Among the German Wunderwaffen there are some weapons that are halfway between reality and legend, such as the anti-gravity bell Die Glocke
Nazi secret weapons (part 2). Die Glocke, the antigravity bell - Periérgeia Skip to content Síguenos en Redes Sociales Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Menu Home Articles Science and Technology History and Biographies Philosophy and Religion Art Black Chronicle The Magic Planet Frauds Contact Nazi secret weapons (part 2). Die Glocke, the antigravity bell 04/17/202011/20/2019 by Alberto Romero We continue to expose some examples of the German Wunderwaffen from World War II. As with the ones we saw in the previous post, many of these new exponents were never built, or only reached the test phase at the most. Even so, they are still fabulous and impressive. If the reader has already been impressed before, his surprise will now reach unimaginable heightsThe V-weaponsIt is well known the World War II episode called “Blitz”: the constant and indefatigable siege by means of missiles and bombers that the Nazis carried out on London between 1940 and 1941. Londoners woke up almost daily startled by a nearby explosion. The sirens became the soundtrack of an entire country. However, it is rarely mentioned that these attacks were retaliation. In this exchange of rockets and bombs, England was the first who started because in May 1940 the bombers of the RAF (Royal Air Force) began to destroy factories, refineries and other industries (in addition to urban centers, causing multiple civilian casualties) to weaken the Germans. Actually, the number of bombs dropped by Germany and the Allies is not comparable. While the sons of the Reich dropped, according to some estimates, 75000 tons of explosives on the United Kingdom, the Allies would have dropped 135000 tons on Germany and its annexed territories by 1945. So much so that the Allied bombardments caused a disturbance in nature, but the German bombardments did not.These three graphs depict the effects of some of the most violent World War II bombings on the ionosphere. The upper graph shows precisely the average decrease of electrons coinciding with 60 bombardments on Germany and its territories (middle graph). Scott and Major, 2018Two researchers from the University of Reading, Christopher J. Scott and Patrick Major, discovered by studying the history of radio pulse emissions launched from the Radio Research Station in Slough, a research centre inaugurated in 1933 to study the composition of the ionosphere, that the ionospheric composition had been altered in the skies of the German regions between 1943 and 1945, specifically on the days when Germany and its territories had been most violently bombed. Due to overheating of the exaggerated energies released from the explosions, the ionosphere would have lost part of its electron density, an effect that fortunately was undone the next day. Even so, it is striking that this effect was detected in Slough, which is almost 1000 km away from Berlin. Until this study it was not very clear that humans could alter the ionosphere, a capacity attributed solely to violent natural phenomena such as earthquakes or storms. Be that as it may, the absence of these effects by German bombardments could be explained, since their planes did not have the capacity to carry large explosive charges, unlike those of the Allies, and that the German bombardment of London was very continuous, making it difficult to distinguish any anthropogenic effect on the ionosphere.The fact is that the Germans took both the British bombings and the defeat in the Battle of England as a very personal affront and began to devise new weapons to complement or replace their bombers. Their aim was to retaliate against enemies, and hence their name: “Vergeltungswaffen”, retaliatory or revenge weapons. These were undoubtedly the most successful Wunderwaffen: they managed to get out of the blueprints, meet the requirements and be mass-produced and used.Their identification was very simple: they were labelled with a V and a number, although they have not always been called in that way. Their father preferred to call them “Aggregat” (whose diminutive is an A accompanied by a number). The ideologue of these weapons was not only recognized for developing this kind of technology, with not only war possibilities but also scientific. Because thanks to these rockets the United States and the Soviet Union achieved unsuspected goals during the space race.Colonel Leo Zanssen is congratulated by General Erich Fellgiebel. Just behind, two of the key characters of the retaliatory weapons: Wherner von Braun (dressed in a black suit) and Walter Dornberger (the man in front of the scientist with his eyes closed). La Segunda GuerraWernher von Braun (1912-1977) was the mastermind behind retaliatory weapons and one of the fathers of the Cold War space race. Already at a young age he showed a great interest in rockets, engineering and mathematics. Together with several colleagues and their