Finished my Kriegsmarine V-2

[luke strawalker]

Built my Canadian Arrow stock length but wanted to go more of a V-2 variant. I had read that the German Kriegsmarine was interested in the possibility of launching V-2's from submarines to attack the East Coast of America. The V-2 wouldn't have fit in a submarine, so they planned to construct waterproof 'cans' to haul them in towed behind the submarine across the Atlantic, with extra diesel fuel for the submarine in a tank at the rear. Once in range of New York, they would flood the diesel tank with water, which would then cause the tube to float vertically like a pool chlorine floater or fishing bobber and the front would be opened, the missile readied for launch, and fired from the tube at the US mainland. The submarine would then return to Germany. Some small rockets were fired from surfaced submarines, but nothing approaching the V-2 launches ever happened until the US launched a V-2 from the deck of an aircraft carrier in Operation Sandy.

Since I read too many Harry Turtledove novels where the South won the Civil War (and subsequently developed an analog to the V-2 to attack the US during the Second World War) and another of his novels where Germany won the WWII, I got to thinking, "what if the war had lasted another year or so, say if Normandy had been called off due to weather (nearly happened for real) and Von Braun and the rocket team had had another year to improve the V-2 and finish the naval version??" Prototypes of the transport canisters for the V-2's had already been finished, or were very near to being finished. Suppose improvements in the V-2 engine allowed higher thrust, which would allow higher liftoff weights, permitting a tank stretch of the V-2 for increased range. (One big weakness of the plan was having to conduct submarine operations on the surface to ready the missile for firing so close to the US coast, which an extended range V-2 would help to solve that problem). We might have had V-2's dropping in Times Square in '46...

So, I left the stock CA length and added a Polaris paint job, to suggest a rocket pushed quickly into production but still somewhat experimental, just as the real V-2's largely were. The Polaris paint job just looks SO cool, and it really fits the motif. After researching all the Kriegsmarine Unterseeboote 'nose art' I could find, and other than the laughing swordfish emblem, not finding anything I liked I decided to make my own. I guess not many artists went into the Kriegsmarine, because most of the U-boat art is pretty cartoonish caricatures, largely including pigs and umbrellas (has something to do with good luck) and caricatures of bulls, donkeys, elephants, and Winston Churchill. Not exactly evoking a naval theme! SO I hand drew my own suitably naval crest, scanned it, and made it into a decal for the Kriegsmarine Tank Stretched Amerika V-2. For some reason my white paint didn't stick worth a darn to the primer on the BT-80K and a lot of it lifted when I pulled the masking off the nose cone, so I had to remask and repaint the white part and do some touch-up by hand, so the nose cone pattern could have been better... may strip it and redo it after she gets some flight dings on her...

Here are the pics. Enjoy! OL JR

 

[tmorley]

I like it. Nice job!

 

[Race58]

Very nice and unique!
Did you do any other modifications to the build and did you fly it?

 

[Pem Tech]

Very, very slick work.....
Love the decal too.

 

[cornyl]

Hey great model looks great!!!
I am always torn about the V-2.
It is an unbelievable feat of technology for when it was designed. Most countries in the world do not have the technology even today to duplicate the technology in a V-2. So as far as its place in history and the start of large scale rocketry as we know it is awesome. On the other hand it is the symbol of fear, terror, and death during it's highly effective use during the second world war. VonBran new that this device was killing thousands of innocent people and still worked on it to make it a more efficient killing machine. Sorry to get so deep but like I said I am torn about the V-2.

 

[luke strawalker]

Very nice and unique!
Did you do any other modifications to the build and did you fly it?

I built her pretty stock except for an "E" engine hook and mount. I'm pretty proud of the finish on her. I put a good coat or two of sanding sealer, sanded it down real smooth, filled the remaining tube seams/tailcone seam with red spot putty, sanded her smooth again, two coats of Walmart primer, sanded with 400 grit, wet sanded with 600 grit and she was slick as glass. I had rounded the leading edges but left the trailing edges square for a more 'scale' appearance. I flew her once 'nekkid' in the primer and she did really well on an E9-6, though I got a tiny ding or two on the fins, so I decided to CA harden the leading, trailing, and outer edge of the fins, which did okay but ran a little in one spot and was ugly, requiring a little more work that didn't completely come out perfect. (Note to self-- do all CA fin hardening BEFORE starting finishing work, but she's my first re-BAR rocket) The paint job was actually pretty simple; the MASKING was the PITA job! Took me awhile to figure out how to mask the nosecone and then when I pulled the masking off the white paint after shooting the black half the paint lifted, which sucked! SO I let the black dry a LOT longer; sat her in a west facing window to get afternoon sun and turned her every day for a week or so to really 'cook' the paint down and then remasked and repainted the nosecone white stripes. Actually it helped to make the paint lines less 'standoff'-ish. The decal was just printed on regular paper, cut out carefully with the hobby knife around the outline, clearcoated, and then glued on with Aileen's Tacky Glue. It's not perfect but looks pretty decent for my first endeavour with computerized decals...

I'm looking forward to flying her again at one of our Challenger 498 launches out at the farm in Needville.

Thanks and have a good one! OL JR

 

[luke strawalker]

Hey great model looks great!!!
I am always torn about the V-2.
It is an unbelievable feat of technology for when it was designed. Most countries in the world do not have the technology even today to duplicate the technology in a V-2. So as far as its place in history and the start of large scale rocketry as we know it is awesome. On the other hand it is the symbol of fear, terror, and death during it's highly effective use during the second world war. VonBran new that this device was killing thousands of innocent people and still worked on it to make it a more efficient killing machine. Sorry to get so deep but like I said I am torn about the V-2.

