Cannon V3
The V3 ( Vergeltungswaffe 3 ; also high-pressure pump HDP , Millipede , Hardworking Lieschen or England cannon ) was a German project for the construction of a super cannon in 1942 .
The weapon was designed to fire on London from France during World War II , but was destroyed by Allied bombers before it was completed. Luxembourg was shelled with two similar super cannons from December 1944 to February 1945.
Concept and development
The principle of this cannon had been known since 1855 through patents of the Americans Azel Storrs Lyman and James Richard Haskell . At the world exhibition in 1878, the French engineer and inventor Louis-Guillaume Perreaux presented a functional multi-chamber gun. The French later developed a multi-chamber cannon in response to the German Paris gun in World War I. These plans fell into the hands of the Germans during the occupation of France in 1940 and were inspected and evaluated by engineers from Stahlwerke Röchling-Buderus Aktiengesellschaft in Wetzlar in 1942 . At Röchling, under the direction of chief engineer August Coenders , a 2-cm version of a multi-chamber gun was also being developed, with which the first shooting attempts were made at the Hillersleben Army Research Center in early 1943 .
The HDP (high pressure pump), later stylized as a miracle weapon, consisted of the multi-part gun barrel and several powder chambers flanged to the gun barrel elements. Their ignition openings were released one after the other by moving the projectile forward so that the heat of the main charge could ignite the side powder charges. This also accelerated the projectile. The cannon had a smooth-walled barrel 15 cm caliber. Calculations showed that a muzzle velocity of 1500 m / s would be necessary in order to be able to fire projectiles of around 140 kg over a distance of 160 km. Under these conditions it would have been possible to shoot at London from the French Channel coast.
First attempts at shooting were carried out in January 1944 with a horizontally arranged shortened version with six segments in the Hillersleben Army Research Center. A modified bottom section of the 15 cm sFH 18 with a slider crank flat wedge lock was used to lock the cannon . The side chambers were set at right angles and had screwed piston closures. Three meter long Röchling arrow grenades cal. 15 cm with 25 kg TNT explosive charge from Röchling-Buderus AG were fired. These projectiles had a sabot and four rolled-up stabilizing wings made of spring steel, which unfolded after leaving the cannon.
The further development of the HDP received side chambers arranged at an angle of 45 °, which increased the efficiency of the gun. The tests in Hillersleben were largely completed in autumn 1943, and the relocation to the test site under construction at Miedzyzdroje took place . The cannon elements were manufactured at Röchling-Buderus in Wetzlar and Völklingen. In Peenemünde , the bullets were further developed. The result was the Peenemünder PPG arrow bullet, which had rigid wings at the end of the bullet instead of the winding lamellas.
Investments
Laatziger filing (Miedzyzdroje)
For the series tests, a site was sought which, on the one hand, had the necessary inclination for the installation of the 130 m long cannon barrel under up to 50 ° and, on the other hand, offered a trajectory free from inhabited areas. The aim was to ensure that no one was harmed if a projectile fell prematurely and that civilians could not draw conclusions about the type of weapon by finding such projectiles.
A suitable area was found on Wollin near Misdroy , on the ridge south of the Laatziger Ablage ( Zalesie in Polish ). From there it was possible to shoot in a northeasterly direction over about 50 km of barely inhabited area into the Baltic Sea. The test site for multi-chamber cannons for firing arrow grenades was given the camouflage name "Pumpwerk Misdroy", because at that time the gun was still called "high pressure pump" for camouflage. Construction of the facility began in mid-1943.
In mid-January 1944, the first attempts with Röchling spears (official name 15 cm high explosive grenade 4481 ) took place. However, the bullets only reached 1100 m / s instead of the required 1500 m / s. At higher muzzle velocities, the bullets lost their stability and there were also pipe bursts (as can be seen in the first picture on the top right). Since 20,000 Röchling bullets had already been manufactured, however, no more profound changes could be made. All that remained was to lower the bullet weight and reduce the propellant charges. In order to drown out the noise during the shooting tests, an 8.8 cm flak was posted near this test arrangement.
Even after the Allies landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944, the tests were continued: at Miedzyzdroje, especially with regard to the quality of the cast iron pipes, in Hillersleben research continued to improve the projectiles. It was and remains astonishing that - in contrast to Mimoyecques and Peenemünde - the facility near Międzyzdroje was neither cleared up by the Allies nor noticed by the Soviet troops as they marched west.
