The V-3 Cannon: Hitler's Unfinished Mega-Gun

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4:25 140 kg = 430 ft Yeah.. good enough

Fun fact - I used to live nearby that prototype installation in Wolin when growing up. See those big concrete walls at 09:00 ? If you look close enough, there's a trail post near the top of the photo - blue hiking trail, if I remember correctly. One time me and my two buddies came up with an idea to ride our bikes on that trail and that part is a bit tricky - when passing the post, you're going downhill, there's a turn right at that post and a bit of a curb you need to jump down from, just a couple of feet from that steep drop you see. It was our first time riding there and I was so frickin' thankful I checked and tuned my brakes beforehand. Didn't see the turn, jumped down the curb straight, turned and hit those breaks hard on landing. Stopped sideways, maybe about two feet from the edge of that big drop you see in the photo 😅 A bit further and I would have fallen and smashed headfirst into that bit of history. Imagine - becoming the only casualty of a failed nazi megaproject...

"If that sounds very complicated keep in mind that they were Germans"

To put yourself in the mindset of late war Germany simply imagine this scenario: Your house is on fire, all the doors are blocked by flames, but the water is running so you could at least try to quench them a little. You decide that you'll build yourself a new washing machine You'll build it out of chocolate. You don't have many actual blocks of chocolate, or many bars, and those you have are a mix or milk, dark, and white. What you have in abundance is hot chocolate powder. You design a complex system of forming this powder into blocks. This is difficult because your house is on fire and your fridge has melted Eventually you've produced 30% of the blocks you need. Then you change the design and make the washing machine bigger. It's also now a kettle. And from now on you'll only use white chocolate. Then the roof collapses The end. No moral

What finally destroyed the V3 site was a lucky bomb drop by a Lancaster bomber, which managed to drop one of the 5 ton "Tallboy" bombs directly down one of the gun shafts. These "earthquake bombs" could do a hell of a lot of damage even when they didn't score such lucky hits, since they had reinforced steel nose cones which allowed them to dig themselves into the ground before detonating. The hit which dropped down the gun shaft collapsed more or less the entire complex, burying hundreds of slave labourers inside.

When you think about it, modern electric railguns are conceptually similar to the V3. Instead of sequential explosive/propellent/whathaveyou, they just use sequential magnetic fields for acceleration.

A10 warthog would be a good topic

I grew up on the Island of Wolin in the small town a couple kilometers from testing site. I still remember playing as the kid on concrete blocks shown on the pictures. It was 50 years ago. Great story!

1:35 - Chapter 1 - The V Weapons 3:15 - Chapter 2 - The V3 4:35 - Chapter 3 - Development 6:45 - Mid roll ads 8:15 - Chapter 4 - Testing 9:25 - Chapter 5 - Mimoyecques site 11:40 - Chapter 6 - Operation Aphrodite 13:45 - Chapter 7 - A new target 15:10 - Chapter 8 - The greatest gun that never was

I visited the V-3 site at Mimoyeques a few years ago on a tour of the battlefields of N France. It is worth a visit when you can. I understand that 617 squadron hit the concrete cap of one of the barrel tops with a 'Tallboy", putting it and most of the installation out of action. If that is so, it truly is "sticking a dart in a line" accuracy. After the war, Churchill ordered the British sappers to destroy what was left of Mimoyeques as we had no desire to have even the remnants of such a weapon falling into the wrong hands - it was pointing at London after all...

It’s kind of awkward to say I admired the mad bastards, if only for their engineering insanity

One day we are going to find out the real guy operating this channel just has Simon held hostage in a basement. Hes forced to make videos in exchange for another dollar shave club razor.

I would love to see a video on Apollo 13 and the engineering required to get the astronauts home safe. It's something that's close to my heart as my grandpa was an engineer at nasa that helped design the air scrubber fix

The Video is not correct concerning the Mimoyecques site : it has been bombed very effectivly and there was a lot of casualties. One of the tallboy bomb that was droped managed to enter one of the tunnels where the cannons were located and slid all the way to the bottom where it exploded. This was both luck and due to the increased odds of this happening due to the intensity of the bombings of the site. The explosion caused a nearby pocket of water to flood the bottom 2 levels of the bunker (including the third level where more than 1500 forced-labour prisonniers died). It was estimated that if another (smaller) kind of bomb had made its way to the mouth of the bunker, the other tunnels and the water pocket would have hold, and the construction could have been finished. Today, you can only visit the first level as the 2 bottom ones are graveyards.

Big problem with such guns is that there is no shoot and scoot option. Fire three or four rounds and your opponent knows where it is and proceeds to attack it with everything they've got.

Something tells me this video was prematurely uploaded

4:20 140 KG (430 feet) What? Slow down, Simon, you're getting sloppy

The videos in your series are really informative, appreciate your hard work, thank you!

Simon, even though some of the topics do not pique my interest initially, I start to watch them and find my enthusiasm for the particular topic grow exponentially. Presentation does have a key role in these endeavors. Cheers to your tireless efforts in bringing excellent factual information, to those who wish to learn, one great segment at a time. Thank you!