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V-3 (Vergeltungswaffe 3)

Hochdruckpumpe (HDP - High-pressure pump) was the cover name of a special special weapon - the V-3 (Vergeltungswaffe 3), also known variously as the Fernkanone [Long Range Cannon], Tausendfüßler [millipede], fleißiges Lieschen [Impatiens walleriana, aka Busy Lizzie] or Englandkanone [England Cannon]. The V-3 was a German World War II supergun working on the multi-charge principle, whereby secondary propellant charges are fired to add velocity to a projectile.

The terminology "Vergeltungswaffe" or "V" came directly from Joseph Goebbels on 24 June 1944 German military used the term "Versuchsmuster" or "V" with number for Prototypes. When the letter "V" was used to designate "Versuchsmuster" (prototypes), it was always used in conjunction with the types designation only, e.g. "Ju 88 V1", "Me 262 V1". Goebbels hijacked the "V" [Versuchs] number and "rebranded" it to imply that the Reich "had Something ["Vergeltungswaffe"] up it's sleeve".

The supergun was a huge 130 meter (430ft) cannon. The V-3 would have fired 140 kilogram shells at London from the French coast. Each barrel of Hitler's gun was to be inclined at 50 degrees - worked out as the perfect angle to reach London - they seem to have got it right. In its original conception, 25 barrels were to point at London – about 100 miles away – delivering up to one shell per minute that would turn the course of the war back in Hitler's favor.

The principle of this gun was developed as early as 1855 by the American patents of Azel Storrs Lyman and James Richard Haskell. Haskell and Lyman reasoned that subsidiary propellant charges could increase the muzzle velocity of a projectile if the charges were spaced at intervals along the barrel of a gun in side chambers and ignited an instant after a shell had passed them. In February, 1857, Mr. Azel S. Lyman, of New York, took out a patent for an "accelerating gun," tiiis gnn having the charge of powder partly placed in the breech, as usual, and partly distributed in a series of chambers opening to the bore at various points, the charges in these chambers being successively ignited as the projectile passed their respective openings. Lyman also proposed covering the muzzle of the gun with some elastic material, and exhaust ing the air from the bore so as to remove the atmospheric resistance from the shot whilst passing through the gun. A small gun was constructed on this plan, and tested at New York and elsewhere. The gun tried was of small calibre, about 4 in diameter, and this succeeded beyond the expectations of the company who were present to witness the trial.

The success of the small one led the gentlemen interested in its production for field or battery purposes to endeavor to have one of a large size cast. Of course, many difficulties had to be overcome before they could venture to make the world acquainted with the fact that a large one was in hand, but after several failures, mainly due to unforeseen circumstances, they have had one cast weighing 10,175 lbs., and measuring 11 ft. 6 in. in length. This gun was tried in the United States a few miles below Reading, Pennsylvania, on the old proving ground. The cannon was fired three times during the morning of 29 June 1870.

The "Lyman-Haskell multi-charge gun" was constructed for the US Army's Chief of Ordnance. The barrel was so long that it had to be placed on an inclined ramp, and it had pairs of chambers angled back at 45 degrees discharging into it. When test fired at the Frankford Arsenal at Philadelphia in 1880, it was unsuccessful. The flash from the original propellant charge bypassed the projectile due to faulty obturation and prematurely ignited the subsidiary charges before the shell passed them, slowing the shell down.

At the World's Fair in 1878, the French engineer and inventor Louis-Guillaume Perreaux presented a functional multi-chamber gun. Later, the French developed a multi-chamber gun in response to the German Paris Gun in the Great War. These plans fell to the Germans in 1940 during the occupation of France.

Laatziger Ablage

In 1942, the engineer August Coenders, chief engineer of the Röchling company, researched the idea of a multi-chambered cannon, dating back to the 19th century. In the principle of the multi-chamber cannon, lateral propellant charge chambers are flanged to a cannon tube, the propellant charges of which detonate after they have passed them, detonate them and bring them to ever higher velocities. In 1942 Coenders developed a multi-chamber gun with the cover name "Hochdruckpumpe". Manufacturer of pipe sections for the guns was the company Röchling Völklingen steelworks , manufacturing plant Wetzlar. The arrow-shaped, two-meter-long shells (caliber 15 cm) with the designation Ro Be 42 were also developed by Röchling.

