Due to the press of war work, Bell Aircraft was the only company that would take on the XS-1 rocketplane project. This would produce the X-1, the first aircraft to break the sound barrier, and the first in a line of X- aircraft leading to the space shuttle. German swept-wing research being unknown, the configuration developed was a thin, straight-winged aircraft with a bullet-shaped fuselage.

The production series of V-2's are exploding in flight, and the engineers cannot determine the reason. Peenemuende engineers sought to recover 30% of the missiles for detailed examination. This showed that re-entry heating did not weaken the missile's structure. There was no scorching of the 0.6 mm thick paint applied to the interior of the missile. Only the outer paint showed signs of scorching. The missile still suffered in-flight explosions - attributed to the re-entry heating of 480 deg C and residual propellant vapours that still escaped despite the better sealing. Dornberger thought the liquid oxygen tank was the problem, while Von Braun suspected the alcohol tank. To try to determine the cause, five V-2's were shot with the engine running until all of the alcohol was depleted. These were followed by six shots with improved glass wool insulation of the liquid oxygen tank, over the objections of Riedel III, head of manufacturing at Peenemuende. Three of these shots were made in one morning, and all went off course. These were in turn followed by a series of highly instrumented launches from Peenemuende. The improvements developed as a result of these tests improved the missile reliability from 30% to 70% immediately, and then the reliability slowly increased to 80% as additional changes were made. Only in the last months of the war was it found that the forward part of the outer hull was failing in flight. Once this was strengthened with a belt of sheet metal, the V-2 achieved essentially 100% reliability.

This entire process was going on while production was ramping up at the underground facility at Mittelwerk. There was pressure from the highest quarters to get the missile fielded and attacks on England underway. Every change resulting from these tests and research meant that the production line at Mittelwerk had to be stopped, and retrofits made to undelivered missiles.

Early A4's were equipped with a radio-controlled cut-off system. These were replaced in service versions by self-contained integrating accelerometers. Professors Bucholz and Wagner at Darmstadt had developed the system, which was shown to have the same accuracy as the radio-controled system. This system had been tested as early as the fall of 1939, but no production quantities were available until mid-1944. Gyroscopic guidance systems from Kresselgeraete GmbH were tested, but found to have inferior accuracy to the acceleromter-based system. For better precision a double integrator system was needed, but this could not be developed before the war's end. Virtually all A4 systems were developed by the engineers at Peenemuende rather than by industry. Some said that it would have been better handled by industry, but in fact there was no such thing as rocket technology when Von Braun's team began their work - it all had to be created.

The Peenemuende team developed scientific payloads for a sounding rocket version of the V-2, to measure cosmic rays, meteoroid flux, and so on. However due to the pressure to solve the missile's reliability problems, these were never flown from Germany. Only after the war could these plans be implemented in New Mexico. However during the war there were some vertical shots of the missile to test its stability and behaviour in a vacuum. On one such shot the missile reached 189 km altitude. On another occasion four launch troops were killed when the missile ascended, then veered 90 degrees, turned again, and impacted in the launch pit at the point of launch.

The cause of early detonation of the warhead during the engine burn time is understood, but the crashes at the end of the trajectory are still a mystery. Dornberger is ordered to report to Hitler at Berchtesgaden. The call is received at 7 pm in the evening, following a bomb raid and ice storm. Dornberger is told that on the following morning Von Braun, Riedel II, and Groettrup are to be arrested for sabotage of the A4 program. Groettrup selects Dr Steinhoff as his representative. The men are accused of not putting all their energy in development of the A4 as a weapon - instead only using the financing of the Reich to support their private plans for manned spaceflight. Dornberger know he cannot complete the program without these men - Von Braun and Riedel were the key leaders, and Groettrup was head of the electrical systems section. Dornberger finally achieves their release by demonstrating to the SS that the biggest impediment to the program was Hitler's dream that the A4 would never reach London. After a few days in detention, Von Braun was moved to Schwedt, and then freed. The others were allowed out a bit later.

At a National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) seminar, in Washington, D.C., with Air Force and Navy personnel attending, NACA personnel proposed a jet-propelled transonic research airplane be developed. This proposal ultimately led to the 'X' series research airplane projects.

The plan this time was for the launch centre to be privatised, made part of Siemens, with the SS running day-to-day operations. Dornberger was unsuccessful in fighting this effort off, and in July-August 1944 a series of government decrees gave the SS full control.

