a waste of valuable money and resources, and served only to expedite
Germanys inevitable defeat.

The Jets

In concept, the V-weapons are largely dismissed as retribution redundant to the war effort. The
jets in contrast, are seen often as weapons that could have been highly effective in combat, but
were prevented by their circumstances from doing so. Walter J. Boyne writes there is no
question that the air war over Europe would have been vastly different166 had jet aircraft
been given more priority from the start of the war.
But despite claims by historians that the jets could have contributed significantly to the war
effort had more effort been invested in them earlier, we can never be sure. What Boog, Krebs
and Vogel refer to as the technical difficulties inherent in all new developments of this kind,167
as well as countless other unknowns, make it impossible to say with certainty how the war
might have been affected had jet technology been pursued earlier.
This is not to assert that the decisions made by the German leadership were the right ones. At
first blinkered by the illusion of a short war, the Germans only really appeared to show interest
in the jets after seeing them as yet another terror weapon against the Allies. This appears
evident in both Hitlers orders for the Me-262 to be converted into a bomber role, and the Air
Ministrys similar request for the Ar-234. More radical and desperate programmes were under
way at the wars end, including a reusable plywood fighter that killed its pilot on its first and

Dollartimes.com: inflation Calculator: http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm (accessed
27/02/15)
165
To find this figure, I found tables detailing the GPD of Germany in 1944. (USD 437 Billion). The source is the
above cited Onwar article, which is in turn cited from a reliable book on the subject. (Mark Harrisons "The
Economics of World War II: an Overview.) This figure was in 1990 dollars, so I used a currency converter (also
cited above) to find what this would have been worth in 1944. This was around sixty billion dollars (60.3
billion). Two billion (the cost of the V-2 in 1944 dollars), is just over three percent of sixty billion.
166
Boyne 1997 pp349
167
Boog/Krebs/Vogel 2005, p338

28

only test flight.168 Still, we can only make educated guesses at the exact motivation behind the
German mindset and decisions.
What is certain is that, from a numerical standpoint, the jets did not prove themselves effective
in combat. As discussed earlier, the achievement of eight hundred kills and minor successes
against Allied bridges was barely a ripple in the air war. To put their futility in perspective,
England, Russia and the USA produced a combined total of 163,000 aircraft in 1944. Germany
produced 44,000.169 In their combined production total, the jets account for only 4.5 percent of
German production.170 To prove effective, they would have to shoot down a far greater
proportion of the Allied air forces. But the kills the jets achieved equate to less than 0.5% of the
Allied planes produced in 1944 alone. 171
From the standpoint of effects on the war, it seems inconceivable that the kills and damage
achieved by the jets would have cost the Allies more than it did the Germans. Even of the jets
that were built, only a small proportion ever saw combat, making it all the more difficult for the
Germans to recoup their costs. Future research into German archives would be invaluable to
more fully determining the jets impact on the economy. This would allow their opportunity cost
to be more precisely quantified. But for now, it appears evident that they did not prove to be
worth the investment in their development. The jets help to the war effort was greatly
exceeded by the hindrance of their costs, but by exactly how much we cannot be certain.

168

Ford 2013 pp52

Boyne 1997 pp349
170
274 Ar234s, 300 Me-163s, and 1,433 Me-163s out of a total of 44,000 aircraft.
171
735 kills (high estimate) were achieved by the Me-262, and nine by the Me-163.This is just over 0.45
percent of 163,000.
169

