If it was the Second World War, who do you think would launch to the first satellite

[Pawelk198604]

If it was the Second World War, who do you think would launch to the first satellite

[Motokid600]

Uhm..u mean the 3rd world war?

[Pursuedtank]

In The second World war, rocketry science was not advanced enough to launch satellites, the closest that anyone had come was the German V2, designed by wernher von braun and his team, so if I had to pick a country, it would be Germany.

Bit of a strange question.

[Van Disaster]

If *what* was WW2? that's a wierd question, it needs some parameters.

Anyway if it'd dragged on a bit longer so they didn't run so short of resources ( and perhaps if the allies didn't keep sabotaging their production facilities ), the Germans would have been dropping nuclear ICBMs everywhere. Somehow I doubt a satellite was too high on their priority list.

Did the allies even have a rocket program in the war? for some reason I've never even considered that.

[Themohawkninja]

I'd say the Germans, since I could see some V2's strapped together to get into orbit, assuming that the Allies didn't blow it up before it got off of the ground.

[Spartwo]

Germans they were the most advanced by far.

[Nibb31]

If WW2 had dragged on a few years longer, Berlin would have been nuked and the war would have ended. There is no way Germany could have developed the technology to reach orbit.

[Arbolus]

Probably Germany, just because they already had a big head-start in rocket technology.

[Nicbudd]

Either the Germans or the Russians.

[Drunkrobot]

Do you mean modern geopolitics sent back to the 1940s in terms of technology, or the other way round, today's tech in the hands of the 1940s world order?

[3_bit]

Well if Germany did join the space race I'm sure the US would have joined in. Remember that we did beat the USSR, so It's possible that Germany may have used similar tactics. It's really a matter of science:speed ratios. Unless you have a time machine or a holodeck, it's not going to happen. Knowing how Hitler overexpanded too quickly and lost, I can assume he would have gone for speed (the same the USSR did) and would thus have lost in the long run, while the satellite would have no doubt broadcasted political/propaganda messages instead of beeps.

[Apollo1391]

I think that the Swiss of Switzerland would win the space race because if the war went on any longer the allies and Germans would be very short on recourses with their only goal to beat each other up leaving the neutral Swiss ahead of everybody else.

[DerekL1963]

Probably Germany, just because they already had a big head-start in rocket technology.

But going into orbit is about much more than just rocket engines. It's also about the guidance and control systems (which Germany lagged, badly, on). It's about having an economy big enough to support the effort (which Germany didn't have, throughout WWII their economy was on the ragged edge). It's about having enough spare resources to dedicate to the effort (which, again, Germany didn't have). Etc... etc...

Germany also had enormous structural problems, as it consisted (mainly) of a number of fiefdoms constantly warring between themselves both for self aggrandizement and accruing power and influence, and for the favor of the Fuehrer.

[Seret]

Did the allies even have a rocket program in the war?

Yes, but it was decades behind the German one. The Allies weren't really even thinking about gaining any kind of strategic advantage by climbing into orbit. Allied forces did use rockets extensively, but only as short-range direct fire weapons. They were widely used on

,

, and ground vehicles such as tanks, the ubiquitous Russian truck-mounted

and even man-portable weapons like the bazooka. These were all solid-fuelled rockets, and obviously not on the scale of anything capable of punching a payload up into orbit. The Allies had air supremacy for most of the latter stages of the war, so there was no pressing need for satellite reconnaissance, they could do aerial recon with impunity. And their vast fleets of long-range heavy bombers could carry plenty of firepower deep into Axis territory. They probably just didn't see any need for big rockets.

Only the Germans were developing long-range liquid fuelled guided weapons like the V2, and they were looking beyond that to some really ambitious things. Just how far ahead the German scientists were is made obvious by the mad scramble to snap up German rocket scientists by the ex-Allied forces as the world war turned into the Cold War.

[Seret]

But going into orbit is about much more than just rocket engines. It's also about the guidance and control systems (which Germany lagged, badly, on).

I disagree. The V-1's guidance system, while rudimentary, was certainly good enough to be effective. And the V2 had what was obvious the precursor of a proper inertial navigation system, which was seriously high-tech for the time.

