Thinking About Immunity in Unproductive Ways
Underlining this bit of nonsense about the Germans using submarine-towed V-2 launchers to attack the United States during World War II is the implicit assumption that the US is fundamentally unlike other countries, and that piercing US immunity to attack is somehow catastrophic to the American way of life. While in some sense admirable on aspirational grounds, this assumption comes with its own dangerous set of policy implications. To be clear, this is what would have happened if the Germans had managed to tow a dozen V-2 rocket canisters within range of New York City:
1. The submarine towing the canisters would very likely have been sighted on its way to its launching area, and destroyed by Allied aircraft and surface vessels. Towed missile canisters do not, by and large, enhance the stealth characteristics of a submarine.
2. Some percentage of the untested canisters would have failed upon deployment.
3. Optimistically, we’ll say that ten V-2s of the notional twelve would have launched successfully. V-2s had gyroscopic guidance systems, which means that the launcher needs to know where he is in relation to the target in order to pre-set coordinates and flight path. As adjusting the submerged V-2s would likely have been impossible, this means that the submarine would have to surface at a point pre-determined with precision. This is unlikely. Alternatively, it’s possible that the Germans could have installed some kind of guide beam equipment on the submarine, which would enhance accuracy but force the submarine to surface under extremely dangerous conditions.
4. The V-2 had a CEP (circular error probability) of 4.5 km, meaning that half of the missiles would strike within 4.5 km of the target. In the exceedingly unlikely event that the missile-towing U-boat survived to launch from its predetermined point within 200ish miles of Manhattan, half of the launched missiles would fall within 4.5km of, say, the Empire State Building.
5. The V-2 carried a 2000# warhead, which could have done significant damage to any target that it hit. In practice, V-2s launched by the Germans in World War II ended up killing roughly 2.3 people per missile. If the Germans got lucky, however, they might kill a lot more; the two most deadly strikes during WWII killed 550 and 160 people, respectively.
In the end, the Germans could have killed some Americans at huge risk and at huge expense. A standard Type VII boat using its 88mm deck gun could probably have done as well if the Germans had ever thought it useful to risk a submarine in order to kill a few Americans unlucky enough to have the wrong beachfront property. Now, it sucks when Americans get killed, but the actual operation would have had NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on the US war effort.
This last point is really key; suffering from actual bombardment (London was hit by some 1350 V-2s) tends to lend some perspective as to the actual effect of weapons of war. This is NOT to say that the United States would have benefited from suffering from German attacks; rather, it’s to suggest that US political culture has been afflicted with an unhealthy addiction to immunity which causes wild overreactions to real and perceived threats. An actual German effort to carry out this proposed operation would have been exceedingly expensive and almost certainly suicidal; even Hitler noted that V-2s were like artillery shells, only much more expensive. Similarly, implausible scenarios about North Korean ballistic missile attacks and Scuds launched from barges in the Atlantic almost never make sense in the details; they’re only compelling in the context of the threat they pose to the American sense of immunity, rather than the threat that they pose to the American population, economy, military establishment, etc.
Even in WWII, the US enjoyed no immunity from attack. Didn’t the Japanese launch incendiary balloons against the Pacific northwest? I don’t think it did them any good, but attacks were made.
The Germans were having a field day sinking our ships and scarcely needed to admire gravity’s rainbow over Manhattan.
At the time the V2s were operating, the “Happy Time” off the US West coast was long over.
Exactly; the situation from mid-1943 on was pretty grim for U-boats. I suppose that a Type XXI could have towed the canisters over, but those weren’t really available until mid-1945.
Oregon. I just read Lathe of Heaven and LeGuin claimed that Oregon was the only state on the american mainland that was attacked in WW II by said balloons.
She also said that the role of Oregon in american politics was to produce annoying senators.
How dare you bring reason, cost/benefit analysis, or even a whiff of reality into a discussion about America’s enemies!
Why is everyone ignoring the threat of Al Qaeda building a 141,000 tonne battleship with eight 2x 20″ guns with which to shell coastal cities and raid commerce?
http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/zplan/battleships/schlachtschiffh/history.html
Cool site if you got some free time to browse.
Mike J: My father lucked out in WW2, being assigned as a navigator aboard army clipper ships. His usual route was San Francisco (Alameda naval base, actually) and Honolulu. Rugged duty. (The dumb bastard later volunteered to be a glider pilot, and had finished his training or was close to it in August of ’45). At one briefing, crews were ordered to immediately report the sighting of any airborne anomalies. Naturally, they asked the briefer to more specific. What exactly did he mean, “anomaly”? His reply was evasive, and boiled down to “you’ll know it when you see it”.
On the other hand, a week or so before the invasion of Iwo Jima the crews were again briefed. They were informed of the impending landings in quite some detail. When the briefer had finished his presentation, one of the crewman asked the question they were all thinking: “Why are you telling us all this? We don’t need to know this stuff. In the highly unlikely event we ditched at sea and got picked up by a Japanese sub, I might crack like an egg when pressed for information”. Of course, Tokyo was well aware the invasion was imminent. Still, it was a reasonable question.
piercing US immunity to attack is somehow catastrophic to the American way of life
I take it that Pearl Harbour didn’t count.
“Germans?”
“Forget it. He’s rolling.”
MMMMMM?????
V-2 fueled with booze and liquid oxygen. It is an interesting engineering problem to figure out how to get that cold stuff from Germany to the east coast. Maybe the subs had a liquifaction plant aboard? Those damn smart Germans, I bet they could have done it.
The Germans spent a lot of resources to build the v-2s when they should have been building guided missles to shoot down bombers.
Maybe they also should have been smart enough to not declare war on America when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor?
Why are we having this discussion?
piercing US immunity to attack is somehow catastrophic to the American way of life
That’s not how John Milius tells it. WOLVERINES!!
A Japanese sub did shell an oil refinery near Santa Barbara in Jan. 1942, just to keep the record straight & grab back credit for Calif.