The gun used multiple propellant charges placed along the barrel’s length and timed to fire as soon as the projectile passed them in order to provide an additional boost. Their ignition openings were released one after the other by the movement of the projectile, so that the heat of the main charge could ignite the lateral powder charges. This further accelerated the projectile. These were arranged in symmetrical pairs along the length of the barrel, angled to project their thrust against the base of the projectile as it passed. This layout spawned the German codename Tausendfüßler (“millipede”). The barrel and side chambers were designed as identical sections to simplify production and allow damaged sections to be replaced. The entire gun would use multiple such sections bolted together.

The smoothbore gun fired a fin-stabilized shell that depended upon aerodynamic forces rather than gyroscopic forces to prevent tumbling (distinct from conventional rifled weapons which cause the projectile to spin); this resulted in a lower drag coefficient.

At Laatziger Ablage the construction of three “Abschussrampe” or test ramps, named Stellung Nord, -Mitte and -Süd, was started in 1943 under the codename “Pumpwerk Misdroy” (eng: Pumping station Misdroy) with the gun ramps being codenamed “Hochdruckpumpe” (eng: High pressure pumps) or simply “HDP” in short. The reason for the selection of the testgrounds at Misdroy was that the cannon needed a certain angle to reach the calculated distance. The steep hillsides at Laatziger Ablage (then Germany, now named Zalesie in Poland) were an ideal setting for this to be achieved.

Tests since January 1944, however, showed that the HDF worked as desired, but the projectiles were tumbling. Mid-January 1944 found the first attempts with Röchling-Speeren ( Röchling spears - the official name 15-cm-explosive shell 4481). However, the projectiles reached only 1100 m / s instead of the required 1500 m/s. At higher muzzle velocities, the projectiles lost their stability, and pipe breakages also occurred (as can be seen in the first picture on the right). Since 20,000 Röchling bullets had already been manufactured, however, one could not undertake any profound changes. Only the reduction of the projectile weight and the reduction of the propellant charges remained. Finally, new shell designs were made.

Mimoyecques

Since beginning in 1942, a model was presented in September 1943 to Hitler, who approved the propaganda motive and ordered the construction of 50 such guns for the bombardment of London.

The operational V-3 was built in truly enormous bunkers buried deep in a chalk hill at Mimoyecques, in Calais in northern France. The construction of two underground rooms was immediately carried out on the chanel coast. Positions for 25 guns each were started, for which 5,000 men of the Todt Organization were assigned. At a depth of 30 m, a field train and a two-lane road were to connect the fighting stations and barrack shelters of the 1,100 men's service. The weapon was planned to be used to bombard London from two large bunkers in the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France.

Optimistic people had assumed it would operate at a shot every 5 minutes, with 50 barrels firing 600 shells hourly. At the same time, however, the consumption of powder would be over 65,000 tons per month, with shooting twelve hours per day. Even with what was achieved in practice, firing sequence of 2 shells per hour, it would still require 200 tons per month. By comparison, the entire Wehrmacht had in 1944 obtained 21,142 tons powder on average per month and consumed 23,081 tons.

The guns had a combined rate of fire of at least 10 rounds per minute, with the shells landing on London, 95 miles away across the channel. The guns were apparently to have been arranged in twin batteries of 25 and designed to fire on a fixed line at a high rate of fire with medium caliber shells, weighing 120 pounds and carrying an explosive charge of 40 pounds. Being of a smooth bore, i.e.. without rifling, they would have had the life of many thousands of rounds. Fired from a fixed bearing on a set elevation, they were presumably intended to maintain a more or less continuous barrage on London day and night.

Apparently it was hoped that with civilian defense services already occupied with V-bombs and ordinary rockets, the V-3 would create such havoc as to compel the evacuation of London with all the administrative complications and damage to British morale that such a step would have involved.

