yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

WWII’s Operation Aphrodite | The Strange Truth


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

Was this program an act of Allied desperation? Wasn't there any kind of other way to hit these islands? The Aphrodite program is the Allied version of the Japanese kamikazes. In the Japanese case, they had self-sacrificial pilots who were willing to fly the planes themselves into the target. The Allies, of course, were not willing to do that, and therefore they had to find a technological solution.

So for the Allies, we developed this system by which we were using these remotely controlled bombers. These planes were literally explosive flying coffins packed with unstable dynamite, lumbering into the air barely under control, rigged with barely functioning electronics. So it's not surprising that it proved difficult to integrate all these technologies at this early stage.

The V weapons were intended to strike back for the terrible damage that the Allied bombers were doing to Germany. Dr. Goebel, the V3 was a very long barreled gun. The projectile was fired and it would be accelerated further by other explosive charges so that the shell developed enormous speeds and was therefore able to fly over the distances required to hit London from the V weapon site at Memory, yet in German-occupied France.

The particular targets, such as Memory, the very heavily hardened targets posed difficult problems for the Allies because conventional bombs weren't able to penetrate the thick concrete carapace. The Germans would pour lots and lots of concrete, so even the Allied bombing, the massive Allied bombing, would not be heavy enough to destroy what was underneath.

Drones become a part of the super guns story because we wanted to take them out. The best explosive was determined to be the British top X, and the pilot's compartment is placed 1575 pounds. The idea was that you could pack an aircraft with explosives and fly it directly into the target.

Aphrodite included a number of elements which became standard in future drone programs, such as the camera. Not only did they use television, which was in its infancy, but they figured out how to broadcast from plane to plane and use those pictures in real time to fly the airplanes remotely. It's pretty ingenious, and all in 1944 when many people hadn't even heard the word television, let alone owned one.

More Articles

View All
Cannon Shock Waves in Ultra Slow Motion - Smarter Every Day 200
Hey, it’s me Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Everyday. Today, we’re in rural Tennessee for an actual artillery competition. And if you learn anything from this truck that’s coming up behind me, this is pretty legit. There’s dudes from all over the country…
DON'T START YOUTUBE BEFORE WATCHING THIS!
Lesson one. Clickbaity titles. Gotchu! Didn’t I? Smash like! When people ask what I do for a living, older people, basically, and I say I do YouTube, I’m always met with, “Oh! That must be amazing!” “You must earn a lot of money!” Or, “It must be so cool…
The FED Just Popped The Market Bubble
What’s up guys, it’s Graham here. So first of all, I am shocked that more people aren’t talking about this, because we are about to face the worst U.S. debt crisis in history. Instead of addressing the problem head-on, we’re putting up statues of Walter W…
I Was SCARED To Say This To NASA... (But I said it anyway) - Smarter Every Day 293
All right, so I am a PhD student at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. There’s a lot that goes into that. It’s a very difficult thing for me. I’m studying under Dr. Jason Cassibry. Really fun. The other day, someone from the university reaches out a…
Enthalpy of formation | Thermodynamics | AP Chemistry | Khan Academy
Enthalpy of formation refers to the change in enthalpy for the formation of one mole of a substance from the most stable form of its constituent elements. Change in enthalpy is symbolized by delta H, and the F stands for formation. The superscript naught …
Affordable Watches For Your Collection | Reacting To Underappreciated Watches FT. Teddy Baldassarre
This is the gateway drug. It is, I mean, this is it, so be careful. What if I told you this watch is around 300 bucks? Can’t be! You know, you instead of going out for dinner, buy a watch. Okay, Mr. Wonderful here, you know I’m doing a very special editio…