7. A Scheme That Birthed Modern Ballistic Missile Submarines
Two large anti-submarine task forces were set up, and in April, 1945, Operation Teardrop was executed when word arrived that several U-boats had left Norway, bound for North America. Of seven U-boats that approached the US, five were sunk. Survivors were abusively interrogated for any information about missile scheme. As it turned out, the U-boats had not been fitted out with missile-launching equipment, and the plan to attack American cities with rockets had not yet been ordered. The war ended before the Nazis tried to carry it out. Of the three Prufstand XII rocket containers ordered in 1944, only one was actually delivered. Luckily, by the time this particular Nazi scheme went into high gear, time was running out for the Nazis.
By late 1944, the Third Reich was crumbling under heavy blows from enemies advancing from east and west. That was fortunate for the Big Apple, considering just how badly Hitler and his goons wanted to reach out and touch it. The Nazis put a lot of thought into how to wreck New York. In addition to the Prufstand, the ad-hoc submersible V-2 transport, the Germans had also been busy with plans for a dedicated ballistic missile U-boat that could carry multiple rockets and launch them at inland targets. Separately, in a project codenamed Ursel, the Germans had figured out a guidance system that allowed the targeting of surface ships with rockets fired from submerged U-boats. The rockets, however, were still under development when the war ended. After the war, both the US and Soviet navies drew on Project Ursel to develop ballistic missile submarines in the 1950s.
