Existing comment:
V-2 on Meilerwagen
The V-2 was the first practical modern ballistic missile. Its operation was complex and involved specialized transport and launching equipment. Unlike the V-1 flying bomb operated by the Luftwaffe, the German army operated the V-2 rocket. Erecting, servicing, and launching a V-2 took from four to six hours and required some 32 different trailers and vehicles carrying fuel, batteries, pumps, spare parts, radios and other equipment. The entire operation required hundreds of soldiers, with the launch team alone needing more than 100 people to service and test the rocket, survey the site, run the support equipment and command the process. In all, more than 10,000 people and 3,000 vehicles were devoted to V-2 activities.
The German army developed the V-2, known also as the A4 missile, as an alternative to super-long-range artillery, which the Treaty of Versailles prohibited after World War I. Designed by rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun, the V-2 was a breakthrough in missile technology but failed to prevent Germany's defeat in World War II. The rocket was inaccurate, which made it a poor military weapon but an effective terror device. Though the rocket was destructive, killing almost 3,000 people in England and probably even more in Belgium in the last year of the war, the German forced-labor system could not produce enough V-2s to affect the outcome of the war. In any case, the comparatively small power of V-2 attacks could not match the massive effect of Allied strategic bombing. After the war, the German rocket team and many captured missiles were brought to the United States, where V-2 technology helped to build the technological base for human spaceflight and advanced strategic missiles. |