Last Knockings

Long range weapons were all the rage at the end of World War Two

Towards the end of the war, four of the five main combatants developed what military people call ‘fire-and-forget’ weapons. The odd one out discovered, in this brave new world of technological innovation, it can pay to come second.

The Germans produced the world’s first ballistic missile, a tribute either to innate German genius or innate Anglo-French stupidity. The Versailles Treaty of 1919 forbade the Germans military aircraft so they set about developing any form of air warfare not requiring military aircraft. After the glider and the cruise missile, they came up with the V2 rocket which weighed thirteen tons, reached the edge of space, used up the last vestiges of the German war economy and killed between one and two people per unit deployed. It was possibly the least cost-efficient weapon of war ever invented.

The Japanese long-range weapon was more ambitious than the V2 in having full intercontinental capability but less advanced in being a paper balloon with an explosive tied underneath. It was released from the Japanese homeland to float across the Pacific via the jetstream and land hopefully somewhere in North America. An over-curious dog in Oregon was badly frightened. It was possibly the least efficient weapon of war ever invented.

The Anglo-Americans, hereinafter known as the Americans, came up with a weapons package consisting of a B-29 with an atomic bomb tied underneath and killed fifty thousand people per unit deployed. It was possibly the most efficient weapon of war ever invented.

The Russians looked upon these developments with their usual mix of envy, fear and avarice. They acquired rockets from the Germans by kidnap, atomic bombs from the Americans by espionage, stuck the one on top of the other and produced possibly the most efficient weapon of war not invented.