Each section of the guns could fire at least 5 rounds per minute. Once the site had heen finished the thickness of the concrete cover and the depth at which the pieces were embedded would have rendered it invulnerable to air attack, no matter how heavy the bombs emploved. The guns would have been fired at a high velocity, probably exceeding 5,000 feet per second and at a high elevation. From the direction at which the 5 outlets emerge on the crest of the hill, there is no doubt that London was the only target in mind.

Thousands of workmen -- all slave press gangs of the Todt Organization - labored day and night for nearly a year. Despite heay bombing. the staqe of completion in which the work had been advanced paids tribute to the Nazi's determination at all costs to finish what was obviously a job of the highest order of priority.

Difficulties existed in the construction of the HDP and of their shells. Plans called for barrels up to 124 meters long of pipes from 32 parts, the drivetrains should be assembled, total weight 76 tons. With a caliber of 15 cm, the 3.16 m long shells weight 140 kg. For stabilization, a foldable rear fin was provided, but it never worked properly. The muzzle velocity should be brought to 1,500 m / s, so that a range of 160 km to the British capital became possible. The fire speed should be up to 12 shot per hour.

The guns, set in deep, inclined shafts at an angle of about 55 degrees, rose from a crescent-shaped chalk hill west of the main Boulogne-Calais road. A standard gauge railwav, completed, but never used, leads to the site. At the side of the hill it disappears into a vault-like tunnel of solid concrete of impressive proportions, some 700 yards long, 30 feet high and 25 feet broad. An unloading platform, giving access to the chambers and galleries opening off the tunnel into the hillside, runs its entire length.

Below this main tunnel at lower levels are two other smaller tunnels. The entire workings are buried underground, some penetrating to 350 feet. Super-imposed over all, covering an area of several acres, was a slab of concrete up to 18 feet thick and in places pierced with a number of square exits. At the entrance to the tunnel is another large concrete building, housing a large electric generator to produce the 4,000 kilowatts of power which the staff would need to operate this colossal engine of destruction.

However, water spills and ventilation problems prevented a completion, so by September 1944 the positions were useless. They were rendered unusable by Allied bombing raids before completion. The lack of raw materials in the retreating Nazi Germany meant it was never used. After the Allies had captured the canal coast at Mimoyecques in September 1944, the plan to bombard London with up to 50 HDPs from artillery bunkers had to be abandoned.

Project Aphrodite was the US effort to convert "war-weary" manned aircraft into unmanned flying bombs.35 Ironically, the United States initiated the special project to develop a means to attack hardened German V-weapon launch sites which were practically invulnerable to normal bombing attacks. By the time the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) could launch its first war-weary aircraft in July 1944, Allied aircraft and airmen losses from attempts to knock out V-1 sites were considerable.

Stripped of all unnecessary equipment, USAAF personnel reconfigured B-17 bombers with radio control systems and loaded them with 20,000 pounds of explosives. One pilot and technician launched the aircraft towards enemy target areas and bailed out before crossing the English coastline. An escort B-17 remotely controlled the flying bomb towards its designated target. No war-weary aircraft ever scored a direct hit on its intended target, and the Aphrodite project was plagued with some tragic results.

Launch crews from the first 10 war-weary B-17 missions suffered the death of one pilot in a crash and the injury of seven others during bailout. US Navy participation in Project Aphrodite involved radio-controlled PB4Y (B-24) Liberators. Lt Joseph P. Kennedy, brother of future president John F. Kennedy, was killed on the first naval Aphrodite mission in August 1944; his B-24 prematurely exploded before he could bail out over England. According to military historian Conrad C. Crane, “fears of his father’s reaction caused much consternation at many military headquarters,” and the Navy subsequently suspended the project.

