Vergeltungswaffe 1

V-1 was a German terror weapons that were designed to bomb London. V-1 was a retaliatory weapons which had no military value, because punctuality made it impossible to use in operative attacks.

The first test firing was done on the Luftwaffe test center at Peenemünde in early 1942 and from the summer of 1944 until the end of the war, about 10,000 fired. They were firing from the area around Calais in France and the goal was primarily London.  Between 3000 and 5000 reached the target and killed together over 6,000 people.

V-1 was fired from a ramp to be pointing directly towards the goal and had an integrated autopilot, which held the missile on the right course. A device turned off the fuel when the target area was reached otherwise was calculated distance and you fit the fuel so that the rocket ran out of fuel over the target. The range was 250 km.

In autumn 1943 the Allies began a campaign using bombers to stop the Germans development of these high tech weapons. The operation was named Crossbow and during one year, there were flown over 60 bomb chastises. The first attack was directed against Peenemünde in August 1943 where nearly 600 bomber targeted scientists and staff. The main goal was residential barracks and workshops and the attack succeeded partly. Several of the leading researchers were killed and the development was delayed for several months.

Besides Peenemünde the launching ramps, storage and production factories was also bombed.

After the Normandy landings and the Allied advance and conquest of the launching ramps in France, the V-1's missed its meaningless. The Germans experimented with firings from the underside of the bombers and a few hundred were shipped in this manner. After Antwerp in 1944 was liberated by the Allies, the city was a brief period also bombed with the V-1s. The port of Antwerp shortened the Allied supply line and was therefore strategically important for both the Allies and Germans.