Wunderfwaffen: The Hunt For Hitler's Secret Wonder Weapons | Nazi Secret Weapons | Timeline

Nazi Germany invented some of the most destructive weapons on earth. Giant guns, high-tech rockets, advanced jet fighters. One of Adolf Hitler's most top-secret bombs, the Fritz X, grandfather of the modern smart bomb. Still shrouded by one of the last great mysteries of World War II. Could the Nazi bomb have changed the outcome of the war? Now a German-American team of aviation experts resurrects the Third Reich's most destructive weapon. The crew undertakes a daring experiment far out in the Californian desert. Dropping two replicas of the Nazi precision bomb. Watch the Fritz X because we are definitely in a danger zone here. To unlock the mystery of Hitler's secret weapon. Release. Gone. I felt it go. The Harz Mountains in Germany. A location infamous to US soldiers as a place of brutal battles in 1945. Here in a small castle lives an experienced model maker of World War II weaponry. None of his neighbors know about the secret projects he's working on. Nazi aircraft and weaponry as full-scale models. The mastermind behind these replica prototypes is Holger Bull. The son of a World War II German air force pilot. He reconstructed these replicas suicide aircraft from blueprints drawn by Nazi engineers. Hidden in archives for decades. One top secret Nazi weapon puzzles Bull the most. The Fritz X. An early precision bomb that entered combat in 1943. Prototype testing revealed that the success rate with this radio-guided bomb was over 80 times higher than with conventional free-falling bombs of the time. Its first missions brought death and destruction in the Mediterranean. When the alliance with Italy broke up. Adolf Hitler ordered the bombing of the Italian fleet. Including one of their biggest battleships. The Roma. It was September 9th 1943 as the Fritz X came down on the pride of the Italian navy. The battleship sank after two direct hits within 35 minutes. Leaving over 1,400 sailors dead. Two days later the Germans targeted the cruiser USS Savannah. That was supporting US landings in southern Italy. Again the Fritz X hit its target. But this time something went wrong. The Fritz X actually came down and penetrated the roof of the number three gun turret. And actually glanced off the breach of the center gun of that turret. And continued down through the handling spaces. And actually exploded in the magazine as it exited the bottom of the warship. Which was actually a very lucky thing for Savannah. Because had it been contained within the magazine. And the magazine completely detonated. This definitely would have broken the ship in half. The Nazis report that the warship struck by aerial explosives went to the bottom. But here navy pictures show the Savannah float. In every documented case the destructive power of the Fritz X proved so strong. That it would completely rip through any battleship it hit. It would never explode while still inside the ship. But on exiting or in the water. So the debate continues. Was the bomb technically imperfect? Or did Hitler's engineers design a super weapon. That only failed by being too good for its time. The Fritz X mystery. Now over 60 years later Holger Bull embarks on a daring living history experiment. Reconstructing the Nazi smart bomb and dropping it in a remote desert area. The model maker wants to test the replica's ballistics and its destructive power. This will be a first for him. This of course is some kind of wonder weapon system also you know. Really fascinates me and it's a goal for me to get it into the air. To make it airborne. Wartime photos and sketches provide important clues on the bomb's shape. A new day in the Harz mountains. In his castle in Germany model maker Holger Bull seeks to unlock the mystery of the Nazi bomb Fritz X. In one of his workshops he and his assistant Bernd start assembling the Fritz bomb. They are two of very few people in the world producing full-scale models of World War II technology. They first replicate the aerodynamics of the main bomb body as close as possible to the original. The original Fritz warhead carried over 600 pounds of explosives. But the model makers soon face one big challenge. For me to produce the outline, to produce the physical body of the Fritz X, the fuselage, the cross-shaped wings and all that stuff is not a big problem. But the problem is for me at the moment the electronic which is completely undiscovered. Unraveling the electronics the Nazis used inside the Fritz X, Bull is searching collections in the U.S. to find a captured original Fritz X. Is there Pima Air Museum, Tucson, Arizona? Yes, I said Bull speaking. You