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From: swilliam@dtoa1.dt.navy.mil (Williams)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Missiles: V-1 and V-2
Message-ID: <1991Feb12.021013.12215@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 12 Feb 91 02:10:13 GMT
References: <1991Feb4.071827.23373@cbnews.att.com> <1991Feb11.052426.4068@cbnews.att.com>
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From: swilliam@dtoa1.dt.navy.mil (Williams)

The V-1s were "stoppable"; that is, there was defense against the V-1s.
There were anti-aircraft gun batteries set up to shoot them down, and
fighter planes also could shoot them down.

The V-2s, by comparison, were unstoppable.  There was practically no
defense against the V-2s other than attacking the launcing pad (very
difficult as they were portable and hard to find) and attacking the
V-2s on railroad cars.  The V-2s flew in arcs 60 miles above the earth
and four times the speed of sound.  Hence, planes and artillery guns
can't knock them out of air.

One interesting story about V-2 from a diary book written by an American
GI (combat engineer) in World War II.  He and his buddies were waiting
in a chow line joking and kidding.  Then out of sudden a big BANG!
Everyone was knocked down hard by the blast and covered with earth.
Then everyone started getting up wondering what had happened. They had
not heard any aircraft flying over nor any high pitch whistle of artillery
shell coming in.  Then all of sudden they heard a rocket engine screaming 
toward them. Everyone jumped down trying to bury themselves under anything.  
This rocket engine scream finally died away.  Then someone said that 
it was a V-2.  Sure enough, a V-2 had hit a hill several hundred yards 
away, leaving a BIG crater.  Then the American soldiers started looking 
up in the sky now and then to see if any more V-2 was coming in.

Eventually, some soldiers cracked from fear of V-2s.