teacher and eventually colleague Hermann Oberth join the Society for Space Travel (“Verein für Raumschiffahrt” or VfR), a group of intellectuals who were fond of rockets and space enigmas that end up settling in a field of Reinickendorf, on the outskirts of Berlin, in a place they called “Raketenflugplatz” (“rocket airport” in German), where they built and tested sophisticated homemade rockets while dreaming of reaching the procelose outer space. The results obtained (VfR was able to launch a Repulsor rocket at an altitude of almost two kilometres) attracted the attention of the German Army in 1932, which was interested in rockets and missiles based on liquid propellant, which fortunately did not appear among the prohibitions of the Treaty of Versailles. Moreover, at that time liquid fuels were taking their first steps and von Braun was the ideal person to apply these novel fuels to the rocket industry. From then on, von Braun worked with Captain Walter Dornberger first in Kummersdorf and then in the Baltic, at the famous Peenemünde research centre. He gladly accepted this as he got paid and took another step closer to his longed-for space travel. Unfortunately, his motivation was ruined when he had to devote his ingenuity exclusively to the war production of rockets.In his first stage in Kummersdorf is when von Braun gives birth to the Aggregat project. In 1933 and 1934 he designs and tests respectively the A-1 and A-2 rockets, which used liquid propergol as fuel. The ones that really caught the attention of the German generals were the couple of A-2, Max and Moritz, whose test flights exalted their expectations and were decisive to continue building more advanced versions. Actually, these first two versions had no use beyond tests. None reached 1.70 metres in length and 150 kg in weight, so they could barely carry enough explosive charge to cause significant damage. However, A-2 managed to reach 3.5 km in height in their tests, not bad at all. Due to these results and the fact that the German high command saw the war potential of this technology, they decided to move the team integrated by the German engineer to Peenemünde, where future tests would be carried out.In 1935 the A-3 would arrive, a rocket with more serious dimensions: 6.74 meters long and 740 kg weight. It was the first large rocket designed by von Braun. However, only four test flights were made in December 1937, all of them failed mainly due to engine and parachute failures. They barely reached the kilometer of height, so it became necessary to resize it, giving birth to the model A-5, slightly smaller and subjected to various test flights between 1938 and 1942. Some variants of the A-5 without an engine were conceived simply to test its aerodynamics by launching them from Heinkel planes. We will see later that all these tests, models and failures had their raison d’être and were simply preparing the testing ground for an extremely sophisticated weapon that was to come, one of the few Wunderwaffen that was close to fulfilling its mission.Research centre in Peenemünde today. Today it has been converted into a rocket museum. At the front is a V2 rocket, a terrifying weapon and ultimately an essential technology for the space race. Museum PeenemündeLet’s make a parenthesis. Aggregat rockets would end up becoming the Vergeltungswaffen, but it is a common mistake to attribute the authorship of the V1 flying bomb to Wernher von Braun. The V1, forerunner of the cruise missiles with its almost 8.5 metres in length and 2150 kg in weight, of which 830 kg belonged to the explosive head of amatol, was created by two men: Fritz Gosslau and Robert Lusser, although it is true that the flight tests were managed by Peenemünde’s team.The V1 did not begin to be mass produced until late 1943, when hopes for Germany were already dwindling. The regular bombardments and the destruction of the industrial complexes prevented to use the V1 before. Until then, all the launches carried out from bases such as Peenemünde were tests.The V1 flying bombs were equipped with an explosive head of almost one ton and could reach 600 Km/h. WikipediaIn addition, they failed to carry out the program in the most absolute of secrets. The British government began to suspect a novel German “unmanned aircraft” earlier that year thanks to the prospecting of British pilots and spies. However, final confirmation came from the invaluable work of a French mechanic, one of those war heroes whose biography is assiduously hidden behind the intricacies of history. Michel Hollard was a French patriot dissatisfied with the Nazi invasion of his country to the point of deciding to collaborate on his own with the British without joining any group of the French Resistance, as he believed they were too disorganized to achieve significant results.His resistance was inhuman. On several occasions and in order to avoid leaving tracks that could be followed by the Germans, he was forced to travel dozens of kilometers daily by bicycle or walk through dense