are owning a Fritz X. Can I see it? There is one in Arizona. Wonderful. It is time for the team to leave for Arizona to meet up with American model makers and aviation experts. Back in Nazi Germany the Fritz X was not alone. Dozens of secret weapons were designed for the destructive fantasies of one man, Adolf Hitler. Hitler urged his engineers to construct a huge arsenal of unrivaled weapons that would bring final victory to Germany. When the Berlin Wall came down, Nazi files hidden for decades in the former East Germany were discovered. They revealed for the first time Adolf Hitler's plan for a disastrous strike against the continental U.S. Until then no aircraft in the world could cross the Atlantic without a stopover to refuel. But Hitler wanted to revolutionize long-ranged aviation with a project dubbed the America bomber. The general plan from the Germans was to start here in northern France to fly 4,000 miles to New York to bomb New York and then to fly back to France. Hitler's high hopes rested on the Messerschmitt 264, a four-engine bomber designed to carry a 6.5 ton bomb load. It was not really a realistic plan, it was just a war game in the year 42 and the only person who was really interested to put this forward was Hitler. The dictator became more and more obsessed with the project as three Messerschmitt 264 prototypes were built. In a top-secret war game from April 1942, the German air force targeted dozens of factories along the eastern coast of the U.S. By July 1944, Allied air raids had destroyed all the Messerschmitts prototypes. But unable to see his downfall, Hitler until 1945 still dreamt of suicide missions that would destroy the skyscrapers of Manhattan leaving them in flames. Today in Tucson, Arizona, the Fritz X experiment continues. Model maker Holger Bull has arrived from Germany to meet up with reconstruction experts from the U.S. at the Pima Air Museum. The Pima Museum is the second largest aviation museum in the country and in the World War II exhibit it holds a rare treasure, an original Fritz X once captured by the U.S. Army. Unfortunately, after the war the electronics have been ripped out. Still, the exhibit provides Bull with data for his replica. You know, having had only plans in Germany and a couple of photographs, you know, I realized this thing will give us really the final push. Joining Holger Bull's crew is Steve Weiper, a naval historian and himself an experienced model maker of World War II weaponry. This is their recently restored B-36 Peacemaker. This was the largest aircraft. I mean, it is gigantic. The U.S. response to Hitler's America bomber. The Peacemaker was conceived in 1941 for long-range flights from the U.S. to Germany. While no longer any need for such missions existed towards the end of war, the American engineers won this part of the technology race against the Nazis. The maximum range far surpassed that of the German rival. Work on the Fritz X continues in a special reconstruction hangar at the Pima Museum. For the outer skin of the Fritz X, plywood is used, which is flexible but high in strength and capable of resisting enormous air pressure. The team has less than two weeks before the test drop of the bomb replica is scheduled to take place. At the same time at Chino Airport in California, to drop the expedition team's replica Fritz X, preparations are being made to use an original World War II bomber, a B-25 Michelle. In the meantime, the model making team is working day and night to meet the deadline. During Hitler's Third Reich, the precision bomb was one of several secret weapons programs that were technologically advanced for the time. The first Nazi super weapons were to be deployed against the French Maginot Line, a vast defensive system of concrete fortifications, tank obstacles and artillery casemates along the border with Germany. To break through the deep fortifications, Hitler's engineers designed the largest artillery ever used in battle. The guns, named Dora and Gustav, were positioned on special railway carriers weighing a total of 1,300 tons. It took 2,000 men and specially built trains nearly six weeks to assemble, load and move the heavy guns. The railway guns could be fired at distances up to 23 miles. And the shells alone weighed more than seven tons. The artillery pieces, the Dora and Gustav, were enormous. They're meant to bring down city walls and defenses, but they're also a psychological weapon because of the random nature of when it's coming. There's very little warning. I mean, probably a few seconds before impact, you might have felt the rush or heard a rush of wind or a whistle and then, you know, complete annihilation. I