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View Full Version : U-Boat V1 attack on New York, 1945. fact, or fiction?



bob10
20th April 2020, 07:43 AM
Submarine launched V1 rocket attack on New York, 1945. At least that's what the Americans thought. A fascinating look at a little known part of WW2 history.

YouTube (https://youtu.be/wHUCV_EDOFI)

JDNSW
20th April 2020, 11:28 AM
From that video - fiction. The Germans thought of it, and worked on it - but the technical challenges of launching V-1s from submarines, particularly at the end of a transatlantic voyage, made it very unlikely to have worked, even if it had been actually tried. Especially since the Allied signals intelligence were reading their mail.

bob10
22nd April 2020, 06:39 PM
From that video - fiction. The Germans thought of it, and worked on it - but the technical challenges of launching V-1s from submarines, particularly at the end of a transatlantic voyage, made it very unlikely to have worked, even if it had been actually tried. Especially since the Allied signals intelligence were reading their mail.

Yes it was never developed to a stage it could be operational. But just the threat of it was enough to cause a great deal of nervousness on the East coast of the USA.

3toes
23rd April 2020, 03:41 AM
Think the value was the political fall out of an attack on New York and so if only a single launch was successful it would have had an impact well beyond its real value. Think of how the Japanese brought home many squadrons for home defence after the Doolittle raid