forests in the middle of winter. His mechanical skills allowed him to infiltrate the German industries without too much difficulty and to obtain useful information and plans that he transmitted to his English superiors. Finally, with British support, he managed to set up his own espionage network, the Agir network (“act” in French), which ended up being indispensable for bringing to light the German retaliatory weapons.Michel Hollard, the French hero who uncovered the locations of the V1 flying bomb launch ramps. WikipediaAt first, Hollard and his contacts began to realise that, in towns close to the English Channel, mysterious concrete walls were being erected at an incline of about 15º and that workers were working day and night without ceasing, spread over three shifts of 8 hours in the mysterious project. Suspicion grew when Hollard discovered that these ramps were pointing towards London, as if something were to be thrown from them to reduce the capital of the United Kingdom to dust. Indeed, these findings allowed British intelligence to settle its conjectures. Now all that was left to be sure was what the Germans were going to throw at them. Therefore, in November 1943 they sent Hollard to the French region of Auffray, to a hangar where the Germans were going to receive one of those unmanned planes. After infiltrating, Hollard feared the worst: inside a leaky box were stored the parts of a flying bomb, a rocket with a radius of action not negligible, and Peenemünde was where it had been investigated and tested. In December of the same year, the RAF (Royal Air Force) initiated Operation Crossbow and bombed those launch ramps near the English Channel. But some of them were saved because the Germans manage to camouflage them or move them to other locations. On June 13, 1944, the first hits on British soil by the V1s begin. The Führer’s plan was to have started in December of the previous year by dropping a whopping 5000 monthly bombs to destroy London and other locations, but fortunately this was not the case. Between June and August 1944, 9200 rockets were launched, of which only 1000 reached their target, causing significant damage. Many were shot down before touching the ground: reaching a speed similar to that of some Allied fighters (between 500 and 600 Km/h), they were able to shoot some V1 with relative ease. Another more risky and unusual tactic was to destabilize the course of the V1 by giving them a little touch on one of their wings with the planes to unbalance the gyroscopic system. On the other hand, many flying bombs were destroyed before they even flew, while they were still on the launch ramps. By the end of the war, the Germans had launched about 10000 V1, of which almost 2500 reached their targets. 6000 dead and almost 18000 wounded constituted the balance of casualties on British soil by the insidious V1.Flying bombs, however, were not always intended to be dropped from the ground. At first, in fact, air tests were carried out launching the V1 from German planes, but finally the other alternative was chosen. After all, the radius of action of the explosions was about 15 meters, reaching 70 meters if we take into account the damage caused to buildings by the expansive waves, so they were more useful on the ground than in the air.A British Spitfire (larger silhouette) trying to unbalance a V1. A small touch on one of its ailerons would be enough to unbalance the gyroscope that calculated the course. World War WingsMichel Hollard’s fate almost ended in tragedy. In February 1944, agents of the German special service arrested him and sentenced him to death. However, his sentence was commuted to a stay in the Neuengamme concentration camp, where he remained until, near the end of the war, prisoners began to be deported en masse to Sweden in ships. Very few manage to save themselves, because the RAF or the SS sank prisoner ships, the former believing that they were convoys of a different nature and the latter for fun. Among the few who manage to survive was Michel Hollard, who since then will be distinguished war hero, decorated with the Distinguished Service Order cross and labeled by the Queen Elizabeth II as the hero who saved London.See below a V1 and the peculiar roar that anticipated its lethal arrival: In 1944, while the V1 bombarded London, Wernher von Braun and his engineers learned from their mistakes and perfected the Aggregat rockets until they reached the definitive version: the Aggregat-4 (A-4), better known as V2. It had little to do with the V1 flying bomb. First of all, it almost doubled the V1 in size with its 14 meters in length. It weighed about 13500 Kg, although ironically the explosive head was approximately the same weight as that of the V1. The extra weight was contributed among other things by the powerful engine that allowed it to reach the whopping speed of 5200 Km/h and between 320-360 Km of distance. It was, in short, an unstoppable weapon, as there was no plane that could intercept it, in fact no V2 was shot