Customer Reviews

V-2: A Combat History of the First Ballistic Missile (Weapons in History)

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Author T.D. Dungan's "V-2: A Combat History of the First Ballistic Missile," is much more than its title implies. It is actually a comprehensive and detailed history of the genesis, development, testing, production, operational deployment and legacy of the liquid-fueled rocket with which Nazi Germany bombarded London, Antwerp and other targets during the last seven months of World War II. The brainchild of Dr. Wernher von Braun, who came to America after the War and headed NASA's Saturn V moon rocket program in the 1960s, the V-2 ("Vergeltungswaffe Zwei," or "Vengeance Weapon Two") was the world's first operational ballistic missile weapon system. Even though it was relatively unreliable and not very accurate, the V-2 occupies a special place on the road to space. Historians may argue about whether or not the German rocket team really had their eyes on the stars when they built the V-2. But it is undeniable that the big Nazi rocket, hundreds of which the United States and Soviet Union confiscated and launched after the War, jump-started the space programs of both nations.

"V-2" is uniquely valuable because it integrates rarely-seen technical information with the overall story of the rocket. If you like "engineering detail," you won't be disappointed. For example, there are excellent annotated line drawings of both the V-2 (internal and external) and its "Meillerwagen" transporter/erector. There is a detailed layout of a typical V-2 launching site in a forest clearing that includes all the vehicles and ancillary items of equipment required to service, prepare and launch the missile. There is an interesting double-page drawing of northwestern Europe that shows all V-2 launching sites and the missiles' trajectories to their targets. There is also a drawing of the notorious "Mittelwerk" underground assembly plant in the Harz Mountains, with the 46 tunnels identified as to which part of the manufacturing process each one housed in the production of V-1s, V-2s and Junkers "Jumo" turbojet engines.

Well-illustrated with black-and-white photographs, some of which I have not seen in print before, "V-2" is a superb stand-alone volume. An extensive bibliography steers the interested reader to sources of more information. My only criticism, and it is so minor that it scarcely deserves mention, is that there are several typographical and grammatical errors (such as the author's consistent misspelling of "ordnance" as "ordinance") that one last word-by-word proofreading would probably have corrected. But none of these are errors of fact, and they in no way detract from the readability, usefulness and historical value of this outstanding work. I give "V-2" my highest recommendation.

Many books dealt with the German V-2, but this book is by far the best research on the operational combat use of the world's first ballistic missile.

The knowledge and expertise of the author is clearly seen from every aspect and each chapter is rich with facts and information that is accurate, and which was neglected in many previous works on the subject.

With this book both the novice and experienced missile and space enthusiast will find checked information, methodically research accounts, and excellent analysis of the operational use of the missile, as well as honest account of it's horrible legacy of slave labor used for its construction during the Second World War.

A lot of books were or to be pushlished about the V-2 missiles.But only few can really represent something "new" history to you like this book.A unbeatable operation history of V-2 and a good textbook for other historians how to do the history research!

First, let me say what this book is NOT: It is not a technical history of the V-2. If your primary focus is upon technical material on the missile itself, or 'operating handbook' type material, you're going to be disappointed.

That said, this book is a history of the DEPLOYMENT of the V-2; the story of the men who developed the rocket, the forced laborers that built it, the politics of scrambling for control of the program, the guys in the field firing the rocket, and especially the people in the neighborhoods where they were launched and where they were targeted. In that task, the book is quite good.

There are two major flaws:

1) Even for the task at hand, there is too LITTLE technical material to really understand what the rocket crews were experiencing. Material on transport, set-up, and firing of the rocket is relegated to a single small appendix. The author appears to be a non-technical person, and there are several technical inaccuracies in the book (typical: the turbopump is listed as fueled by hydrogen peroxide and sodium permanganate in one section of the book, and hydrogen peroxide and calcium permanganate in another). If you don't care about that kind of detail, then you'll be fine, but a bit more technical description (and a bit more accurate tech, at that), would aid this book in the story it tells, IMHO.

2) The other problem is the author's inexplicable penchant for skipping back and forth in time throughout the course of the book. The book is organized into chapters by time period, but those periods appear to overlap considerably and a reference to a particular operation in one chapter might be 'finished' in another which emphasizes another time period, almost out of context. It can be distracting, and the dearth of diagrams showing the various deployment phases (there is one, which tries to annotate them all, and misses a few mentioned in the text) doesn't make following the various threads any easier. I would've recommended either writing each chapter as the entire story of one rocket unit, start to finish, or adhering much more strictly to the chapter divisions now in the book. The problem smacks of poor or incomplete editing, or possibly that the author found a trove of new reference material shortly before the book went to the publisher for the last time and scrambled to get that material in. This disorganization may also reflect the source material itself, but the purpose of a book like this is to bring such material into comprehensible focus, and in that it partially fails.

While I've focused on the book's shortcomings above, it has its strengths as well. The material appears to be well-researched and that research is well-documented throughout the book with end-notes. People wanting to look further into those primary sources will have an easy time of that. The author has a knack for dealing with source interviews in a way that strongly brings across the facination and horror of living in the neighborhoods where these rockets were launched, and also for describing the overall strategy (good and bad) of their employment. There are a number of rare photographs showing the rocket in use (including an eerie one of a dual lauch, with two rockets climbing in the distanct simultaneously), although again, I think the book would've been better served with few more photos.

All in all, this book reads like the historical thesis that I suspect it really is - a non-technical historian's look at one narrow slice of the V-2 story. As long as you accept that you'll be learning about the people and not the rocket - and are willing to take notes to keep all the timelines straight - this book will be very satisfying, and, in fact, a very strong addition to your library.

One can tell that the author has extensive knowledge of the V2. Never before have I read a book about the V2 that quenced my thirst for small details! Facts that I did not learn from previous books are here in this volume. The author has a true love and interest for this subject mater.

Highly recommended ! 5 star !
Manuel Thomas

As stated by many reviewers, much has been written on the V2 rocket, but this title makes a significant addition to the history. Also important is the life behind-the-scenes of the troops on the ground who actually fired these weapons, and for a deeper understanding of that I recommend "V2" the novel, available on Kindle.

What a great book. This book contains an incredible amount of research and history into the V-2. It is fascinating to see how the V-2 evolved within the German war & political machine. It is clearly evident that the research by the writer is extraordinary.

Probably very interesting book. I can only guess. Font size is about half size of fonts commonly used in books what makes this book not readable for me. Reading with magnifying glass is no fun.

I don't know who and why decided to kill the book to save a dollar on paper cost.