By contrast the Allies were forced to come up with madcap ideas for guided weapons, such as pigeon guided missiles and cluster bombs with terminal guidance by bat. Our side had some good optical stuff (gun sights, bomb sights) and analogue computers, but we were pretty rubbish at weapons guidance.

[Kryten]

I disagree. The V-1's guidance system, while rudimentary, was certainly good enough to be effective.

25% hit rate when the targets are some of the largest cities in the world doesn't sound terribly effective to me. If you want to see just how confident the germans were about guidance over longer ranges (effectively what you'd need for an orbital vehicle), just look at their napkin-back ICBM design, the Aggregat-10. Not only was it required to have a (u-boat-delivered) line of radio beacons leading to the target, it was to be piloted.

[Seret]

25% hit rate is pretty good for the world's first cruise middle trying to get through the world's best integrated air defence system. In an extremely adverse environment like that modern cruise missiles would struggle to achieve a hit rate much higher. In WW2 the RAF quickly discovered a cruise missile's fatal weakness, that it flies a very predictable course. If the air defences were alert they could swat them fairly easily.

Just to put things in perspective, raids by manned bombers only managed to put about 20% of their bombs within 1000ft of the target. So the fact that the V weapons actually hit anything at all is quite an achievement IMO.

I'm not saying what the Germans had was impressive by modern standards, but it was by a 1940s yardstick.

Edited August 4, 2013 by Seret

[XilentDude]

Well if Germany did join the space race I'm sure the US would have joined in. Remember that we did beat the USSR, so It's possible that Germany may have used similar tactics. It's really a matter of science:speed ratios. Unless you have a time machine or a holodeck, it's not going to happen. Knowing how Hitler overexpanded too quickly and lost, I can assume he would have gone for speed (the same the USSR did) and would thus have lost in the long run, while the satellite would have no doubt broadcasted political/propaganda messages instead of beeps.

Well, Wernher von Braun did all the hard work for the Americans. He always wanted to send the first human in space or on another planet and he actually did it. After he surrendered to the Americans, he and his team of rocket scientists have moved to America and later he helped the Americans with the rocket industry. If he died or if the Russians would've captured him then the Americans wouldn't win the space race. USSR would've beat them or another 1000 other things could've happened. When the V2 rocket hit London he said that the flight went perfect but the ship landed in the wrong place.

So what I'm saying is that if the Americans didn't have Wernher then they wouldn't have won the space race. Maybe in an alternate universe there was no war and the Germans won the Space Race.

[Nuke]

http://xkcd.com/984/

[Skyrunner27]

Actually the Germans came to the Americans. They were escaping the Soviets. They were even able to bring lots of scematics and if I remember correctly they even brought full V-2 rockets. The Germans were at the end and their goverment was breaking apart making it easy to travel. The US picked up most V-2's and the Soviets found scraps that were able to construct rockets out of.

[DerekL1963]

I disagree. The V-1's guidance system, while rudimentary, was certainly good enough to be effective. And the V2 had what was obvious the precursor of a proper inertial navigation system, which was seriously high-tech for the time

Hitting a target the size of a city only 25% of the time isn't effective by any rational definition of the word. And the V2's guidance system was a crude lash-up that like the V1's guidance system, only "kind of worked".

When you compare either to something like the TDC, or battlewagon fire control systems, or Norden bombsights, or... a laundry list of other things you've probably never heard of either (let alone examined the logic and circuit diagrams of) , the crudity of the V1/V2 guidance and control systems stands in stark contrast.

You folks really need to get your information from somewhere other than the History Channel.

[Seret]

Hitting a target the size of a city only 25% of the time isn't effective by any rational definition of the word.

Depends on what your objective is. These weren't tactical weapons (where the standard yardstick for "effectiveness" would be a CEP smaller than the warhead's effective radius) they were terror weapons. The V stood for "vergeltung"; revenge. As long as they inflicted any casualties on a population that thought the threat of German air attack had been neutralised then they were effective. If you listen to survivors of the V2 attacks they all say the thing that made them scary was that they struck at random with no warning. The British government tried to suppress news of the strikes, for fear of the effect on civilian morale.

