The major predecessor of ballistic and space rockets, Hitler's Vergeltungswaffe 2 was developed as part of Germany's increasingly desperate armaments program in 1944 in an attempt to reverse the tide of the war. The earlier V1 flying bomb had a pulse-jet motor attached to a conventional bomb and could be shot down by fighter planes. But the V2 was supersonic and did a lot more damage. Most were launched towards London but some towards Antwerp and Liege in Belgium.
After the war, the German rocket scientists were wanted by both America and the Soviet Union to develop their own military and space exploration rockets; it seems America managed to get most of them.
This example is in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC.
2 comments:
Not a two-stroke, but a pulse jet, surely? Yes, it had a spark plug, but no reciprocating parts.
Thanks, have changed the description. Apparently the cycle of the combustion was akin to a 2-stroke and gave the V1 a peculiar sound that could be recognised from the ground.
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