5.5 KiB
| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rocket U-boat | 4/5 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_U-boat | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T13:26:17.134932+00:00 | kb-cron |
Rumors of missile-armed submarines operating from Bergen with New York as the target – including one from Denmark and one from Sweden passed on by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force – emerged at the end of 1944. . The British Admiralty discounted these reports and assessed while V-1s could be potentially mounted on Type IX submarines, the Germans were unlikely to devote scarce resources to such a project. In May 1945, the American press reported an attempted attack on New York on November 7, 1944 – the day of the presidential election – using a "jet-propelled or rocket-propelled weapon" launched from submarines. The US Navy said the report of the submarine attack was "without foundation"'. On November 29, 1944, German spies William Colepaugh and Erich Gimpel were landed in Maine by the Type IXC/40 U-boat U-1230 to gather intelligence on U.S. military and technology facilities. Colepaugh was arrested on December 6; during his interrogation, Colepaugh said German U-boats were being equipped with long-range rocket launchers. Supposedly, U-1230 was shadowed by a U-boat pack equipped with V-weapons with the intention of attacking New York City and Washington D.C. Although the U.S. took the threat seriously, it never materialized and Colepaugh's claim was later disproven. The Atlantic Fleet's commander Vice Admiral Jonas H. Ingram gave a press conference on January 8, 1945; he warned there was a threat of a missile attack and announced a large force had been assembled to counter seaborne missile launchers. In January 1945, German Minister of Armaments and War Production Albert Speer made a propaganda broadcast in which he said V-1s and V-2s "would fall on New York by February 1, 1945", increasing the U.S. Government's concern over the threat of attack. In response to this threat, the U.S. Navy conducted Operation Teardrop between April and May 1945 to sink German U-boats detected heading for the Eastern Seaboard, which were believed to be armed with V-1s or V-2s. Five of the seven Type IX submarines that stationed off the U.S. were sunk; four with their entire crews. Thirty-three U-546 crew members were captured. Following the end of the war in Europe, the submarines U-234, U-805, U-858 and U-1228 surrendered at sea before returning to bases on the U.S. east coast. After the German surrender, the U.S. Navy continued its efforts to determine whether the U-boats had carried missiles. The crews of U-805 and U-858 were interrogated and confirmed their U-boats were not fitted with missile-launching equipment. Kapitänleutnant Fritz Steinhoff, who had commanded U-511 during her rocket trials and was captured at sea when he surrendered U-873, was subjected to an abusive interrogation at Portsmouth by the interviewers of U-546's crew. On May 19, 1945, Steinhoff bled to death in his Boston jail cell from wrist wounds that may have been self-inflicted with the broken lens of his sunglasses. It is not known whether the Allies were aware of Steinhoff's involvement in the rocket trials. Six months after Steinhoff's death, his brother Ernst Steinhoff became one of the Operation Paperclip rocket scientists from Peenemünde who arrived in the U.S. to work at White Sands Missile Range.
== Post-war developments ==
=== Soviet Union === After the war, Western experts were convinced the Soviet Union had developed the sea-going GOLEM 1 rocket from the V-2 rocket. The underwater-to-surface GOLEM-1, which was developed with the assistance of German scientists, is believed to have been a nuclear-capable, liquid-fueled (oxygen and alcohol), radio-inertial-guided rocket designed to be launched from a capsule towed by a submarine. The GOLEM-1 was a 53.8-foot (16.4 m) long rocket with a diameter of 5.41 ft (1.65 m) and a range of 395 mi (636 km). Two or three GOLEM-1 missiles could be towed in capsules by submerged submarines. The Soviet submarine B-67, a converted Project 611 (Zulu-IV class) submarine, in the White Sea on September 16, 1955, at 17:32, launched an R-11FM (SS-N-1 Scud-A), the naval variant of the R-11 Zemlya (SS-1b Scud-A); the first submarine-launched ballistic missile that was modeled on the Wasserfall, the anti-aircraft version of the V-2 rocket and was developed by engineer Victor Makeev. The missiles were too long to be contained in the submarine's hull and extended into the enlarged sail. To be fired, the submarine had to surface and raise the missile out of the sail. Five additional Project V611 and AV611 (Zulu-V class) submarines became the world's first operational ballistic-missile submarines with two R-11FM missiles each, entering service in 1956–57. Six Zulu-class submarines that were successfully modified to carry and launch three R-11FM missiles became known by their NATO reporting name of Golf class. Following this initial success, the R-11FM was further developed and the first underwater launch of a modified R-11FM rocket using solid instead of liquid fuel took place on December 26, 1956, from an immersed platform at a depth of 30 m (98 ft). With a range of 150 km (93 miles) and a payload of 967 kg (2,132 lb), the R-11FM rocket officially entered service in the Navy on February 20, 1959. The Soviet Union made its first successful underwater launch of a submarine ballistic missile in the White Sea on September 10, 1960, from the same converted Project 611 submarine that first launched the R-11FM.