Michael Neufeld - The Rocket and the Reich

A-4

Better known by its 1944 Propaganda Ministry designation V-2 (Vergeltungswaffe 2) , the A-4 was first proposed in 1936 on the basis of a projected 25 metric-ton-(56,000-lb)-thrust engine. It was designed in detail in 1939–41. The warhead was one ton (2,200 lb), of which three-quarters was explosives. Nominal range was 270 km (156 mi), although special test models flew as far as 385 km (239 mi) in late 1944. Length was 14 m (46 ft), maximum body diameter was 1.65 m (5.42 ft), and maximum fin diameter was 3.56 m (11.7 ft). For the production (Baureihe B) version, empty weight was 4 metric tons (8,800 lb), and fueled weight was about 12.8 tons (28,200 lb). First launched in June 1942, about 6,000 were built and about 3,200 fired in anger.

A-4b

See A-9.

A-5

The A-3 was redesigned in 1938 with new tail fins and no high-altitude instrument package. Its function was solely to test guidance systems. First fired without guidance in October 1938, from October 1939 to mid-1943 about three dozen A-5s were launched with three different guidance systems: Kreiselgeräte’s, Siemens’s, and the so-called Rechlin or Möller system.

A-6

The improved version of the A-5, with a much shortened engine, was canceled in September 1939 in order to concentrate resources on the A-4. None were ever built. In one December 1939 document, Dornberger used the designations A-6 and A-7 to indicate successor vehicles to the A-4, but this usage was not standard.

A-7

This subscale A-9 was an A-5 with wings. In October 1942 the project was canceled before any powered versions could be completed. Two engineless models were drop-tested from aircraft in late 1942, but neither glide was notably successful.

A-8

On February 5, 1941, Thiel and von Braun inspected Helmut von Zborowski’s nitric acid/diesel oil rocket-engine development at BMW in Berlin-Spandau. That summer Thiel began his own testing of this hypergolic (self-igniting) and noncryogenic propellant combination. The designation A-8, which probably had already been assigned to an improved A-4 concept, was reconceptualized as a simplified A-4 with a projected 30-ton-(66,000-lb)-thrust hypergolic engine of this type. Range could have been improved to 450 km (280 mi), but the concept fell out of favor in mid-1942 for engineering and political reasons.

A-9

This A-4 with wings was first dubbed “Glider A-4” and the “Winged Projectile” (Flossengeschoss) in 1939 before receiving the designation A-9 in 1940. It was studied as a missile of 500-km range and as the upper stage of an A-9/A-10 combination of more than 5,000-km (3,000-mi) range. Research was suspended from October 1942 to June 1944. In early October 1944, the revived A-9 received the designation A-4b in order to use the priorities of the A-4 program. Two “bastard” versions (using A-4 tails with enlarged air vanes) were launched in the winter of 1944–45.

A-10

No later than 1936 the Army rocket group planned an A-4 successor with a 100-metric-ton-(220,000-lb)-thrust liquid-oxygen/alcohol engine, a warhead of 4 tons (8,800 lb) and a range of more than 500 km (300 mi). Peenemünde facilities built from 1936 to 1939 were designed to accommodate it. Priority problems in 1939–40 pushed the concept into the background, but the A-10 had a second life as the projected booster for the A-9. In 1941 planned thrust was increased to 180 tons (400,000 lb) in order to reach the United States from Western Europe. The A-9/A-10 was never more than a drawing-board concept and was shelved in 1942.

A-11

During the heyday of the Project Office in 1940–41, the idea of a three-stage A-9/A-10/A-11 ICBM or satellite booster was bandied about but was never seriously studied.

A-12

Equally vague and hypothetical was an A-10/A-11/A-12 launch vehicle for heavy space payloads.

B-7

This was the designation for the prototype version of the 1,000-kg-(2,200-lb)-thrust liquid-oxygen/alcohol Starthilfe . (The American acronyms for such a system were JATO or RATO, for jet-assisted or rocket-assisted takeoff). Two egg-shaped pods of this thrust were to be strapped on to heavily loaded bombers. Development was initiated by the Luftwaffe in 1938, and testing took place in 1940–41. The designations B-1 to B-6 were apparently not assigned.

