23. Although Allied Intelligence Failed to Get a Whiff of the Supergun, London Got Lucky Anyhow
As designed, the V-3 superguns were to fire 10 explosive projectiles that weighed 310 pounds each, with a 55-pound explosive charge. Two batteries were planned, and if they went all out, they would be able to fire 600 rounds per hour, 24 hours a day, and rain devastation down upon and wreck London. As Winston Churchill later commented, if the Nazis had managed to pull it off, it would have been history’s most destructive conventional attack ever launched against a city.
The Allies were completely in the dark about the V-3 program, and their intelligence utterly failed to detect the project. Reconnaissance flights spotted the activity around the Pas de Calais complex, but analysts assumed that the photos depicted a potential base for the launch of V-1 or V-2 rockets. Luckily for London, V-1s and V-2s were worrisome in themselves and worthy of attention. So although the Allies were ignorant about the supergun project, they went ahead and subjected the site to frequent bomb raids anyhow from late 1943 onwards.