down. It was also very unexpected because, unlike the V1, its engine did not announce its arrival with a thunderous noise and thanks to the height and speed reached, they became invisible to radars. It is ironic the reason for the delay in their production. It is obvious that the Allied bombing raids on Peenemünde had something to do, such as the one carried out by the RAF on August 16 and 17, 1943 in the framework of Operation Hydra, significantly damaging the base and forcing a transfer of part of the personnel and laboratories to Dora, in central Germany, but curiously the blame was also Adolf Hitler. The Führer was not always convinced about the effectiveness of retaliatory weapons. He thought he wouldn’t need them. Severe mistake, because at least the V2 could have given him some advantage in the first years of the war. This is something he acknowledged in an interview with Dornberger in 1943, regretting his naivety and his lack of confidence in Dr. Wernher von Braun’s team. Thus, in July of that year he gave absolute priority to the development of the V2 missiles.Historical snapshot of a V2 taking off. They were a constant and intense nightmare for Londoners during the last years of the war. V2 Rocket HistoryThe Germans were giving free rein to their vengeance and hatred until the last moment. When the invaded France was liberated, the Nazis transferred all the necessary means to persist in the launching of missiles to Holland and the Netherlands, Rhineland, etc. Between September 1944 and the end of the war in 1945, the Germans managed to launch more than 5000 warheads against the Allied territories. If they were to lose the war, they would take several thousand more victims with them.However, von Braun had ambitions that went far beyond. Satisfied with the results of V2, he began to think of a modified version that would reach higher altitudes (the first V2 reached 88 km) capable of reaching outer space. The yearning to leave and explore the dark space was frequent since the beginning of the 20th century in the main European powers and in the United States and, as we will see later, in the Second World War it was already thought of conquering space in order to win the war. However, von Braun’s project was nourished by a scientific desire rather than a warlike one. The Aggregat-4b or A-9 variant was intended to fulfil this ambition. Actually, both versions were V2 missiles but with ailerons that would allow them to reach greater distances taking advantage of the gliding. Neither went into production, but a prototype of the A-4b managed to pass a flight test in 1945. This was designed to overcome the Mach 5 of speed and to reach distances of 800 Km and the A-9 to surpass the Mach 10 and to cover 5000 Km, in such a way that if it had come to term it would have been the first intercontinental ballistic missile of history. Other versions of the A-9 were intended to be manned (also called A-6). Finally would be the A-9/A-10 version, a gigantic intercontinental missile of two stages and more than 20 meters high. However, this would not be enough to reach orbital height, so von Braun thought of adding two more stages, the A11/A12, forming a four-stage rocket about 70 meters high designed to carry a satellite of half a ton or other types of loads to low Earth orbit. Due to the various limitations of this model, engineers saw it as a reconnaissance or transport vehicle rather than a bomb.Aggregat series rockets, precedents of the famous V2 missiles. The A-1 and A-2 were test prototypes that did not reach two metres in height; the A-3 is the first large rocket designed by von Braun, 6.75 metres in height; the A-4 is the well-known V2; the A-4b is a variant of the previous one but with spoilers added to extend the distance travelled taking advantage of the gliding; the A-5 is a redesigned prototype of the A-3; the A-6 is a variant of the A-9 designed to be manned; the A-9 and the A-10 are multistage rockets to serve either as intercontinental missiles or as means of transport to take man into space. The Worlds of David DarlingAs the end of the war loomed, the Allies started up a series of projects to attract as many German scientists as possible. Having seen the impressive warfare inventions they had created and the bold brains that made up the scientific teams, it was imperative to capture them and use them to achieve post-war scientific and technological supremacy. A competition was therefore started to see who would get the best. In the case of the United States, this operation was called the Paperclip Project.Wernher von Braun was a smart guy. By the winter of 1944 it was clear to him that Germany was going to lose the war and that he had to find a way out. He preferred to reach the New World to put all his knowledge at the service of the Americans. He was lucky and together with several companions he was captured by the representatives of the bars and stars. Quickly he is named director of the main projects of … truncated (48,631 more characters in archive)