B-8

The Schmidding company in Bodenbach was to have manufactured this production version of the B-7, which, after further modifications, was called the B-8a. The Luftwaffe canceled the project in 1942.

C-1

This solid-fuel rocket was proposed in late 1942 as a part of Army Ordnance’s contribution to the Luftwaffe anti-aircraft missile program. Its range and maximum altitude were to be 20 km (about 65,000 ft). The solid-fuel rocket side of Wa Prüf 11 was to design the propulsion system, while Peenemünde-East was responsible for the guidance. The project was canceled in the spring of 1943.

C-2

Better known as Wasserfall (Waterfall), this anti-aircraft missile used a scaled-down A-4 fuselage 8.9 m (28.5 ft) in length and 1 m (3.3 ft) in diameter, with a cross-wing and enlarged air vanes. The propulsion system had an 8-ton-(17,800-lb)-thrust engine using a 9:1 mixture of nitric and sulfuric acids as an oxidizer and Visol (vinyl ethyl ether), or Visol cut with other additives, as the fuel. Guidance was to have been through a joy-stick system, to be replaced by an ground-based guide beam and an on-board homing system. About forty test launches were made between February 1944 and February 1945.

As is true of the Peenemünde story as a whole, much nonsense has been written about the rocket program’s organizational nomenclature, owing to poor research and an uncritical attitude toward memoirs. The following summary is based on the close reading of original documents, plus Schubert’s invaluable chronicle of the Production Plant (BA/MA, RH8/v.1206–10).

German Army rocket efforts had their origin in Karl Becker’s Heereswaffenamt Prüfwesen, Abteilung 1 (Army Ordnance Office Testing Division, Section 1), acronym Wa Prw 1. The sources often further specify subsection I (Wa Prw 1/I), which was probably under Major von Horstig before he became section head in 1933. In May 1935, rocket work was elevated to a separate subsection, Wa Prw 1/VII. Sometime before late November 1935, the expanded Kummersdorf rocket facilities received the name Versuchsstelle West (Experimental Center West).

Basic rocket research was also carried out in Erich Schumann’s Zentralstelle für Heeresphysik und Heereschemie (Center for Army Physics and Army Chemistry) or Wa Prw 1/Z. Following Becker’s appointment as chief of Testing Division in 1933, Schumann’s research operation became section Wa Prw 11. After Becker’s promotion to chief of Ordnance in 1938, Schumann’s section was again directly subordinated to him as the Forschungs-Abteilung (Research Section), abbreviated Wa F.

In 1936, Wa Prw 1/VII became a special rocket section under Dornberger. It was called Wa Prw R for two months (July-August), but the name was quickly changed to Wa Prw D, presumably to obscure the section’s purpose more effectively. No later than June 1937, it became Wa Prw 13. In April 1938, after Becker’s promotion, his renaming of his former division as Entwicklungs- und Prüfwesen (Development and Testing), and a change in acronyms, Dornberger’s group became Wa Prüf 11.

The Versuchsstelle Peenemünde (Peenemünde Experimental Center), as it was first called, united the Army’s Werk Ost (East Works) and the Luftwaffe’s Werk West (West Works) under a Kommandant (Commandant). With the air force’s withdrawal from the joint structure on April 1, 1938, its side became the Versuchsstelle (later Erprobungsstelle ) der Luftwaffe Peenemünde-West (Peenemünde-West Air Force Experimental Center), while the East Works became the Heeresversuchsstelle Peenemünde (Peenemünde Army Experimental Center), or HVP. At some point after Leo Zanssen was named Commandant, his title was elevated to Kommandeur (Commander), with the rank equivalent to a regimental commander. Zanssen at first reported to Dornberger as subsection Wa Prüf 11/II, while Thiel’s propulsion group at Kummersdorf was Wa Prüf 11/V, but those numbers later changed. Rudolf Hermann’s wind tunnel group also reported directly to Dornberger, but its acronym is unknown.