Cm-iwm.11 Manual
Josefa Palsgrove
My journey began with a telephone enquiry regarding disabled access as I was being accompanied by a friend who has mobility issues. This set the tone for our visit: the staff were friendly and supportive, but they had no electric buggies, only manual wheelchairs, and there was no disabled parking available at the time we would be visiting. These frustrations were compounded by a lack of both clear instruction and signposting on arrival.
We eventually found the right access and were directed to the entrance. A clear interpretive panel introduced the exhibition, adjacent to a huge digital monitor, about 12' by 6' in old money, displaying images of what appeared to be differing locations in Europe: one couldn't be sure, as there was no written or audio explanation. However, as we moved through the exhibits there was a constant audio accompaniment, but of puzzling sounds that we couldn't identify.
Unfortunately there were no signs indicating this was the end of the exhibition, and where the exit was. I pushed my friend all the way back to the entrance, to be met by the helpful and now somewhat puzzled volunteer who had earlier directed us to the exhibition hall. He took us through the 'Exit' door to show us the signage but to his clear surprise there were indeed no directions for the 'Way Out'. He apologised profusely, but maybe this was a fitting epitaph to such an horrendous period in human history. When it comes to reflecting on such atrocities, is there ever a true 'Way Out'?
Introduced on HMS Black Prince in 1906 and subsequently used as secondary guns on many pre-dreadnoughts. These were the first 6" (15.2 cm) guns of 50 calibers to be mounted on a European ship. These guns were found to be too heavy to be aimed manually, especially on the smaller cruisers. For that reason, hydraulic power gear was added to some mounts in the latter part of World War I.
During World War II, these guns were used on auxiliary warships, armed liners, DEMS and Ocean Boarding Vessels. They were also extensively used in Australian coast defenses constructed prior to World War II.
Constructed of a tapered inner A tube, A tube, wire, full length jacket, breech ring and breech bush screwing into the A tube. Mark XI* differed in having a thicker inner A tube and the use of cannelured rings at the two forward shoulders. A total of 177 were built, which were 34 Mark XI, 18 Mark XI*, 124 Mark XI* with a slightly different breech ring for PVI mountings and one "H" Mark XI* which was a Coventry ordnance gun with Holmstrom breech mechanism. This last gun was linered down to 3 inches (7.62 cm) and used for experimental purposes. Of the remainder, 126 remained in service as of 1939. Twenty-six Mark XI guns were used in Australian coastal batteries prior to World War II and many others were used in emergency coastal defense batteries during the war. At least one Australian and two South African guns still survive, as can be seen in the photographs below.
The Rate of Fire figure given above is found in references for British guns of this caliber, but "Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship Development, 1860-1905" quotes Jellicoe's 1906 figures for rates of fire for these guns in gunlayers' tests and in battle practice and notes that the latter figures corresponded well to those actually attained by the Japanese at Tsushima:
During the Falklands Battle of 1914, these 6" (15.2 cm) guns on HMS Glasgow were reported to have been badly outranged by the much smaller German 10.5 cm (4.1") guns on SMS Leipzig. However, the heavier British shells with their lyddite bursters were significantly more effective than the lighter German ones.
The German V-2 rocket was the world's first large-scale liquid-propellant rocket vehicle, the first long-range ballistic missile, and the ancestor of today's large rockets and launch vehicles. Called the A-4 (Aggregat 4) by German Army Ordnance, the rocket was dubbed V-2, or Vergeltungswaffe Zwei ("Vengeance Weapon Two"), by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry when its existence was publicly announced in November 1944, two months after first deployment as a weapon. Launched from mobile platforms, the missile had a maximum range of about 320 km (200 miles) and a one-ton warhead. At least 10,000 concentration camp workers died in the process of manufacturing it.
The U.S. Air Force officially transferred this V-2 to the Smithsonian on May 1, 1949. The National Air Museum moved it to its storage facility in Maryland in 1954 and, as the National Air and Space Museum, restored it in 1975-1976 for exhibition in its new Mall building.
