German Vergeltungswaffe `revenge weapons'.
German flying bombs of World War II, launched
against Britain in 1944 and 1945. The V1,
also called the doodle-bug and buzz bomb, was
a flying bomb powered by a simple kind of jet
engine called a pulse jet. The V2, a rocket
bomb, was the first long-range ballistic
missile. It was 14 m/47 ft long, carried a
1-tonne warhead, and hit its target at a
speed of 5,000 kph/3,000 mph.