29

Final conclusion

In 1939, Germany was supremely confident in its Blitzkrieg strategy. But as the war turned
against the Reich, its leaders were forced to accept that their adversaries resource base would
remain superior. By 1944, Axis GDP was only a third that of the Allies.172 Strategic victory was
almost impossible.
In response to their ever-more desperate situation, the Germans turned to technology. The
hope behind the resulting wonder weapons was that a smaller number of new and radical
weapons would overcome the vast scale of the Allied war effort, or cause it unacceptable losses.
As early as 1942, the Reich Propaganda Ministry had adopted the slogan the best weapons
bring victory. 173 Adolf Galland, the test pilot largely responsible for the decision to order the
Me-262 jet, proclaimed that If at all, the German Luftwaffe can triumph over its British
American opponent in the air only by means of superiority in the excellence of its armament.174
As historians Vogel, Boog and Krebs write, he would sooner have one Me-262 than five Me-
109s.175
The other hope behind the Wunderwaffen was that terror weapons would crush the morale of
civilians and soldiers, forcing the Allies to sue for peace. Hitler gave or approved numerous
orders for the construction of weapons for the killing of civilians. Both the V-1 and V-2 were
pushed into service in 1944, despite a conference held a year earlier to decide between them.176
Hitler personally demanded that fifty V-3 cannons be built to hurl shells across the English
Channel. 177
All of this is well known. But historians have not properly defined the wonder weapons, and
without knowing exactly what they were, it is not possible to say how far they fulfilled the hopes
pinned on them. By compiling a list and definition, their overall effect on the German pursuit of
victory can be determined. By analysing both their effectiveness and their effects on the war,
their contribution or detraction can be placed into context.
As a result of their late focus, the amount of time that Germany had to develop its weapons was
severely limited. The first of them to see combat, the V-1, came a week after D-day, and even
then was six months behind schedule. Political infighting meant that the Germans did not focus
their development efforts, and set desperately unachievable production targets. Much
manufacturing was undertaken by SS-brutalised slaves working in appalling conditions, and the
quality of production suffered alongside the workers.178 The country developed what Ian V.

172

Zuljan, Ralph Allied and Axis GDP:

http://www.onwar.com/articles/0302.htm (accessed 11/11/14);
173
Tooze 2006 pp555
174
Boog/Krebs/Vogel 2005 pp338
175
Boog/Krebs/Vogel 2005 pp338
176
Zaloga 2005 pp6
177
Encyclopedia Aeronautica: V-3:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/v3.htm (accessed 19/02/15)
178
V2rocket.com: The Mittelwerk/Mittelbau/Camp Dora:
http://www.v2rocket.com/start/chapters/mittel.html (accessed 15/02/15)

30

Hogg labels a disastrous habit of asking for too much179 too late. The wonder weapons
performance in combat reflects this. By measure of both damage and impact on morale, their
help to the German pursuit of victory proved statistically minute.
From the combat statistics, it would be easy to arrive at the conclusion reached by Wolfgang L.
Samuel that German science (and therefore the wonder weapons) had little impact on
either the course or the outcome of the war.180 But solely looking at the wonder weapons in
combat does not fully address their effect on the German pursuit of victory.
The main way in which they would influence the war was not through their performance in
battle, but through their secondary effects on the conflict. The wonder weapons proved
similarly ineffective in combat, but their effects on the war are considerably more varied. These
effects can be found by analysing the cost to the Allied war effort, as well as their opportunity
cost to the Germans. By combining these figures, this paper can more fully answer the question
of how far the decision to develop the wonder weapons proved wise.
The V-1 is the one wonder weapon that appears to have helped the German pursuit of victory.
Cheap to produce, its lack of success in combat was countered by the vast efforts made by the
Allies to defeat it. Alan J. Levine writes that in this the flying bomb more than paid for itself.181
In 1944, before the war had even ended, a senior U.S. Army Air Force officer, Clayton Bissel,
published a report extolling the virtues of the V-1s over conventional bombers.182 Yet this view
is not unanimous. In his 2005 V-1 Flying Bomb, Steven Zaloga still asserts that the doodlebug
achieved almost nothing for the German war effort.183
But when looking at the overall impact of the wonder weapons on the war, whether or not the
V-1 proved beneficial to the German pursuit of victory becomes almost irrelevant. Even if, as
Alan Levine claims, the V-1 did pay for itself, it comes nowhere near to paying for Germanys
other mistakes. There is no case for the V-1 being anywhere near as spectacular a success as
the V-2 was a failure. The V-1 programme cost around 200 million US dollars.184 By my
calculations on page 24, the V-1 programme would have cost the Allies the same percentage of
their 1944 GDP as it did the Germans- around 0.3 percent.185 The V-2 cost the Germans ten
times that amount: three percent of the entire countrys GDP. Given that most of the Allied anti-
V-weapons campaign focused on the V-1, the Allied effort expended on the V-2 certainly could
not have offset its costs. The V-2s cost casts into shadow any achievements the V-1 may have
made.
While it is uncertain if the resources spent on the V-1 would have been more effectively used
elsewhere, there is no question that money poured into the V-2 programme was all but burned.

