Plans had been made to launch the craft from special catapult ramps on the French coast, but also to carry them on modified He-111 bombers for air launched attacks that might reach far deeper into British homeland territory. Then Hitler pointed to his two new airships, for he had always envisioned them as long range strategic bombers, and so modifications were made for the great airships to each carry three V-1s.
The Führer had come to realize the futility of ever trying to throw Goring’s overstretched Luftwaffe against the British homeland again. The Blitz had been a costly failure in 1941. It had taken 90,000 sorties to deliver a little over 61,000 tons of bombs over a long year in action. That campaign had cost the Luftwaffe the loss of 3000 planes, and 7500 pilots and crewmen on the bombers. They had damaged or destroyed over 1,150,000 structures in England, and caused over 92,000 casualties on the ground.
By contrast, when the V-1 campaign was finally launched in the original history, it flew only a whisker over 8000 sorties, delivering only 14,600 tons, but still damaged or destroyed 1,127,000 structures, almost the same damage score at the Blitz, and all in less than 90 days. The kill ratio of bomb tonnage to casualties was identical at 1.6, and not a single Luftwaffe plane or pilot had been lost.
Strategic missile bombing was therefore a much more dangerous and effective way to strike his enemy, and now Hitler thought he had the means to deliver his wrath from the skies with utter impunity.
The airships could fly so high, over 50,000 feet, that the British Spitfires could not reach them. The Spitfire Mark VB could only reach 36,500 feet, and later models would climb to near 45,000 feet, but those planes had to be specially modified. The American P-38 could reach that height as well, but would still be 6000 feet below the massive airships, which were bristling with AA guns from all those lower gondolas. So Hitler was on to something when he decided to mate his Black Crows with the Zeppelin fleet, and now the first real combat test would be launched from Odessa.
The target was Novorossiysk, the home of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. The very existence of that fleet posed a grave threat to any German plans to cross the Kerch Strait for landings on the Taman Peninsula. The Soviet fleet consisted of a single old battleship, still named Sevastopol in this retelling of events, with twelve 12-inch guns that could wreak havoc on any troop transport flotilla. There were also five cruisers, three destroyer leaders, fifteen other destroyers and 44 submarines. Numerous mine ships and 84 motor torpedo boats made this fleet a formidable obstacle to any German aspirations in the Black Sea.
Thus far, that fleet had been opposed by no more than six German U-boats, a small group of fast E-Boats, and a few old destroyers taken from the Romanian Navy. Hitler now saw his four Zeppelins as powerful ships at sea, immune to fire from their enemies, but capable of delivering fearful weapons on the attack. He had been both alarmed and fascinated by the use of naval rocketry against ships like the valuable Graf Zeppelin, and now he wanted a weapon that could do the same thing to the Soviet fleet at anchor in Novorossiysk.
Operation Sturmkrähe, or Stormcrow, was born.
The four great Zeppelins had been modified at the undercarriage of the main airframe between the central and aft gondolas. A kind of trap door was installed, lightly armored, and it would open to allow the cruise missile to slip down a ramp into the air and freefall. A radio command would ignite the engine, and these models were to be radio controlled to attempt to serve as precision strike weapons.
The development of the Fritz-X radio controlled glide bomb was also to be tested in this attack, and those would be carried on the Dornier-217 bomber. In the real history, this weapon had been used to damage the Italian battleship Italia after it was captured by the Allies in 1943. It also sank the battleship Roma, severely damaged the US cruiser Savannah and British cruiser Uganda, and put enough hurt on the British battleship Warspite to send it to the repair yards for six months.
In development since 1939, Volkov had shepherded the project along for Hitler, and now it was ready. A flight of six Do-217s would be up with the Zeppelins to help launch Germany’s version of Pearl Harbor at Novorossiysk. It was something the Russians never expected. The port had been the target of traditional German bombers flying from Sevastopol, but when this attack came in, it looked like nothing more than a recon mission. The bombers were seen on the rudimentary Soviet radar, and the airships as well, but then the operator indicated the planes seemed to be turning and retiring.
They had already delivered their ordnance, and now an operator in one of the Zeppelins guiding them in towards the harbor. Fafnir had already lowered its launch ramp and had the honors of sending the first three V-1s into action that day. It then descended to a lower altitude to become the guide ship for the six Fritz-X bombs.
The entire forward gondola had been cleared to mount the equipment in the nose area of the ship. There, two rows of operators sat at the viewports, each with a high powered telescopic range finder, and radio controls operated with a small joystick. The first three V-1s would broadcast on a specific frequency, and each one had its own operation to guide it in. Meanwhile, the remaining three Zeppelins dropped their V-1s from a higher altitude at phased intervals, allowing the operators to pick up their signals, with an illuminated yellow light on their equipment indicating the handshake had been made. They would then turn a frequency dial toward the position of that yellow light on a circular display, and that would lock them onto that particular missile. The light would turn red, and the operator could then guide that missile in towards the target area.
On the morning of January 5, 1943, history would be made as these Chariots of Fire fell inexorably towards their targets. Down they came, like the dark crows they were named for, streaking right past the first flight of six La-7 Soviet fighters that had been scrambled on alert. The pilots saw them flash by at over 400 MPH, not knowing what these dark fighters could be. The Do-17s had already turned to run for the protection of German fighters up in escort, so the Soviet pilots had their eyes fixed upwards on the great mass of Fafnir. It had descended to under 30,000 feet to control the bombs, which was well within reach of the Soviet fighters.
When they made their approach to Fafnir, however, they were suddenly greeted by a hail of gunfire. The German 20mm cannons were mounted on the gondolas, sides, and top platforms of the Zeppelin, and they put out a withering fire. Three of the six planes that made attack runs were blown from the sky. One got in a burst from its own two 20mm guns, the other two were simply driven off by the intense AA fire and dove away, hoping to wait for more support before trying their attack again.
Meanwhile, the twelve V-1s descended inexorably towards the harbor, where the bulk of that Black Sea Fleet rode at anchor. The Soviet sailors heard the air raid alarm, and they were only just rushing to their action stations when the first three V-1s off the Fafnir came in.
Two overflew the harbor and went crashing into the city, sending twin fists of dark smoke rising up when they exploded. The third had been expertly guided, right towards the high mainmast of the light cruiser Chervona Ukraina. A near perfect hit, it struck the 8400 ton cruiser right amidships, its 850kg warhead smashing through the superstructure to explode deep within the ship. That was a very heavy blow for a sip to endure, nearly 1900 pounds of explosive Amatol-39. The short range of the attack also saw a lot of that 600 gallon gasoline fuel tank ignite with the blast, and like the Russian missiles that had so plagued the Kriegsmarine, Hitler now had his own flying firebomb to use against enemy ships.