{"id":105297,"date":"2026-10-12T04:00:56","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T08:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=105297"},"modified":"2026-10-11T20:57:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T00:57:46","slug":"the-v2-story-1934-1940-a-pact-with-the-devil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/the-v2-story-1934-1940-a-pact-with-the-devil\/","title":{"rendered":"The V2 Story: 1934-1940, A Pact with the Devil"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"j854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/htmEh5HSmLA?si=ONSLOl33HovJVCLF\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>HardThrasher<\/strong><br \/>\nPublished 11 Oct 2026<\/p>\n<p>Like many Nazi ideas, what looked good on paper was, in reality, somewhat different. The Rocket craze of the late 1920s led directly to the development of one of Nazi Germany&#8217;s most expensive weapon systems, which was technologically astounding, but militarily rubbish.<\/p>\n<p>Today we&#8217;re going to look at how that all began, the race to develop the A-4 rocket, the building of a massive test site to create the weapons and talk about what the A-4\/V-2 was, how it was supposed to work, how the technical challenges were over come, and ask the question no one did at the time &mdash; why bother?<\/p>\n<p>00:00 Big Rockets, Bad Ideas: The V2 Story<br \/>\n00:55 The &#8220;So What&#8221; Question<br \/>\n03:04 Rocket Fever &mdash; the late 1920s<br \/>\n06:51 The Lads in Grey Step in<br \/>\n08:50 von Braun&#8217;s Faustian Pact<br \/>\n11:21 Peenem\u00fcnde: Onwards and Sometimes Upwards<br \/>\n13:42 Size Matters: The A4 Concept<br \/>\n19:26 Getting the Gang Together: The V-2 Engineers Come Together<br \/>\n22:36 A Quick Tea Break and some Blatant Self Promotion<br \/>\n23:51 The A4 and Other Rockets: A Timeline<br \/>\n27:28 Anatomy of the A4<br \/>\n29:26 Guidance and Gyroscopes: Making It Go the Right Way<br \/>\n35:09 The Rocket Engine: Controlled Fire and Clever Plumbing<br \/>\n38:36 The V-2 Turbopump: The Wolverine<br \/>\n46:54 Survivor&#8217;s Club<\/p>\n<p><strong>Notes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[1] Guy Walters, <em>Stealing Hitler&#8217;s Rocket<\/em>, Head of Zeus, 2026 p.27 (Kindle ed)<\/p>\n<p>[2] Tooze,<em> Wages of Destruction<\/em> p. 750 gives German GDP in 1937 as RM73.757bn, approximate cost of the V2 programme whilst Neufeld, <em>The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem\u00fcnde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era<\/em>, p.273 gives the total cost of the A4\/V2 project, excluding vehicles, warhead and guidance systems as RM900m<\/p>\n<p>[3] Michael J. Neufeld, <em>The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem\u00fcnde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era<\/em> (New York: Free Press, 1995), Kindle Edition pp. 122\u2013124<\/p>\n<p>[4] Stephen Ransom &#038; Hans-Hermann Cammann, <em>Me163 Rocket Interceptor<\/em>, Crecy Publishing, 2021, pp.30\u201332<\/p>\n<p>[5] Micheal Nuefled, <em>Von Braun<\/em>, 2007, Smithsonian (Kindel Ed), p.50<\/p>\n<p>[6] Neufeld, <em>The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem\u00fcnde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era<\/em>, pp. 19\u201321.<\/p>\n<p>[7] Neufeld, <em>The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem\u00fcnde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era<\/em>, p. 23.<\/p>\n<p>[8] Neufeld, <em>Von Braun<\/em>, p.55<\/p>\n<p>[9] Neufeld, <em>Von Braun<\/em>, p.61<\/p>\n<p>[10] Neufeld, <em>The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem\u00fcnde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era<\/em>, p. 32.<\/p>\n<p>[11] Neufeld, <em>Von Braun<\/em>, pp.64\u201365<\/p>\n<p>[12] Neufeld, <em>The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem\u00fcnde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era<\/em>, p. 50<\/p>\n<p>[13] Neufeld, <em>The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem\u00fcnde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era<\/em>, p. 51<\/p>\n<p>[14] Neufeld, <em>The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem\u00fcnde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era<\/em>, p. 52.<\/p>\n<p>[15] Neufeld, <em>The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem\u00fcnde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era<\/em>, p. 179<\/p>\n<p>[16] Neufeld, <em>The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem\u00fcnde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era<\/em>, p. 59.<\/p>\n<p>[17] Neufeld, <em>The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem\u00fcnde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era<\/em>, p. 98 &#038; 121 \u2013 A-9 development stopped in 1942, A-10 was never more than a paper study<\/p>\n<p>[18] As above, worth picking out the A-10 proposals as theoretical<\/p>\n<p>[19] <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EgiMu8A3pi0\" target=\"_blank\">A4\/V2 Rocket in detail: Turbopump<\/a> &#8220;V2 Turbo Pump Part 1&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>[20] Neufeld, <em>The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem\u00fcnde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era<\/em>, p.65 and on<\/p>\n<p>[21] For those who\u2019re so minded there\u2019s a complete explanation of the V2 engine systems here: John A. Halchak, James L. Cannon and Corey Brown, \u201cMaterials for Liquid Propulsion Systems,\u201d in Aerospace Materials and Applications (AIAA, 2018), p.15 and onward<\/p>\n<p>[22] \u201cAnalysis and Evaluation of German Attainments and Research in The Liquid Rocket Engine Field. Volume 4. Propellant Injectors\u201d, which you can get in pdf form online has a really good description of how this works.<\/p>\n<p>[23] Walters, <em>Stealing Hitler&#8217;s Rocket<\/em>, p.27<\/p>\n<p>[24] Neufeld, <em>The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem\u00fcnde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era<\/em>, p. 80.<\/p>\n<p>[25] <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EgiMu8A3pi0\" target=\"_blank\">A4 \/ V2 Rocket in detail: Turbopump<\/a> \u2013 I make no apologies for referencing the same YT video here, it is art, go and watch it<\/p>\n<p>[26] Neufeld, <em>The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem\u00fcnde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era<\/em>, p. 88<\/p>\n<p>[27] Neufeld, <em>The Rocket and the Reich: Peenem\u00fcnde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era<\/em>, p. 85<\/p>\n<p>[28] <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5JRvm25gdMA&#038;t=2502s\" target=\"_blank\">The riddle of the V2 rocket shape<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HardThrasher Published 11 Oct 2026 Like many Nazi ideas, what looked good on paper was, in reality, somewhat different. The Rocket craze of the late 1920s led directly to the development of one of Nazi Germany&#8217;s most expensive weapon systems, which was technologically astounding, but militarily rubbish. Today we&#8217;re going to look at how that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1118,7,5,663,230],"tags":[277,457,1197,1579,1447],"class_list":["post-105297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-germany","category-history","category-military","category-weapons","category-ww2","tag-ballisticmissiles","tag-fascism","tag-interwarperiod","tag-lordhardthrasher","tag-strategicbombing"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-rol","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105297"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105298,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105297\/revisions\/105298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}