179

Hogg 1998 pp57-8

Samuel 2004 pp12
181
Levine 1992 pp139
182
Coffey 2013 pp191
183
Zaloga 2005 pp38
184
Helfers 1954 pp89
185
This is taken by comparing Irvings estimates for relative costs caused by the V-1 to the Allies and Axis, and
comparing this ratio (four to one - Irving 2010 pp305-6) to the Axis to Allied GDP ratio for 1944 to 1945 (Also
just over four to one see page 24 ). Given that the V-2 consumed three percent of German GDP (see earlier
calculations on page 18), and the V-1 is estimated to have cost a tenth as much, its cost as a percentage of GDP
would be 0.3 percent.
180

31

At a minimum, significant quantities of tanks or other conventional weapons could have been
produced with the V-2s two billion dollar budget. Danny S. Parker claims that surface-to-air
missiles under design by Dr Alexander Lippisch could have been developed instead,186 but this is
almost purely speculative. His point is also based largely on quotes from Lippisch himself- not
the most impartial source on the quality of his own work.
Still, the V-weapons overall detraction from the war effort is statistically undeniable. Steven
Zaloga mentions one particularly compelling statistic: that the warheads for the V-weapons used
an amount of explosives equivalent to Germanys entire output in autumn 1944.187 Effectively a
quarter years output was expended for little significant damage to the enemy.188 His
conclusion that the V-weapons were utter folly189 is well corroborated.
By collating the data available, and looking at each weapon in proportion, the real extent of the
wonder weapons detraction from the war effort can be seen. The three percent of GDP
consumed by the V-2 is a minimum figure for the wonder weapons hindrance to the war effort.
Add to this the unquantified but certain opportunity cost of the jet aircraft which also
achieved minimal gains for their cost- and the total detraction only grows. Fruitless programmes
such as the V-3 cannon imposed further costs while contributing nothing at all.
This paper has collated and combined existing sources on the newly defined wonder weapons. It
has drawn on and put into new perspectives both secondary and primary material. It has
endeavoured to more fully assess the impact of the wonder weapons on the German war effort
than previous work. Its conclusion can be put simply: the evidence suggests overwhelmingly
that despite their technical brilliance, the wonder weapons burdens far eclipsed their benefits:
They hindered the German war effort far more than they helped it. As tools for the German
pursuit of victory, the Wunderwaffen proved wondrous only in their failure.

186

Parker 1994 pp87-90

Zaloga 2005 pp37
188
Zaloga 2005 pp38
189
Zaloga 2005 pp38
187

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37

Documentaries:

Dogfights- Secret Weapons:

History Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7FYr-c4vJQ (accessed 09/10/14)

Hitler's Secret Weapon: The Fritz X Bomb
National Geographic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqQNrEzo62A (accessed 10/10/14)

Horizon Hitlers Atomic Bomb:
British Broadcasting Cooperation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV-ElwRwdlM (accessed 16/10/14)

Nazi Megastructures - Hitler's Jet Caves:
National Geographic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy9R0dFd-QA (accessed 20/11/14)

Nazi Megastructures- V2 Rocket Bases:
National Geographic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba1Gqhsjdgw (accessed 09/10/14)

Greatest Mysteries of World War II - Stealth Fighter: Hitler's Secret Weapons Recreated:
National Geographic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqgfjXaJxV8 (accessed 02/10/14)

38