Eugen Saenger and Irene Bredt issue their final 400-page report on the Saenger antipodal bomber - a rocket boosted skip-glide spaceplane with global range. Only 100 numbered copies are printed, and distributed to German political and scientific leaders. The futuristic scheme would have taken many years to develop and was of only academic interest to the German government. But copies of the report fell into the hands of the Americans and Russians after the war, spawning major development projects in the fifties.

Dornberger was relegated to command of the training batteries for the rocket troops. Von Braun spoke to Dornberger, telling him that he must accept the situation and assist Kammler. Following the July 1944 assassination and coup attempt against Hitler, Dornberger had no backing in the leadership for keeping the program in Army hands. Dornberger finally agreed to cooperate - rockets had been his life's work, and he could not bear not to be involved. Dornberger hoped to 'put my words in Kammler's mouth and make them appear to be his'. All Army commanders in the rocket program were dismissed and replaced by SS officers - Kammler was in complete control.

Talented German engineer, instrumental in developing the first liquid propellant rocket engines in Germany at VfR and in design and debugging of the V-2's engine. Unrelated to contemporary rocket engineers Walter Riedel and Walther Riedel. Killed in an automobile crash near Karlshagen, Germany.

350 missiles were delivered in September, 500 in October, and 600 to 900 per month thereafter. There were many early failures of these production missiles - they had not been built for long-term storage. The solution was to use express trains to take the missiles from the factory to the launch areas and fire them within three days of leaving the production line.

Despite the first production deliveries, development of the missile was still not complete. The accuracy was still too poor, and the fusing was still not optimum to maximise damage at the target. Furthermore there was no method of actually determining the performance and effectiveness of missiles fired in combat, since air reconnaissance of Britain was now impossible. The only source of information was reports from agents on the ground. The availability of alcohol fuel was a limiting factor in the firing rate. Underground facilities for alcohol production had been built at Luettich and Wittringen an der Saar. Liquid oxygen was delivered to the firing areas in 48 tonne railroad wagons, then distributed to the firing units in 5 to 8 tonne capacity trucks. Due to boil off and transfer losses, 9 tonnes had to be generated at the factory in order for the 4.96 tonnes required for each rocket to be available at launch. The railroad wagons lost 350 l/day, but a V-2 on hold, awaiting launch, boiled off liquid oxygen at 2 kg/minute. Average daily launch rate from the field in the fall of 1944 was 28-30 missiles against enemy targets, together with 5 to 7 shots for research and engine tests. Kammler was only interested in maximising the number of combat launches per day - he showed no interest in the effectiveness or results of the missile as a weapon. During production, some small modifications were introduced - an increase in propellant feed rate and combustion chamber pressure, elimination of electrical equipment made unnecessary by the use of the integrating accelerometer guidance system, and an increase in propellant capacity. These changes increased the range of the production missiles to 320 km. A few research rockets with larger propellant tanks reached 480 km. The external paint used on the V-2 was protected from burning through use of a graphite coating.

St. Vith, 18 km southeast of Malmedy (Belgium), misfire. The rocket came up to full power, lifted a few feet and then set back down on firing table, still vertical, when the engine cut off. The intended target was Paris. Battery 444 also suffered its first combat losses this same day when the unit was attacked by partisans.

During September, the first month of the V-2 combat campaign, there were 104 to 120 combat launches, 41 training launches from Heidekraut, and 2 known test launches from Peenemuende. 629 missiles were manufactured at Mittelwerk. See V-2 combat launches for a complete list of known combat launches.

3./836, Merzig, rocket fired, first V2 impact in Antwerp. It came down at the corner of the Schildersstraat and the Karel Rogierstraat. 32 people were killed, 45 were injured and 80 houses including a museum were damaged, with 43 houses totally destroyed.

During the previous three weeks in the Hague / Wassenaar, usually one or two rockets were launched on a day. But now with the Battery 444 troops from Gaasterland, no less then 6 rockets were launched per day. The new launch site was the Rijswijkse Bos, several meters away from a monument which remembers to the peace was made in 1697.

The A-4b was a winged V-2. This resurrected work on the A-9, abandoned in 1943 to concentrate on V-2 production. The A9 was to be the second stage of an ICBM designed to reach North America. By this time in the war the intent was to extend the range of the V-2 once Allied forces pushed the German lines so far back that Britain could no longer be targeted.

Battery 444 or Batt. 485, Wassenaar, Beukenhorst, A-4 rocket fired rises about 90-meters, then falls back onto launch site killing 12 German soldiers, damaging launch vehicles and equipment. This was the worst firing site accident that the Germans had during the the Hague/Wassenaar launch period. The Beukenhorst was cleared.

