Countering the Buzz Bomb
Antiaircraft guns were the first line of defense against the V-1. The missile was initially intended to fly at an operational altitude of 9000 feet, which would have put it beyond the range of most antiaircraft guns, except the heaviest ones. However, it was discovered during testing that flying at such heights led to frequent failures in the missile’s fuel system, resulting in a sudden loss of power and a premature terminal dive. So a month before the V-1s went operational, their operational altitude was reset to about 4500 feet. The reduced height reduced the incidences of fuel system failure, but it also brought the missiles within range of the Bofors 40mm antiaircraft gun most commonly used by the Allies.
However, the Allies discovered that the V-1s relatively low altitude, speed, and small sizes compared to airplanes, made it a very difficult target to track, follow, and hit. Most of their antiaircraft guns simply had a traverse rate that was too slow to keep up with the Buzz Bombs. Fortunately, a new secret weapon introduced in 1944 arrived just in time to help counter the V-1s speed and small size: the proximity fuze. Unlike conventional shells equipped with contact fuzes, proximity fuze shells did not need to directly strike the hard to hit V-1s. Instead, the new shells just had to get close enough to the flying bombs, and when the fuze detected that it was within range to do damage, it detonated the shell.
Allied fighter planes were another effective countermeasure. Spotting the tiny V-1s was often difficult, and the planes had to be in the right position to dive upon a missile once spotted in order to shoot them down. It was a dangerous task: while the V-1s did not shoot back, the warhead, if it detonated in midair, could damage the fighter that had shot it down. So some Allied pilots developed an innovative tactic of flying wingtip-to-wingtip with a V-1, then sliding their fighter’s wing beneath that of the missile. If done right, airflow over the fighter’s wing would cause the V-1s wing to tip up, overriding the missile’s internal gyro and sending it into an uncontrolled dive.
While all the preceding measures cut into the V-1s, the menace was not brought under control until the last V-1 launch sites within operational range of Britain were overrun by advancing Allied ground forces in October of 1944. That was when the port of Antwerp became the missile’s new main target. However, the Germans sought to maintain at least some of the V-1 campaign against England, so they resorted to aerially launched missiles. V-1s were slung beneath specially modified Heinkel He 111 bombers
Aircrews developed a special tactic they named “low-high-low” to launch their missiles. To avoid enemy radar, they flew across the North Sea to Britain at wave top level until they neared their launch point. Then they rapidly climbed to launch altitude, fired their missiles, and dove back to low altitude to make their escape back home. Flying bombs continued to plague Britain until the last weeks of the war, and the final enemy action of any kind on British soil was a V-1 bomb striking a village in Hertfordshire on March 29th, 1945.
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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources & Further Reading
Encyclopedia Britannica – V-1 Missile
Museum of Flight – The Fieseler Fi 103 (V1) German ‘Buzz Bomb’