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Here I go again saying how Germany
missed an opportunity - twice - to be the world's technical superpower by starting
wars that numerically proved it could never win. Scientists and engineers of Deutschland
designed and implemented what would be the first wirelessly guided missile for correcting
the flight path of the V-2 rocket (the "V" stood for Vergeltungswaffe, or vengeance weapon).
This article from a 1945 edition of Radio News magazine describes how a
radio "cone" was formed by a ground-based transmitter array that caused an airborne
guidance system to keep the rocket on course during the boost phase of its flight.
Embarrassingly, I don't recall having known about this amazing technology.
How the V-2 Rocket Is Wirelessly Controlled
 High-Altitude photographs taken by U. S.
bombers record that V-2 rockets rise into the air in zig-zags controlled by a device
known as a "radio cage," is reported from British sources.
This control equipment is carried inside the V-2 and is part of the system for
altering the path of the rocket in flight.
It consists of a circular launching area ringed with radio units each sending
up an invisible beam. These beams cone like a group of search-lights at a point
perhaps 10 to 15 miles above the earth forming a cage enclosing the launching area
below.
On striking any part of the cage, the projectile rising off the ground receives
impulses from a beam which deflects it in a zig-zag path from one side of the cage
to the other until it emerges at the top.
This aiming system establishes direction only; range is determined by fuel consumption.
Posted January 10, 2023
(updated from original
post on 12/11/2014)
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