Is it true that the Germans first thought up the idea of guided missiles during WWII?
It’s true, the Germans were trying to develop missiles that could be guided by radar, but the war ended before they were successful. As has been pointed out already, they did in fact use the V-1 and V-2 missiles (or rockets if you prefer). The V-1 was a crude cruise missile, not very accurate and could be shot down by anti-aircraft guns or intercepting planes. The V-2 was the first man-made object to leave earth’s orbit, this made it impossible to intercept and really was a scary weapon. The USA did not “take” German scientist, many German scientist surrendered to the Americans, and were asked if they wanted to continue their studies for the Americans. A lot of scientist who did not surrender to the allies but were captured by the Russians were moved to Russia to continue their studies whether they wanted to or not, but after awhile the Russians released them.
Yes it is true that the Germans did develop a guided rocket. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henschel_Hs… I have also seen a TV documentary about the Luftwaffe in WW2 where they did start to produce guided rockets. However, this only came into production in the first couple of months of 1945, but by then it was far too late anyway to have any effect on the war.