The Wasserfall surface to air missile was launched from a table, as was the V-2. The missile was optically steered to its target, and had a potential range of 26 km and ceiling of 18 km, with a flight speed of 600 m/s. Goering observed the first launch from Test Stand IX. He was immensely fat, wearing a fantastical outfit, downing pills every five minutes, and uninterested in the proceedings. Dornberger ruefully noted that the Reich is losing the war due to the leadership's shortsightedness. They had not accepted Von Braun's rocket plans in 1939 or the Panzerfaust in 1942. They only became interested in the latter when the first American bazooka fell into German hands in Tunisia.

Korolev was given charge of a team of 60 engineers and required to provide a draft project in three days. The resulting two-stage design used Lox/Alcohol propellants and an autopilot for guidance. These designs evolved into the more refined D-1 and D-2 before being overtaken by the post-war availability of V-2 technology.

Ordnance Department entered into a research and development contract with the General Electric Company for study and development of long-range missiles that could be used against ground targets and high-altitude aircraft. This was the beginning of the Hermes project.

Batt. 1./836, (Site 601), rocket fired, impacted Antwerp at the crossroads of the Frankrijklei near the Keizerlei and the Teniersplaats, a few hundred metres from the impact point of the previous rocket and while the rescue teams were still working at that incident. 130 Civilians and 26 passing by British soldiers were killed, 196 injured.

During November, the third month of the V-2 combat campaign, there were 369 combat launches on the Western Front and 54 training launches from Heidekraut. 656 missiles were manufactured at Mittelwerk. See V-2 combat launches for a complete list of known combat launches.

Hellendoorn, rocket fired, crashed several kilometers from firing site near the town of Luttenberg. Local residents came to see the burning rocket and 19 were killed when the warhead, that was unexploded, detonated amongst them about 15 minutes after impact.

The order was received in Peenemuende to begin serious development of Pruefstand XII, the project to launch V-2's from submerged capsules towed by submarine to launch positions off the US coast. Preliminary work was to be completed by the end of Marc. However there is no confirmed evidence that the prototype of the launch capsule was ever completed before Peenemuende was evacuated.

A meeting was held at the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, to discuss the formation of an organization that would devote its efforts to the study of stability and maneuverability of high-speed weapons (guided missiles). From the outset, work was pointed toward supersonic flight testing. In early 1945, Congress was asked for a supplemental appropriation to fund the activation of such a unit, and in the spring of that year the Auxiliary Flight Research Station (AFRS - later known as the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division) was opened on Wallops Island, Virginia, with Robert R. Gilruth as its director. On July 4, 1945, the AFRS launched its first test vehicle, a small two-stage, solid-fuel rocket to check out the installation's instrumentation.

Hellendoorn, rocket fired, impacted the crowded Rex Cinema in Antwerp, in the Keyserlei, resulting in 567 casualties to soldiers and civilians, 291 injured and 11 houses were destroyed. 296 of the dead & 194 of the injured were U.S., British, & Canadian soldiers. (This was the single highest death total from one rocket attack during the war in Europe.)

During December, the fourth month of the V-2 combat campaign, there were 447 combat launches on the Western Front and 44 training launches from Heidekraut. 618 missiles were manufactured at Mittelwerk. Since the start of the campaign on 6 September, a total of 1591 V-2's had been launched in combat at the following targets:

• Antwerp 924
• London 477
• Norwich 43
• Luettich 27
• Lille 25
• Paris 19
• Tourcoing 19
• Maastricht 19
• Hasselt 13
• Tournai 9
• Arras 6
• Cambrai 4
• Mons 3
• Diest 2
• Ipswich 1

By the end of the year Mittelwerk had produced 4,195 missiles, less than half of which had been fired.

It was for them a depressing time. The V-2 came too late to affect the outcome of the war. The years 1939-1942, when Hitler had blocked development and production of the V-2, were lost years. By this time, the Peenemuende staff was allocated as follows: 135 were working on Taifun anti-aircraft barrage rocket; 1940 were working on the V-2; 1220 were working on the Wasserfall surface-to-air missile; 270 were working on the A4b winged V-2; and 660 were in administrative positions. Meanwhile Kammler was constantly underway, trying to deploy the wonder weapons he believed would save the Reich. He could only be met at one-hour meetings at autobahn intersections, on his way from one place to another.