+Digital Books - 31 Nazi Inventions That Changed the World

The acoustic torpedo was a powerful and vital weapon for many battles of the Nazi army in the Atlantic Ocean. The acoustic torpedo, unlike the conventional torpedo, has the ability to alter its trajectory upon launch and move toward the noises that boats and submarines make underwater while navigating. Using a sonar and special receivers to pursue its target, the acoustic torpedo was an effective and deadly weapon.

The first model of acoustic torpedo was the G7e/T4 Falke created in early 1943 and was not widely used in battle. Everything changed in August of the same year with the introduction of the new G7esT-5 Zaunkönig acoustic torpedo model. Much faster and more advanced than Allied models, the new torpedo was critical to the success of several attacks on merchant ship convoys during the Battle of the Atlantic.

The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign of World War II, which ran from 1939 until the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. It was an important part of World War II naval history, peaking from the mid-1940s until the end of 1943.

Vergeltungswaffe (“retaliatory weapons”, “reprisal weapons”) , also known as V-Waffen (“Weapon-V”), were a particular set of long-range artillery armaments designed by the Nazi military for strategic bombing missions during World War II. Originally, each project had a different military code, but their names were changed by determination of Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, creating an identity and purpose for the weapons at a time when Germany suffered from Allied bombing. The V-Waffens was be the weapons that would give avenge to the German people.

The Vergeltungswaffens included the V-1, a pulse jet powered cruise missile; the V-2, a liquid-fuel ballistic missile and the V-3 cannon. All of these weapons were designed for use in a military campaign against Britain, although only V-1 and V-2 were used in a campaign conducted between 1944 and 1945.

After the invasion of Europe by the Allies, these weapons were also used against targets on the European continent, mainly in the cities of London, in United Kingdom, Antwerp and Liège, in Belgium and some regions of France.

The V-Waffen were used not only against military personnel but also against civilian targets, especially in the London area and southern England. The aim was to retaliate for the destruction of German cities by British and American bomber squads. As happened on the Allied air strikes, many civilians were severely affected. In the later stages of the war, the V-Waffen were, mainly, used for attacks aiming to disrupt the supply of Allied troops on the Western Front.

The Vergeltungswaffe 1 (“ Vengeance Weapon 1”) or V-1, was a missile of long-range and aircraft-shaped developed for bombing and retaliation missions, by the Luftwaffe . It is considered the first guided cruise missile in history and was known among allies as buzzbomb, due to the noise it produced.

The V-1 missile had a total length of 7.90 m and a wingspan of 5.38 m, reaching up to 230 km with a top speed of 640 km/h. It was a rather complex device for the time: at spherical containers, the compressed air was use as a gyro compass to make automatic course corrections; to determine distance traveled, a small propeller at the top guided a counter, which set the trigger upon reaching a predefined distance, making the missile to point downwards; an impact fuse detonated the explosive charge, an 850 kg warhead. But the V-1 had problems with its accuracy and because it flew in a straight line, its trajectory was known, allowing the Allied intercept action.

From June 1944 to March 1945, approximately 12,000 V-1s were used by the Wehrmacht , primarily against targets in England (London) and Belgium (Antwerp Harbor). The last enemy action of any kind on British soil occurred on March 29th, 1945, when a V-1 struck Datchworth, in Hertfordshire.

The Vergeltungswaffe 2 (“ Vengeance Weapon 2”) or V-2, was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propelled rocket engine, was developed during World War II in Germany as a “weapon of revenge” designed to attack Allied cities in retaliation for Allied attacks against German cities.

The V-2 rocket also became the first artificial object to travel into space, crossing the Kármán line, which defines the boundary between the earth’s atmosphere and outer space, with the vertical launch of the MW18014 , on June 20th, 1944.

The V-2 used a mixture of fuel alcohol and liquid oxygen, which were injected into very high-pressured combustion chambers. It also had a second propellant that worked with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, sodium permanganate and water. With this, the V-2 reached a top speed of 5700 km/h, reaching over 200 km in height and being able to travel up to 360 km.

Beginning in September 1944, more than 3,000 V-2s were launched by the Wehrmacht against Allied targets. The V-2 attacks are estimated to have killed about 9,000 civilians and military personnel, and another 12,000 forced workers and concentration camp prisoners died as a result of their forced participation in weapons production.

After the end of World War II, scientists who worked on the construction of the V-2 were arrested by the United States and the Soviet Union. Both countries aimed to use the V2 rockets, very sophisticated for the time, as the basis of their respective space projects. Wernher von Braun, chief engineer and projector of the Nazi rockets, received a proposal to work on the development of American rockets. The first photo taken in space was taken by a V-2 rocket on October 24th, 1946. Wernher von Braun was also primarily responsible for the Saturn V Lunar Rocket, used at the Apollo Missions, to send mankind to the moon.

The Vergeltungswaffe 3 (“ Vengeance Weapon 3”) or V-3, was a fixed cannon created by the Wehrmacht , and operated on the multi-load principle, where secondary explosive charges were applied to the moving projectile to increase its speed.