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Old December 28th 03, 01:02 PM
Eugene Griessel
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Bernardz wrote in message news:MPG.1a593408a1392c869897ea@news...
In early December 1944, General Bissel produced a paper which argued
strongly in favour of the V1.

The following is a table he produced

Blitz (12 months) vs V1 flying bombs (2 3/4 months)
-----------------------------------------------------
1. Cost to Germany
...........................Blitz.................. ..V1
Sorties...................90,000.................8 025
Weight of bombs...........61,149 tons............14,600 tons
Fuel consumed.............71,700 tons.............4681 tons
Aircrafts lost............3075....................0
Men lost..................7690....................0

2 Results
Houses damaged/destroyed...1,150,000............1,127,000
Casualties.................92,566...............22 ,892
Rate casualties/bombs tons...1.6...............4.2

3. Allied air effort
Sorties......................86,800............44, 770
Planes lost..................1260...............351
Men lost.....................805...............2233


For the cost of 1 uncrewed, unrefuelled and unbombladen Lancaster the
Germans were getting more than 300 V1s. Furthermore they made little
demand on skilled labour or strategic materials. On the negative side
they had all the inherent problems of a fairly slow unaimed weapon.
Of around 10000 launched at Britain only about 2400 reached the vague
proximity of their target area. And many fell fairly harmlessly -
aided by British manipulation of intelligence. But as an economic
weapon they made much sense and if they had arrived on the scene some
months earlier in far greater numbers, when proximity fuzed, radar
guided AA was not yet available they would undoubtedly have had a
proportionately much larger effect on the prosecution of the war.
Thanks to Hitler's intervention this did not happen.

Eugene Griessel