Editing V-2 rocket (section)

== Assessment ==
The German V-weapons (V-1 and V-2) cost the equivalent of about US$500 million.<ref>Neufeld 1995, pp. 190–191. Neufeld provides by far the most detailed analysis of the price of the project. Other price estimates of "$2 billion," or "50% more than the Manhattan Project" can be found elsewhere on the internet, but are not credible. For a more detailed analysis, see this article's Talk section.</ref> Given the relatively smaller size of the German economy, this represented an industrial effort equivalent to but slightly less than that of the U.S. Manhattan Project that produced the atomic bomb. 6,048 V-2s were built, at a cost of approximately {{Reichsmark|100,000|link=yes}} ({{GBP|2,370,000}} in 2011) each{{citation needed|date=June 2022}}; 3,225 were launched.
SS General [[Hans Kammler]], who as an [[engineer]] had constructed several concentration camps including [[Auschwitz]], had a reputation for brutality and had originated the idea of using concentration camp prisoners as [[slavery|slave]] laborers for the rocket program. More people died manufacturing the V-2 than were killed by its deployment.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.v2rocket.com/start/chapters/mittel.html|title=Mittelwerk / DORA|work=v2rocket.com|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130719045156/http://www.v2rocket.com/start/chapters/mittel.html|archive-date=19 July 2013}}</ref>

{{quote box|width=22em|quote=... those of us who were seriously engaged in the war were very grateful to Wernher von Braun. We knew that each V-2 cost as much to produce as a high-performance fighter airplane. We knew that German forces on the fighting fronts were in desperate need of airplanes, and that the V-2 rockets were doing us no military damage. From our point of view, the V-2 program was almost as good as if Hitler had adopted a policy of unilateral disarmament. |author=[[Freeman Dyson]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Dyson |first=Freeman |year=1979 |title=Disturbing the Universe |url=https://archive.org/details/disturbinguniver00dyso |url-access=registration |publisher=Harper & Row |page=[https://archive.org/details/disturbinguniver00dyso/page/108 108] |isbn=978-0-465-01677-8}}</ref>
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The V-2 consumed a third of [[Nazi Germany|Germany]]'s fuel alcohol production and major portions of other critical technologies:<ref name=Oberg>{{cite web |author-link=James Oberg |first1=Jim |last1=Oberg |first2= Dr. Brian R |last2=Sullivan |date=March 1999 |title='Space Power Theory |url=http://space.au.af.mil/books/oberg/ |location=U.S. Air Force Space Command |publisher=Government Printing Office |page=143 |access-date=28 November 2008  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090203015711/http://space.au.af.mil/books/oberg/ |archive-date=3 February 2009 }}</ref> to distil the fuel alcohol for one V-2 launch required 30 tonnes of potatoes at a time when food was becoming scarce.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.information-britain.co.uk/famdates.php?id=77|title=The 8th of September 1944 AD, First German V2 rocket lands on London|work=information-britain.co.uk|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091207050041/http://www.information-britain.co.uk/famdates.php?id=77|archive-date=7 December 2009}}</ref> Due to a lack of explosives, some warheads were simply filled with concrete, using the [[kinetic energy]] alone for destruction, and sometimes the warhead contained photographic propaganda of German citizens who had died in Allied bombings.<ref name=Irons2>{{Cite book |last=Irons |first=Roy |title=Hitler's Terror Weapons: The Price of Vengeance|year=2002|publisher=Collins |isbn=978-0-00-711262-3}}</ref>

The psychological effect of the V-2 was considerable, as the V-2, traveling faster than the [[speed of sound]], gave no warning before impact (unlike bombing planes or the [[V-1 flying bomb]], which made a characteristic buzzing sound). There was no effective defence and no risk of pilot or crew casualties. An example of the impression it made is in the reaction of American pilot and future nuclear strategist and Congressional aide [[William Liscum Borden]], who in November 1944 while returning from a nighttime air mission over Holland saw a V-2 in flight on its way to strike London:<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Hewlett | first1 = Richard G. | last2 = Duncan | first2 = Francis | title = Atomic Shield, 1947–1952 | volume=2 | series = A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission | publisher = Pennsylvania State University Press | location = University Park, Pennsylvania | date = 1969 | page=180 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Rhodes | first = Richard | title = Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb | publisher = Simon & Schuster | location = New York | date=1995 | page=357 }}</ref>  "It resembled a meteor, streaming red sparks and whizzing past us as though the aircraft were motionless. I became convinced that it was only a matter of time until rockets would expose the United States to direct, transoceanic attack."<ref>{{cite book | last =Herken | first=Gregg | title=Counsels of War | publisher=Alfred A. Knopf | location=New York | date=1985 | page=11 }}</ref>

With the war all but lost, regardless of the factory output of conventional weapons, the Nazis resorted to V-weapons as a tenuous last hope to influence the war militarily (hence Antwerp as V-2 target), as an extension of their desire to "punish" their foes and most importantly to give hope to their sympathizers with their [[Wunderwaffe|miracle weapon]].<ref name=Irons /> The V-2 did not affect the outcome of the war, but it resulted in the development of the [[intercontinental ballistic missile]]s of the [[Cold War]], which were also used for space exploration.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.eucom.mil/article/23076/this-week-in-eucom-history-february-6-12-1959 |title=This Week in EUCOM History: February 6–12, 1959 |date=6 February 2012 |publisher=[[EUCOM]] |access-date=8 February 2012  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120921003453/http://www.eucom.mil/article/23076/this-week-in-eucom-history-february-6-12-1959 |archive-date=21 September 2012 }}</ref>