The vengeance weapons were developed as a way to hit Britain, without having any kind of air superiority, and lower morale of the civilians. (link)http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/v_weapons.htm It may not have been enough, but I found that the vengeance weapons worked to lower the morale, but had they been able to do more of it, and targeted military installations rather than civilian areas, they could have been a powerful weapon in the war.
V-1 and V-2 rockets were not very accurate. Even if the Germans tried to use them to target the British military installations, the result wouldn't have been good for them. Some years ago, I have read that out of thousands rockets they fired at London, at least 1/3 of them fell in the countryside rather than into the city. So you see, even with such a huge target - a capital City, they still missed 1/3 of the time. Just how could they hit any military installations which are tiny compare to the size of London? V-1 and V-2 rockets were ahead of its time, but they were not accurate enough to make any meaningful impact on the outcome of the war. Not to mention the Germans didn't produce enough of them either.
That is a problem i have actually overlooked, there isn't really a way to check if your rockets are hitting the right spot, if you can't go there to check. The only thing they could have done is somehow land spies on Britain and see if they could check where they were landing, and make adjustments.
Yeah, I have seen that part about spies. Not just spies in person, but they often checked British newspaper for the damage lol. That was like Japanese checking US newspaper for the performance of their balloon bombs. No satellite nor spy planes for the job... But then again, even if they can confirm the hit spots every time, their missiles were still not accurate enough to destroy any small military installations. They'd be lucky to hit inside a large military base, but don't even dream about taking about things like hanger, radar, etc. It will take very lucky shots to achieve such hits.
I was thinking of a barrage of several of them, to ensure at least a few hits. Not precision attacks, just masses and masses of V1 and V2 weapons attacking the same area, if they did that, one would be bound to hit. That kind of attack would use many of them, but a critical installation might be worth the effort.
The idea of bitter and hateful British air force general to undermine the morale of nation at war is obvious. The massive bombings of civilian targets did nothing less of reenforcing the morale of civil populace to continue fighting. But in one factor they were effective. Von Braun and several other specialists were captured and put to use on developing new innovations by both US.Soviet Union. Whonder if the moon would have never visited without releasing certain War-criminals from trial in all due silence by the righteous victors of the war.
At first, Im sure it lowered moral when people didnt really know what was going on and these new weapons were raining down on them. However, like Turo said, later on it just strengthend their resolve. After a while, air raid sirens were common placeand people darn near lived in their shelters.
The Vergeltungswaffen projects consumed a vast amount of resources and talent. They were effective in impacting morale and diverting allied resources to defending against and finding the weapons. Ultimately, though, it did not change the course of the war. As to if the cost was better spent on more conventional weapons or perhaps other "Wunderwaffe" projects remains a matter of debate. An interesting side point; both the Soviets (with the 10Kh) and the US (with the JB-2) reverse engineered the V-1 for their own use. As they say, imitation is the most sincerest form of flattery. The American JB-2 would have been used in Operation Downfall (the planned invasion of Japan), but was never used in combat.
I just had a thought on this subject, and thought I would share: Consider the morale boost the V-weapons and the rumours of other such miracle weapons had on the German people. Most of the civilians could see the writing on the wall, they knew they were losing. They could see their economy spiraling dowm. But they kept fighting, living, producing, hopeing. They were susstained by the promise of even greater miracle weapons. In that, in deperation, the V-weapons et al did work.
You should realise that the fall of the V1's were reported back to Germany by the "turned German spies". The real landing point being changed. So a V1 landing in the heart of London was reported as landing short or long, thus the Germans altered the settings of their Gyros and flying times, thus landing in less populated areas.