By 1945 the Mimoyecques site was an abandoned wilderness, devastated and churned up by heavy bombs which have left craters 30 to 50 feet deep. Here and there emerged broken slabs of concrete and portions of huge timber tossed into the air Among the huge dump of steel girders and unassembled spare parts abandoned in the hurry of departure there waas found technical machinery indicating the intention to construct a complicated lift system, presumably to handle ammunition from the lower levels. No trace was found of either guns or ammunition. Some were actually delivered to the site, but were apparently removed by the Germans when they left, either because they desired to conceal the secret of the new weapons, or possibly hoped to use them later on another site. Less than a year earlier, however, the area was a teaming ant-hill of action as the German engineers pitilessly drove conscript labor to complete the last refinement in secret weapons which they hoped would finally bring England to her knees.

Mimoyecques was only one of 7 of the sco-called heavy sites which the Germans had started to build along the channel coast. These were interspersed at strategic localities in a carefully designed plan to maintain longrange aggressive action against England with various types of secret weapons. With the heavy multiplicity of these sites, the Germans evidently hoped that if one was temporarily knocked out, another would continue in its place. Other installations were situated at Wizernes, Watten, Lottinghem, Siracourt, Sottevaast, Alartinvaast and in the Cherbourg Peninsula. All were primarily aimed at the south coast of England.

Wizernes, in the Calais area, was some form of rocket battery. Watten was chiefly a chemical or an ordnance factorv; Lottinghem and Siracourt were flying bomb sites designed to attack London and southern England. Sone had been completed, thanks to Allied air interference. But little imagination was needed to picture the tremendous havoc that the 7 installations of such tremendous potentialities for destruction could have wrought in thickly populated areas, had the Nazis been permitted to operate them.

Hermeskeil-Lampaden

The military situation in 1944 required a radical reduction of the plans, so that only a reduced version of the device named the Millipede was used. Dr.-Ing. Hans Kammler was the SS Lieutenant General responsible for all V-weapon control points., SS-Gruppenführer Kammler, to whom the associations of the retaliation forces were responsible, wanted to prove the front-line capability of the V 3 and got permission from Hitler to use the HDP against the city of Luxembourg during the Ardennes offensive.

For this purpose, two shortened versions of the HDP with the designation LRK 15 F 58 (long canal cannon) were placed in the Ru valley near Hermeskeil-Lampaden. The 1st battery of the Army Artillery Division 705 took over. The installation of the first cannon lasted from 28 November 1944 to 23 December 1944, the second needed a little more time. Two guns were built on steel constructions that were built on a wooden substructure. The wooden substructure was half buried in the slope. The pipe elevation was 34 degrees. This shortened version of the high-pressure pump was not more than 50 meters long and equipped with twelve right-angled lateral chambers. The cannons had a range of up to 60 km with a spread of up to 4 km.

In addition, the construction units erected three concrete bunkers for personnel and ammunition. A nearby mining gallery was probably also used for storage of material or ammunition. Because of the allied aviation, the fire was camouflaged very carefully on the wooded slope, so that it could not be recognized by the enemy bombers. The railroad supply had therefore to be carried on at night. In the vicinity of the fire station is the former station Lampaden (train-km 24.0) of the route Hermeskeil-Trier, over which the supply of the unit was fed. The Ardennes offensive began on 16 December 1944, but the supply of the ammunition delivered from Nürnberg-Feucht began only towards the end of December for the use of the V3. On 30 December 1944 the first shot was fired by the artillery against Luxembourg from a range 42.5 km. A second gun fired since 03 January 1945. Both missed.

On February 15, SS-Gruppenführer Kammler ordered the dismantling of one of the two guns. The remaining cannon was still in use until the end of February. A total of 183 shells [otehr sorues report 157 shells] of the 155mm explosives type 4481 with a weight of 97 kg each with an average fire speed of 3 rounds per day were fired at the city 43 km away with a minimum effect. By the bombardment, a total of 10 people were killed and 32 injured. Towards the end of February the American tanks were only 3 km away from the fire position. In a feverish hurry, the fire was cleared and the transport of the last cannon to the right side of the Rhine was carried out. The parts of the HDP were transported by train back to Wetzlar to the site of the manufacturer company Röchling, from where they were transported after the invasion of the Americans with an unknown destination.