13. Hitler’s Strange Fixation on Super Weapons Led to a Gun That Could Hit London From Europe
Hitler had a strange obsession with superweapons. In May, 1943, Albert Speer, the Reich Minister for Armaments and War Production, informed the Fuhrer of a new supergun, capable of firing hundreds of rounds an hour over an extremely long distance. The weapon was given the appropriately villainous appellation of Vergetlungswaffe 3 (“Vengeance Weapon 3”). The weapon, whose name was shortened to the V-3 Cannon, was intended for London, which the Nazis hoped to destroy. A vast underground complex was dug in the Pas de Calais in northern France, across the narrowest stretch of the English Channel separating Nazi-occupied Europe from England.
The underground V-3 complex was to include over 165 kilometers of tunnels, dug by German workers and slave laborers. The tunnel network was to be linked to 5 inclined shafts, in which 25 huge gun tubes were to be laid, all aimed at central London. As designed, the V-3s were to fire 10 explosive projectiles a minute, 600 rounds per hour, 24 hours a day, raining devastation down upon and wrecking 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.