Parts of the three proven launch systems are - still clearly visible today - between the places Zalesie and Wicko ( German: Vietzig ), about three kilometers south of Misdroy ( 53 ° 53 ′ 59.8 ″ N , 14 ° 26 ′ 17 ″ E ). It is assumed that there is another position for a shortened version between position 1 and the ammunition bunker, which is now a small militaria museum.
Mimoyecques
Main article → Mimoyecques (V3 bunker)
The largest plant is of Mimoyecques ( 50 ° 51 '11 " N , 1 ° 45' 32" O ) at Landrethun-le-north south of Calais ( France ) on the Atlantic coast. The guns were 140 m long and should be able to fire 140 kg projectiles over a distance of 165 kilometers.
The facility was bombed several times from November 1943 as part of Operation Crossbow by the 8th Air Force . Before it was fired for the first time, the weapon was finally destroyed on July 6, 1944 by three British Tallboy aircraft bombs .
The first basement of the facility can be visited. There is a memorial as well as documents and information about the V3.
Lampades
At Lampaden ( 49 ° 38 ′ 20.2 ″ N , 6 ° 42 ′ 59.1 ″ E ) near Trier , the only proven V3s were in use.
In autumn 1944 SS-Gruppenführer Hans Kammler , to whom all V-Waffen units were now subordinate, prepared the HDP for a German counter-attack on the western front. The guns prepared in Hillersleben and Misdroy were given the designation LRK 15 F 58 , 58-meter long-barreled cannon, caliber 15 cm, breeches field howitzer. It was only around this time that the HDP was number 3 in the V-weapons program.
The city of Luxembourg was bombarded from December 30, 1944 to January 22, 1945 during the Battle of the Bulge by the two guns with a total of 183 sabot shells from about 43 km away. The goal was a busy intersection in the city center. However, this ambitious goal was not achieved due to the approximately 5 km spread radius. There were a total of 44 confirmed hits in the city area. Although the project took place at the same time as the Battle of the Bulge, it was only a kind of "troop test" by the 1st battery of Army Artillery Department 705.
In contrast to Mimoyecques, here in the Ruwertal the cannon barrels, which are only 58 m long, were well camouflaged in the existing terrain on a wooded slope with the appropriate inclination of 34 ° and facing the city of Luxembourg. The nearby train station was very important for the inconspicuous transport of the material for this plant and its supplies.
Not much is visible of the system. The cannons were dismantled and transported away during the German retreat in February 1945. The vegetation has taken back its original space. The only visible remnants of this time are the walled-in access to a rock vault that served as a shelter, the leveled slope areas for the two cannons and the pits above into which the muzzle flashes. The former Lampaden station on the Hochwaldbahn , only approx. 500 m away , has been completely dismantled - like the railway line in this section.
Related constructions
A similar weapon was developed by Gerald Bull on behalf of the Iraqi secret service . The gun with the code name "Baby Babylon" should have a barrel of about 46 m with a caliber of 35 cm. The Jabal Hamrin about 135 km north of Baghdad was chosen as the position for the cannon , the target should be Israel . The project with the code name Project Babylon or Project 839 was thwarted by the British secret service in early 1990 .
Development which use also the principle of stepwise or continuous acceleration of a projectile, which are Gaußkanone or the railgun . Such developments are still being worked on at the beginning of the 21st century.
Other meaning
- A German ICBM called “Amerikarakete” (see Aggregate 9 and Aggregate 10 ) is also designated as V3, but was no longer built.
- In the soldier's language , which is strongly characterized by cynicism , V3 was a name for the Volkssturm .
literature
- Karsten Porezag: A secret matter of command; History of the "V weapons" and secret military actions of the Second World War on the Lahn, Dill and in the Westerwald . Documentation. Wetzlardruck, Wetzlar 1997, ISBN 3-926617-20-9 .
- Axel Turra: The "hardworking Lieschen" multiple chamber gun . Weapons arsenal, weapons and vehicles of the army and air force . Special tape S-57. Podzun-Pallas, Wölfersheim-Berstadt 2000, ISBN 3-7909-0697-2 .
- Piotr Laskowski: Śladami niemieckich tajnych broni na wyspach Wolin i Uznam (V-3) . Maagdruk, Świnoujście 2003, ISBN 83-912490-0-X , p. 5-32 (Polish).
- Steven J Zaloga: GERMAN V-WEAPON SITES 1943-45 (68 pages online PDF) , p. 13 ff.
Web links
- V-3 in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
- V3 lamp shops at geschichtsspuren.de
- L'ARME DE VENGEANCE 3 (French)
- Bunker tours: Mimoyecques - Base V-3
- V3 Test Ramps at former Laatziger Ablage (English)