I uploaded a test video from one of my video archives that I have here on tape. It’s a short clip (1min) of British artillery men shooting down V1 Rockets headed for England. Well, I’m not sure if that’s accurate, but anyhow, check it out. Anyone seen this before?
Yes, I have, and it is true they did use coastal artillery to shoot them down. I dont know what the success rate was though. spitfires also engaged them, and did a good job of downing them .
A total of 1,971 V1’s aimed at the UK were shot down by anti-aircraft guns. They were concentrated in a belt near to the coast to protect inland targets like London
ps, The guns shown in the film are 40mm AAA and 3.7inch AAA, not coastal artillery
True, a misnomer on my part, (shouldnt type when tired,) not coastal artillery in the Naval sense,but used for air defense and being located near or along the coastline.
Very good one, I have saw this but in B&W.
Cute video clip. I’m thinking the shots of the cannon are stock pictures fit in between those of the V1 bombs. In a couple the large guns are pointed in a varitety of directions rather than the same. Some of the V1 shots may have been the same bomb exploding, but with the frame cropped a bit to change the appearance. The shot of the V1 crashing was spectacular. I wonder who was quick enough & lucky enough to take that picture?
V-1: Countermeasures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1#Countermeasures
V-1 flying bomb (German: Vergeltungswaffe 1)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1
V-2 Rocket (German: Vergeltungswaffe 2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2
V-2: Countermeasures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2#Countermeasures
By the look of it, that clip may have been used for some sort of news reel or other showing in British (or another countries) picture house.
As commented above, it is not taken on the same day or event (even by multiple cameras, normally only one camera would go to an event anywya they were rare inthose days).
The gunner shots are probably stock, as are the spits. It would be interesting to get the talkover.
Probably a big up to the defenders of the British Isles against the V1s, ie the AA guns and Spit pilots (no other plane was fast enough).
Talk over probably goes something along the lines of "another attack by Hitlers V1s on London, the crews of the AA batteries man their guns (hence the picking up of shells and the thumbs up), and pepper the air with AA shells.
In this case they are lucky… they get one.
But they are not alone, their brothers in the Spitfires are also mobilised to shoot down the V1s.
In London we see the devestation of a V1 strike. For every V1 shot down by our valliant defenders, some will always manage to get through."
The end of the clip will probably be a report on the damage caused and how the Londoners meet the blast with their “Blitz spirit”.
It is worth pointing out here aswell, that the Enigma code (broken by the British) and a turned over spy ring found in Britain were all used to convince the Germans that the V1s were not falling in London.
They were promptly reaimed, with British coaxing, to fall on “London” but merely were directed to other areas where they would not do as much damaged.
The Spys reports on damage were largely fabricated also.
iirc the meteor was also used to shoot down V1s.
The British anti-aircraft artillery, also if I remember correctly, was radar guided by that point in the war, which markedly increased hits.
The V1s caused the Radar and predictor AA to be brought in faster than would have been the case had they not come along.
London became a special area at one point where on ly the fastest of fighters were sent, in order to catch the V1s. A whole RAF air wing of the fastest planes, Typhoons were capable of catching them on their own, but many of the Spitfires and other aircraft had to be “pimped” in order to catch them.
Several V1s were destroyed by Spitfires using their own wings to topple the V1s in to dives that the V1 gyroscopes were unable to recover from.
The technology for the predictors was actually given for free by it’s British inventors.
Does anyone know if the V1 or V2 rockets ever had a canopy of some sort ? I ask because I’ve seen one at a museum (it was a replica) and it had a fake canopy and I asn’t sure if this was something that the Germans would have done or was this something the museum did for fun?
Canopy?
As in a cockpit canopy? V-1s were modified for pilots, particularly Japanese versions.
From the wiki, becaue I is lazy this morning,…
quotes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V1_Flying_Bomb
Late in the war several air-launched piloted V-1s, known as Reichenbergs, were built, but never used in combat. There were plans, not carried into practice, to use the Arado Ar 234 jet bomber to launch V-1s either by towing them aloft or by launching them from a “piggy back” position atop the aircraft.
The German piloted V1 was designated the Fieseler Fi 103 R, and was to be used by KG 200 (I started a thread on this air wing somewhere that may deal with this plane in more detail).
More here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selbstopfer & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonidas_Squadron
Japanese versions
In 1943, an Argus pulse jet engine was shipped to Japan by German submarine. The Aeronautical Institute of Tokyo Imperial University and the Kawanishi Aircraft Company conducted a joint study of the feasibility of mounting a similar engine on a piloted plane. The resulting design was based on the Fieseler Fi-103 Reichenberg (Fi103R, a piloted V-1), and was named Baika (“ume blossom”).Baika never left the design stage but technical drawings and notes suggest that two versions were under consideration: an air-launch version with the engine mounted under the fuselage, and a ground-launch version that could take off without a ramp.
Intelligence reports of the new “Baika” weapon are rumored to be the source of the name given to the Yokosuka MXY-7, a rocket-propelled suicide plane better known as the “Baka Bomb”. However, as baka means “fool” in Japanese, and the MXY-7 was officially designated the “Ohka” (“Cherry Blossom”), the true origin is unknown.[citation needed] The MXY-7 was usually carried by the G4M2e version of the Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” naval bomber, then the pilot lit the solid-fuel rockets and guided his flying bomb into a ship. During the Boeing B-29 firebomb attacks on Japanese cities, the Baka was deployed against American bombers.
Another Japanese Fi 103 version was the Mizuno Shinryu, a proposed rocket-powered kamikaze aircraft design, but it was not built.
Not sure about the V-2.