Von Braun: am I a joke to you?
this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
338 points (98.6% liked)
NonCredibleDefense
7382 readers
700 users here now
A community for your defence shitposting needs
Rules
1. Be nice
Do not make personal attacks against each other, call for violence against anyone, or intentionally antagonize people in the comment sections.
2. Explain incorrect defense articles and takes
If you want to post a non-credible take, it must be from a "credible" source (news article, politician, or military leader) and must have a comment laying out exactly why it's non-credible. Low-hanging fruit such as random Twitter and YouTube comments belong in the Matrix chat.
3. Content must be relevant
Posts must be about military hardware or international security/defense. This is not the page to fawn over Youtube personalities, simp over political leaders, or discuss other areas of international policy.
4. No racism / hatespeech
No slurs. No advocating for the killing of people or insulting them based on physical, religious, or ideological traits.
5. No politics
We don't care if you're Republican, Democrat, Socialist, Stalinist, Baathist, or some other hot mess. Leave it at the door. This applies to comments as well.
6. No seriousposting
We don't want your uncut war footage, fundraisers, credible news articles, or other such things. The world is already serious enough as it is.
7. No classified material
Classified ‘western’ information is off limits regardless of how "open source" and "easy to find" it is.
8. Source artwork
If you use somebody's art in your post or as your post, the OP must provide a direct link to the art's source in the comment section, or a good reason why this was not possible (such as the artist deleting their account). The source should be a place that the artist themselves uploaded the art. A booru is not a source. A watermark is not a source.
9. No low-effort posts
No egregiously low effort posts. E.g. screenshots, recent reposts, simple reaction & template memes, and images with the punchline in the title. Put these in weekly Matrix chat instead.
10. Don't get us banned
No brigading or harassing other communities. Do not post memes with a "haha people that I hate died… haha" punchline or violating the sh.itjust.works rules (below). This includes content illegal in Canada.
11. No misinformation
NCD exists to make fun of misinformation, not to spread it. Make outlandish claims, but if your take doesn’t show signs of satire or exaggeration it will be removed. Misleading content may result in a ban. Regardless of source, don’t post obvious propaganda or fake news. Double-check facts and don't be an idiot.
Join our Matrix chatroom
Other communities you may be interested in
Banner made by u/Fertility18
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
... 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
Freeman Dyson
Germany had no pilots at that point, so might as well use unmanned weapons...
This is true. Long range missiles like this are only practical with either nuclear warheads or modern precision guidance. If you can land them right on top of a tiny target, they're useful. If your target is an area miles in diameter, they're also useful. But back in WW2 they were just vanity projects.
Nice one, haven't seen this before!
Some clickbait recently called Lehrer "the Bo Burnham of his day," and that's annoyingly hard to argue with, given such cheerful tunes as "We Will All Go Together When We Go."
This meme format kills me everytime bro
The US definitely had a bigger stick there, but I think that I'd have listed different weapons for Germany. If Germany intended to build a weapon to specifically hit the US, it'd have probably been more like the Amerikabomber or their suicide multistage ballistic missile. Heavy tanks were important to fight the Soviet Union on open terrain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerikabomber
The Amerikabomber (English: America bomber) project was an initiative of the German Ministry of Aviation (Reichsluftfahrtministerium) to obtain a long-range strategic bomber for the Luftwaffe that would be capable of striking the United States (specifically New York City) from Germany, a round-trip distance of about 11,600 km (7,200 mi).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregat
The Aggregat series (German for "Aggregate") was a set of ballistic missile designs developed in 1933–1945 by a research program of Nazi Germany's Army (Heer).
It was proposed to use an advanced version of the A9 to attack targets on the US mainland from launch sites in Europe, for which it would need to be launched atop a booster stage, the A10.
It was considered that existing guidance systems would not be accurate enough over a distance of 5,000 km, and it was decided to make the A9 piloted. The pilot was to be guided on his terminal glide towards the target by radio beacons on U-boats and by automatic weather stations landed in Greenland and Labrador.
Maybe the rocket U-boat:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_U-boat
Plans for the rocket U-boat involved an attack on New York City using newly invented V-2 rockets; Unmanned and unpowered containers with V-2 rockets inside were to be towed within range of the target by a conventional U-boat then set up and launched from its gyro-stabilized platform. With thoughts of hitting targets in the United States and in the United Kingdom, a 32 m (105 ft)-long container of 500-tons displacement was to be towed behind a submerged U-boat.
Of course, Germany never got around to actually building those, but then, the US didn't get its portable star done by V-E Day either and wound up just using it on Japan.
Probably just as well, given the combination of the US intending to ramp atomic bomb production up to dozens a month, and Hitler refusing to surrender under any circumstance. That combination could have wound up getting pretty dark.
The Amerikabomber (English: America bomber)
Thanks, I wasn't sure what that meant.
I mean, there was also the issue that their scientists were busy developing the US's superweapon, which made it hard to develop theirs. Nazi weapon proposals tended to be complete vapourware, rather than just late.
Hilter should have gone all in on Donitz.
Could have let to a real weird outcome. Would have destroyed the UK, slowed down the Manhattan project. Given Germany more resources against the Russians.
Next thing you know there V2 nuclear rockets being launched from sub's hitting all the costal cities of the US.
One of the nazi missiles were so effective at piercing armor that they consistently failed to sink ships: they passed through the hull and out the other side before exploding, dealing minimal damage.
The Amerikabomber (English: America bomber)
Revolver Ocelot (Revolver Ocelot)
I still think heavy tanks were largely a blunder due to how expensive building them was, and how difficult it was to transport, tow and repair them.
They were so heavy their engines were constantly giving out and they were dead in the water.
Not a blunder, just a very specialised tool with a very niche purpose of "being the tip of the spear in a setpiece assault on a heavily fortified strongpoint". Now, them trying to convert their entire tank force to heavy tanks, that a different issue.
You know, many of the people that created the portable star were happily working in Germany by the time Hitler decided that Quantum Mechanics was a Jew plot against the country...
Or Italy. Or France. Or most of Europe.