Untitled Document
V1 Cruise Missile
Some technological advances influence people on such a large scale, that they can change ideologies of politicians in the whole world. Among those are German V1 cruise missile and V2 ballistic missile. Although Germans were not the only ones to pursue rocket science in the anticipation of the war, it was V1 that caused mass construction of similar rockets in all advanced countries.
Mass usage of V1 by Germans in the late 1944 and early 1945 had shown the world that the technology was indeed ready for practical use. V1 could be preceded by S. P. Koroliov’s Russian “212” missile. But it were Germans who managed to implement the idea of cruise missile with the basic autopilot. According to some sources, almost 32.000 of them were made. 29.000 of which were launched at different targets, mainly London. But the land-based launch, lack of powder-charged accelerators for a short start, low (for a missile) top speed of 580 km/h, low flying height of 2000 m, and a very inaccurate autopilot (the heading was determined by the catapult direction, not by a gyroscope setting!) made the missile’s efficiency insufficient.
Still, the mass missile launches proved to be quite effective, especially on the early stage when the Allies were in desperate search of the countermeasures. Finally, they learned to intercept V1 with the “Tempest” and “Meteor” fighters, and use AA-artillery firing shells with radio detonators. Missile wreckage was thoroughly studied. It served as a base for the development of JB2 “Loon” in USA and the “X10” missile in USSR under Chelomey’s supervising.
Japan couldn’t idly stand by. Japanese received from Germany the “Argus As 109-014” pulse jet engine. The “Kawanishi” company started the development of its own engine variant named “Ka-10”. The autopilot problem was solved in a Japanese way: it was replaced by a kamikaze pilot. As a result, the project of a manned cruise missile “Baika” (“Plum Flower”) was developed, but it was never actually built.
As technically Japanese were capable of building their version of this cruise missile, we decided to provide the player with such option.
V1 in the "Pacific Storm"
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