8. Hitler’s Fixation on Super Weapons
The German V2 rocket, or “Vengeance Weapon 2”, was the world’s first ballistic missile, which carried a ton of high explosives to the edge of space, then descended at unstoppable supersonic speeds to detonate on its target. It was a brilliant, advanced, and literally revolutionary feat of technology. It was also one of history’s most wastefully expensive weapons. The damage inflicted by V2s was relatively small and did not justify the vast expenditure of resources that went into their production.
The V2 program was a blunder that diverted scarce resources from more effective weapons programs or other uses that could have better served the German war effort. From its first operational launch against enemy targets in September 1944, to Germany’s surrender nine months later, roughly 3000 V2s were fired. They did not all reach their targets, but even if they had, at one ton of explosives per V2 warhead, that would have been 3000 tons of explosives dropped on enemy cities over nine months. As seen below, that was a relative pittance.