It's also important to remember that they were propaganda weapons. The German people were getting the hell bombed out of them day and night, these weapons were intended to shore up morale on the home front by letting the Germans feel they were getting some revenge for the terrible losses they were suffering. They could have all been landing harmlessly in the North Sea and the Nazis would still have been able to trot out newsreels of them launching gloriously to satisfy the public.

the crudity of the V1/V2 guidance and control systems stands in stark contrast.

Of course they were crude. These were guided weapons in the 1940s.

The question wasn't about the absolute crudeness of the V2, it was about the relative crudeness. The OP was asking which country was closest to punching something up into orbit. That was the Germans, no doubt. They were the only ones who were manufacturing a liquid-fueled rocket that could regular loft any kind of payload with any kind of accuracy.

You folks really need to get your information from somewhere other than the History Channel.

That's a pretty weak comeback, and I suspect you know it. You have no idea about the experience and qualifications of those you reply to online. I notice from some of your old posts you're an ex-submariner. If that's the case I suspect our backgrounds aren't too different. I'm an engineer who learnt his trade as an armourer working on aircraft. I'd like to think I can hold a fairly lucid discussion about guided weapons. Always happy to learn from others with interesting knowledge or experience, though. Can we climb down from our high horses now and go back to talking like civilised people?

Edited August 5, 2013 by Seret

[jwenting]

One major point to consider is the background. What would a world have to look like for any of the combatants in WW2 to develop the technology and the need to put something in orbit before the end of the war, when would that be, and what would they need to put into orbit.

For the rocket technology, the Germans were closest. Guidance technology, probably the Americans. BUT the Germans would likely have got a lot closer had not their cities, their universities, their R&D effort, been bombed into oblivion and a lot of their skilled workforce been drafted to serve on the East Front.

So, we'll have to consider a WW2 without the massive allied bombing campaign against the German heartland. Of course in such a scenario all bets are off. Maybe the US would have dedicated the resources to rocketry that were now dedicated to designing and building the B-17, B-24, and B-29 (and starting work on the B-36).

Maybe Germany would not have bothered with spending money on a young rocket enthousiast named Werner von Braun, not given him the funding and resources, the facilities and manpower, he used to develop his A2 amateur sounding rocket into the A3 mail rocket and A4 long range rocket (or V2 as the military designation ran), would not have got funding to start work on the A9/A10 intercontinental rocket (which could probably have put something small into orbit).

[Seret]

One major point to consider is the background. What would a world have to look like for any of the combatants in WW2 to develop the technology and the need to put something in orbit before the end of the war, when would that be, and what would they need to put into orbit.

I was thinking about that too.

To my mind, the only way the war would have dragged on long enough was if the Germans had won on the Eastern Front, as that was where Germany's fate in the war was really decided. That would have left the Germans in complete control of Europe staring at the unsinkable aircraft carrier HMS Britain off their coast, and fighting Allied shipping in the North Atlantic (with probably a new front in Central Asia and the Middle East). If the Germans were able to move their industrial effort east into Russia (assuming the Russians left anything intact!) beyond the range of Allied raids they could have kept their war machine ticking over.

Convoys crossing the North Atlantic to resupply Britain with ships and aircraft would have been a constant thorn in their side, satellite reconnaissance of the North Atlantic would have been a huge force multiplier for their u-boats, and missile strikes against North America would have appealed. If they were able to strangle the convoys from America or even get the US and maybe Canada to back out of the war then they might have eventually squeezed Britain into submission. So their rocket programme could well have been given a high priority.

[jwenting]

One permutation there, Seret: The Germans would likely never have won on the eastern front without winning over the UK first.

So either Sea Lion would have had to succeed, which relied on winning the air war over Britain in '40/'41, or the U-Boat campaign would have to succeed in cutting off Britain from the US industrial might, which might have happened had Enigma not been by incredible fortitude captured by the RN, allowing Bletchley Park to read the German Naval ciphers in near real time.

Think Britain under a Vichy like government if you will, rather than full occupation, but no US bases in striking range of the Ruhr. Convoys to keep the USSR supplied from the US under constant attack (if Lend Lease were under that scenario extended to the USSR in the first place).