German Secret Weapons

During WWII Germany developed a huge range of highly sophisticated weapon systems ranging from air to air, air to ground and surface to air missiles and bombs as well as a very advanced range of prop, rocket and jet powered aircraft. Warbirds Online has traveled the world to many museums and collections and today we present images of the odd, fantastic and curious weapons of WW11 Germany.  These are not concepts, they were actually built.

There is nothing new in the concept of many of todays’ modern weapon systems when you examine WWII German innovations – they developed the Cruise missile (V1), the ballistic Missile (V2). Air to air Missile, Air to Ground Missile, Glide Bomb, Jet Fighter, rocket fighter and many more. The Fritz X guided bombs were used against the Italian battlefleet as it made its way to Malta to surrender and sank the battleship Roma. The Henschel 293 glider bomb was used sporadically from the summer of 1943  and was guided to its target by a joystick controller. The Fiesler 103 was known in Britain as the V1, with the first flying bomb launched against London in June 1044.  By September of the same year more than 8,500 of these had been fired at London.

After the War the allies did their best to capture and study the new technologies and many of the weapons and systems developed during the war allowed for rapid progress post war in the hands of the victors. There was much progress in the space race and the nuclear industry as well as aerospace fueled by the work of scientists from Germany. Indeed much of the progress that allowed man to walk on the Moon can be traced directly back to German innovation.

Once all of the weapons were studied and evaluated a lot of the material was discarded or scrapped, but much of it has survived as a record of the innovation of the time.

© John Parker 2016