Yes, it's a sad fact of history that most of our greatest leaps in technology are either directly or indirectly tied to war. But, as Von Braun and the rest of his rocket teams in Germany knew, working for the government was the only game in town and the only way to be able to afford to do the kind of large scale extremely expensive cutting edge rocket research they wanted to do. It was a deal with the devil but it was the only way it could be done. Remember too that Von Braun was arrested by the SS for too many delays in the V-2 program and him spending too much time 'daydreaming' and 'wasting resources' on how to use the V-2 for space exploration. It was only with Hitler's direct order because of Albert Speer's intervention on his behalf that he was released, because without Von Braun the V-2 project wouldn't be completed. History argues over his knowledge or role with respect to the Nordhausen V-2 plant using Jewish slave labor, but it's generally understood that he couldn't have done anything about it anyway. The V-2's did rain terror down on England, France, Belgium, Holland, even a few were aimed at the Remagen bridge attempting to knock out an Allied crossing of the Rhine, but there were many weapons that rained terror down from the skies. I can look at finely restored P-51 Mustangs, Messerschmitt Me-109's, B-17's, B-29's, etc. and admire them for their technical innovation and manufacturing brilliance, and admire them as an artifact of history without passing judgement on the rightness or wrongness of their intended use.

That's part of the reason I find Harry Turtledove's books to be so intriguing. I went from despising history in high school to becoming an avid student of history on my own as an adult. What his books capture is that there are SO many points in history when a single decision, a single act, a single moment of indecision or lack of action, or imprudence or haste or stupidity or vanity, when a single mistake either made or not made could have changed everything we know, everything that has happened for the last 50 years, or the last century, or even the last few millennia... What would the world look like had Alexander the Great chosen not to invade India, but to turn south across the Mediterreanean Sea and conquer North Africa instead?? What if Rome hadn't become so decadent, corrupt, and weak, and welched on it's deals it had made with the Goth hordes... If Hitler had turned south into the Caucasus with all his strength instead of fighting for every stone in Stalingrad, or had invaded England in the fall of 1940 when England was so defenseless the home guard was training with broomsticks instead of rifles because there were none?? What if Goering had continued to focus his bombing on the RAF bases and radar installations and the Battle of Britain had gone the other way?? What if, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Soviet commander, already given freedom to use nuclear weapons if he deemed it necessary, had been fired upon by a US ship or plane, or even thought he had or that a US strike against his submarine or missile site was imminent, and had fired a nuclear torpedo first?? Or if Kennedy had decided the invasion of Cuba was necessary and a Soviet commander in the field decided to launch a nuclear tipped Frog battlefield missile at the invasion beaches where US troops were coming ashore into Cuba?? What if the 100,000 votes that got Kennedy into the White House had gone the other way and Nixon was in power during the Cuban Missile Crisis?? (safe to say on that one we'd be glowing in the dark) There are literally hundreds if not thousands of such moments in history... and it's a fascinating thought exercise to consider how differently the world would have unfolded after that fork in the road had been passed in the other direction...

Something to think about... OL JR

 

[Race58]

You did a very good job and it looks great. In the future after taping with a good masking tape like purple or green frog tape try spraying the edge first with a lite coat of clear. This will seal the edge so the new paint won't leak under.

I built her pretty stock except for an "E" engine hook and mount. I'm pretty proud of the finish on her. I put a good coat or two of sanding sealer, sanded it down real smooth, filled the remaining tube seams/tailcone seam with red spot putty, sanded her smooth again, two coats of Walmart primer, sanded with 400 grit, wet sanded with 600 grit and she was slick as glass. I had rounded the leading edges but left the trailing edges square for a more 'scale' appearance. I flew her once 'nekkid' in the primer and she did really well on an E9-6, though I got a tiny ding or two on the fins, so I decided to CA harden the leading, trailing, and outer edge of the fins, which did okay but ran a little in one spot and was ugly, requiring a little more work that didn't completely come out perfect. (Note to self-- do all CA fin hardening BEFORE starting finishing work, but she's my first re-BAR rocket) The paint job was actually pretty simple; the MASKING was the PITA job! Took me awhile to figure out how to mask the nosecone and then when I pulled the masking off the white paint after shooting the black half the paint lifted, which sucked! SO I let the black dry a LOT longer; sat her in a west facing window to get afternoon sun and turned her every day for a week or so to really 'cook' the paint down and then remasked and repainted the nosecone white stripes. Actually it helped to make the paint lines less 'standoff'-ish. The decal was just printed on regular paper, cut out carefully with the hobby knife around the outline, clearcoated, and then glued on with Aileen's Tacky Glue. It's not perfect but looks pretty decent for my first endeavour with computerized decals...

I'm looking forward to flying her again at one of our Challenger 498 launches out at the farm in Needville.

Thanks and have a good one! OL JR

 

[spacecadet]

V-2s on New York in 1946?
Plutonium production coming on nicely? Let's nuke Berlin.
Antwerp proving troublesome- why not there too? What about our troops? Never mind, that's collateral damage for ya. Or do you call it friendly fire nowadays?

 

[Starcommander]

V-2s on New York in 1946?
Plutonium production coming on nicely? Let's nuke Berlin.
Antwerp proving troublesome- why not there too? What about our troops? Never mind, that's collateral damage for ya. Or do you call it friendly fire nowadays?

Friendly fire isn't friendly. Ask any combat vet here. It's called fratricide.