In case the shells were ever found, or captured by the enemy, the US was already working on a special jammer that could be installed on its own bombers. It was designed to sweep the signal band used by the radio transmitter in the shells, and inhibit their ability to bounce a clear signal off the target. It worked, and that fact also contributed to the secrecy that surrounded the new shells. They could be easily jammed, and so their best defense was to prevent the enemy from ever knowing they existed.
As we have seen in this tortured history, some enemies simply knew too much, and for them the secrets of WWII were quite literally an open book. One such man was named Ivan Volkov. One word from him could render the effort of men like Tuve, and the thousands of others supporting his project, null and void. He could tell the Germans the round existed, how and when it could be expected to be used on defense, and how it could be jammed. Beyond that, Volkov could tell the Germans their seemingly fruitless effort to develop proximity fuses of their own could produce a rich harvest if they only followed his advice and guidance. He could do this by going to Hitler with yet another sheaf of supposedly captured enemy technical documents, things he could fetch from his dangerously efficient jacket computer. Amazingly, it still worked, a testament to the efficiency of its design.
Volkov could do all of this, and if the Germans heeded his advice, they would soon have a powerful defense against one of the most devastating weapons the enemy would throw at the Third Reich—strategic bombers. And this is exactly what Ivan Volkov did.
“Do not be put off by the failure of your Luftwaffe to humble the British in 1940,” he said to Hitler in their semi-annual meeting. “Do not think the enemy bombers will have the same difficulty when they come to attack Germany.”
“Our fighters should be defense enough,” said Hitler. “We will simply sweep them from the skies.”
“In the beginning…” said Volkov with just a hint of foreboding in his tone. “Yet their bombers will grow in numbers, and soon they will have a long range fighter capable of escorting them all the way to Berlin! Your Luftwaffe will fight bravely, but it will not be enough.”
“What? You say this as though you really are a prophet. This is merely speculation.”
“But it is based on real intelligence,” said Volkov, who anticipated this line from Hitler and had a folder of diagrams of the actual enemy fighters in hand. “Look here,” he said, passing a document to Hitler. “This one they will call the ‘P-51Mustang,’ and it will have a range of over 1,600 miles, more than 2,700 kilometers. They will send these by the hundreds, not simply escorting their bombers, but sweeping the area over the intended bombing target well before the bombers get there. They will be enough, my Führer, to break your air defense. So why not build these new proximity fuse flak shells? I can also tell you how to protect them from jamming. Then, when those enemy bombers come, the thunder of your 88s will truly shock them. I can increase your AA defense accuracy by a hundred fold. You will no longer have to fire barrages into pre-determined boxes and detonate shells by elevation.”
Hitler narrowed his eyes, looking at Volkov and then at the diagrams of the new enemy fighter. “I have learned enough about you, Volkov, to know that any time you call me ‘my Führer’ you are desperate to win your point. Very well, I see no harm in ordering these new shells produced, but the testing had better prove your claims in terms of accuracy and effectiveness. Now I have another question for you. We need information on these new enemy rocket designs. That is what I really want from you. I am told we have recently captured two such missiles while they were in the process of being tested by the enemy.”
This came as a great shock to Volkov, for he could not imagine that the Germans could have captured anything that might have come off the decks of Kirov. “Tell me more,” he said darkly.
“American rockets,” said Hitler with a smile, rocking slightly on his heels. “A nice little windfall—you see, you are not the only one that can get your hands on enemy secrets. My Kriegsmarine delivered a most interesting cache of equipment that was taken from an enemy ship at sea.”
“Where? What ship? What was it you found?”
Now Hitler was turning the tables on Volkov, for this time it was the Führer with all the answers, and Volkov with all the questions.
“Never mind all those irrelevant details,” said Hitler. “But since you are delivering all this new intelligence, tell your operatives they missed something—the new American X-17A. Now that we have this enemy rocket, we will take it apart, piece by piece, to see how it works. I am already told it has a most unusual warhead, and when we are done, I will build rockets of our own by the thousands, and darken the skies above our cities with them should the Allies attempt this strategic bombing you worry so much about. What do you say to that?” Hitler smiled, a twisted smile that spoke of havoc and mayhem on his mind, and for the first time in all their meetings together, Volkov was afraid.
Chapter 33
Yes, Volkov was afraid.
He knew that the Americans of this day could not have anything that might be rightfully called a functioning missile. As soon as he got safely back aboard his airship, he immediately queried the missile in his computer jacket database, and found his fears were not unwarranted. He wanted to go right back to Hitler with a thousand questions, but knew that would be impossible. Was the German leader correct—an American missile called the X-17A? Might that name or designation be mere coincidence, some code applied to an archaic weapon? Surely he could not have been referring to the X-17 missile he was now learning about. Development didn’t even start on it until February of 1955!
Then again, the Moskit II wasn’t developed until the early 21st Century, and it was here, the terror of enemy shipping the world over. But the X-17 wasn’t an anti ship missile—it was a real ballistic missile, long and slender, and 40 feet high. The rocket had three stages, a thicker main stage at the bottom that would burn for 23 seconds to propel the rocket to an altitude of about 27 kilometers. Then it would jettison stage one, tip over at apogee, and the three rocket motors of stage two would burn for about 2 seconds to rapidly increase descent speed before that stage would be cut loose. The final third stage was just ten feet in length, a single rocket that would also burn for just under two seconds, but that was enough to increase the reentry speed to between Mach 11 and Mach 14, depending on the angle.
Volkov had to find out what this missile really was, and his man inside Peenemünde would soon provide the details, once told what to look for. It was a very dangerous mission, for security at that secret German research site was very rigorous, though insiders had a way of getting past security that would stop an outsider cold. It was another long week before he received a coded message back, and his face whitened when he learned the truth. Hitler was not making an idle boast! The Germans had two prototype missiles in their possession, one in a closely guarded steel vault, untouched, and the second in a secret laboratory where it was being slowly dismantled, measured, analyzed and observed by a wide range of technical specialists, and some of the best minds in Germany.