Rheinbote was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 short range ballistic rocket developed during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. It was intended to replace, or at least supplement, large-bore artillery by providing fire support at long ranges in an easily transportable form.

History

One of the problems for the German military, and indeed any mobile military force, is the weight of the artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

 and, more importantly, its ammunition. In traditional combat two forces would meet on the battlefield and then wait while the artillery was brought forward to settle the battle, notably if one side was in prepared defenses.

Of course this hurry-up-and-wait was exactly what the Blitzkrieg

Blitzkrieg

For other uses of the word, see: Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg is an anglicized word describing all-motorised force concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery, combat engineers and air power, concentrating overwhelming force at high speed to break through enemy lines, and, once the lines are broken,...

 was attempting to avoid, by moving so quickly the enemy forces would not have any time to organize a defense. However this meant that the infantry would be facing forces that were dug in and provided with artillery support, with no such support of their own. In the opening stages of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 the Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

 was so overwhelming that they were able to address this by providing "flying artillery" in the form of the Junkers Ju 87

Junkers Ju 87

The Junkers Ju 87 or Stuka was a two-man German ground-attack aircraft...

 Stuka dive bomber

Dive bomber

A dive bomber is a bomber aircraft that dives directly at its targets in order to provide greater accuracy for the bomb it drops. Diving towards the target reduces the distance the bomb has to fall, which is the primary factor in determining the accuracy of the drop...

, but this was an expensive solution to the problem.

A better solution would be very long-range artillery, organized into the army or corps level instead of the battalion. Units facing dug-in troops would call in artillery from far to the rear, and the artillery would only have to be moved after the troops had moved fairly long distances. This would also mean that a single supply line and organizational group would be able to provide fire support to the entire army, greatly reducing the logistics

Logistics

Logistics is the management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of destination in order to meet the requirements of customers or corporations. Logistics involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging, and...

 required. However this is difficult to achieve, as normal artillery grows in weight dramatically as the range is increased. Artillery capable of supporting an army over a front of, say, 150 km, would be considerably heavier and slower moving than a number of smaller guns. The longest range systems until that point had been the World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 Paris Gun

Paris Gun

The Paris Gun was a German long-range siege gun used to bombard Paris during World War I. It was in service from March-August 1918. When it was first employed, Parisians believed they'd been bombed by a new type of high-altitude zeppelin, as neither the sound of an airplane nor a gun could be heard...

s, which had a range of just over 100 km but were so huge as to be completely immobile.

The solution was the rocket

Rocket

A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...

. Rockets can be made to fire to any appreciable range, but their weight scales roughly linearly instead of exponentially with range (at least for shorter range systems). On the downside, rocket artillery was notoriously inaccurate, a problem accentuated with increased range. Although a rocket might have the range to replace a large gun, it was not clear that it would be able to hit targets at that range. Rheinbote was built in order to test that question.

Developed in 1943 by the Rheinmetall-Borsig company, the first test flights were carried out that year. Several changes were made to the system, but the basic design remained the same: a long and skinny rocket stabilized with fins at the extreme rear. The Rheinbote carried a 40 kg warhead to an effective range of 160 km. The final version consisted of a four-stage rocket fueled by diglycol propellant, and reached over 220 km in testing. For shorter ranges some of the stages could be removed. It was launched from a simple rail on a mobile trailer. Over 220 were constructed and fired against Antwerp between November 1944 and the end of the war.

The concept of long-range artillery rockets on the battlefield would remain undeveloped after the war. Even Rheinbote was not used in its intended role, but instead as a smaller version of the V-2 missile in the strategic role (for which its 40 kg warhead was essentially useless) due to its poor accuracy. It was not until the introduction of lower-cost guidance systems that rocket artillery was able to provide the accuracy needed at longer ranges, and since the 1970s such systems have become a part of many armed forces.

Characteristics

• Primary Function: artillery support
• Contractor: Rheinmetall-Borsig
• Power Plant: diglycol solid propellant rocket

• Length: 11.4 m
• Diameter: cm
• Wing Span: cm
• Launch Weight: 1,709 kg

• Speed:
• Warhead: 40 kg
• Range: 220 km
• Fuzes:
• Homing head:

• Unit Cost:
• Date Deployed:
• Users: Germany
  Germany
  Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
  
  

See also

• List of World War II guided missiles of Germany
• List of long range rockets used in wars