The V-2 rocket, developed and used by the Germans during World War II, was the world's first large-scale liquid-propellant rocket vehicle, the first modern long-range ballistic missile, and the ancestor of today's large-scale liquid-fuel rockets and launch vehicles. Called the A-4 (Aggregat 4) by German Army Ordnance, the rocket was dubbed V-2, or Vergeltungswaffe Zwei ("Vengeance Weapon Two"), by Dr. Josef Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry when its existence was publicly announced in November 1944, two months after it was first deployed as a weapon. The Smithsonian Institution's V-2 was acquired in 1946 from the U.S. Army Air Forces, and was officially transferred on 1 May 1949 by what was now the U.S. Air Force. It was moved to the National Air Museum's storage facility in Suitland, Maryland in 1954, and was restored in 1975-76 for exhibition in the new National Air and Space Museum building.
The V-2 is cylindrical, tapering down towards the base, with four clipped rectangular fins, and tapering down toward the top with an ogival warhead ending in a sharp pointed nose. The design of the clipped fins was influenced by the need to ship a military missile through standard European rail tunnels. Overall, the rocket was shaped for supersonic flight, based on wind tunnel tests. The "dimpled" appearance of the rocket's skin, as is very evident in the Museum's specimen, is partly the result of spot welding, which, when cooled, especially around panels in place near ribs or stringers, contracted or shrunk unevenly, although the rocket's skin was also damaged by years of rough handling. The Museum's artifact has a combustion chamber, but lacks plumbing and many internal components such as the guidance and control systems. The tanks were removed to lessen the weight supported by the fins.
Liquid oxygen (lox) served as the oxidizer (the substance providing the oxygen for combustion) while an 75% alcohol/water mixture was the fuel (the substance to be burned). The water additive helped cool the motor, which developed maximum operating temperatures of about 4,900 F.
The rocket was mainly constructed of thin sheet steel, welded, riveted, and braced around a wooden framework in some sections. The nose cap was a fuse for detonating the explosive, 1,650 lbs of amatol, upon impact. Underneath the warhead was the instrument section, divided into four quadrants devoted to guidance and control, radio, and electrical systems. The center section of the rocket was two half shells containing the aluminum-magnesium alloy propellant tanks, the lox tank below and the larger fuel tank above. The lox tank was insulated with glass wool to keep the super-cold lox at its desired temperature and also to prevent overheating from leftover propellants. The tail section contained the motor and adjoining turbopump, steam-generator, and associated plumbing. The motor, comprising the combustion chamber and nozzle, was made of steel, while the pumps were of steel with aluminum-silicon alloy impellers and housings. The tanks for the hydrogen peroxide and potassium permanganate catalyst for driving the turbopumps were coated inside and out with an aluminum bronze alloy for corrosion protection.
In April, 1937, the rocket group of then about 90 men moved to a much larger, secret research facility built at the relatively remote site of Peenemnde on the island of Usedom, off the Baltic coast of Pomerania. Besides the A-4, other missiles, such as the Wasserfall, were developed here. A-4 development took place at Peenemnde-Ost (Peenemnde East). The Luftwaffe (Air Force) occupied Peenemnde West. The estimated cost of establishing Peenemnde-Ost was about RM 300 million (Reichmarks), or $70 million US (for 1990s dollars, multiply by about a factor of 10). By 1942, the personnel of Peenemnde-East had grown to a work force of about 5,000 which included engineers, technicians, scientists and all other personnel. In addition there were thousands of construction workers building the new A-4 Production Plant south of the test center; by 1943 this number included three thousand mostly East European forced laborers working construction. In addition, in the summer of 1943, 1300 SS concentration-camp workers who were to become the core of the production-line workforce were brought to Peenemnde and housed in the factory buildings. Gen. Dornberger and Arthur Rudolph, the chief engineer of the factory, were among those responsible for deciding to exploit concentration-camp labor in the rocket program; Wernher von Braun was aware of these decisions and found himself increasingly involved in the management of camp labor as time went on.
The first non-flight vehicles were finished and tested in 1940-41, and the first flight vehicles were completed in 1942. After two failed launches in June and August 1942, on 3 October 1942 Peenemnde launched its first successful A-4, the V4, or fourth test vehicle (the first was destroyed in a ground test before it was ever launched). This rocket attained an altitude of 60 miles and range of 125 miles in a 296 second flight, coming within 2.5 miles of its target and reaching a top speed of 3,300 mph. On 22 November 1942, Hitler ordered the mass production of the missile, and exactly one month later, Armaments Minister Speer founded the Special Committee A-4 to accelerate the process so that production might begin in summer 1943. Production required a large number of drawings to be prepared and special tools designed and built. Other A-4 factories were to be located at the Zeppelin Works in Friedrichshafen, and the Raxwerke near Wiener Neustadt, Austria.
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