mean, these explosions were taking out city blocks at a time. As the Nazis had managed to circumvent the French Maginot Line, the Dora was first deployed in Russia to siege the fortifications of Sevastopol in July 1942. After 48 rounds of the Dora gun, the city resembled a crater landscape on the moon. The success led Hitler to order still more destructive weapons. A top secret Nazi film captured by U.S. intelligence at the end of the war. In the U.S. National Archives, historian Steve Weiper has discovered the key to understanding the inner workings of Adolf Hitler's precision bomb, Fritz X. The film also reveals how the German bombardiers were trained. I believe this is a training device for the bombardier. Yes, most probably. The training device consisted of a bridge with a synthetic control system placed over the conveyor belt. In this synthetic training, the observer keeps the crosshairs of the bomb site on the target by use of the control stick. So here you see how much they were able to control them. Yeah, it's interesting how they can actually steer it back down and almost upside down and back into the target. The film reveals key pieces of the bomb's control system. Short wave receiver installed in the tail section and in the rear, an electric gyroscope. The roll gyro prevents the bomb from rolling so that the signals maintain their orientation. Gyro keeps the bomb in its basic stabilized position. It must normally fit into a kind of metal shell. There it is, yes. The captured film confirms the unique ballistic abilities of the Fritz X. It would actually, to some degree, overshoot the target and then the bombardier would actually steer the bomb back down onto the target. And I found that truly fascinating. Careful how tight you hit it, John. Oh, it's perfect. Ready? That's the way you want to put it, you know, okay. Did you find the right drill now? The model crew continues to assemble the tail section of the bomb. The special box shape of the tail section was critical for the unique ballistics and destructive power of the Fritz X. Just before the war, Hitler's engineers came up with this completely new design that was almost too fast. And the metal tubes prevented the bomb getting supersonic speeds which would have been basically impossible to use the proper way because it would have probably get through a target and explode deep in the water and without making any damage. The tubes also functioned as a radio antenna for the bombardier's signal. The model team paints their bomb the pale blue of the German Air Force, the color used for the original Fritz X in combat. In less than two weeks, the crew also finishes a second replica bomb. They now have a backup in case something goes wrong during their initial test drop. Scheduled to happen in just a few days in a remote desert area. Adolf Hitler's megalomania combined with his weakness for giant weaponry. In 1942, he gave orders to construct a heavy tank, codenamed the Maus. But this Maus weighed about 180 tons. On seeing the prototype, Hitler personally insisted on increasing the gun diameter. Today, on a restricted military zone located southeast of Berlin, we discover the secret manufacturing grounds for the Maus prototypes. This is the first search for the remains of Hitler's monster tank making factory. A giant tank must have left giant traces. Finally, the discovery of the original construction hall of the Maus. And Hitler's engineers were developing an even bigger tank. The largest tank ever designed. Decades later, model maker Holger Bull has discovered the blueprints for a Nazi monster tank in German archives. He takes a road trip to a tank expert to pose the question, could these Nazi heavy tanks have turned the tide of war? Peter Robins holds a collection of tanks and armored vehicles from the 1970s. And the field gun is tracked and it weighs only 20 tons. And in the case of the German heavy tanks, what is it, 100 tons or something? The team is heading to a site where Peter conducts exercises for the U.S. Army. Today, they carry out a measuring experiment for the Nazi tank that would have been even more colossal than the Maus. The Land Cruiser P.1000, which Hitler himself codenamed the Rat. I was able to purchase a couple of copies of drawings and photographs of these amazing, monstrous German tank designs. This is the tank called the Ratte, you know, which was a thousand ton tank. Yeah, yeah, look at this. You can see the size of a man. What a huge monstrosity. Here, take this. I'll hold it and take a walk. The team has calculated the dimensions of the Ratte from the original images. Come back, we'll do the other side. Left, straight across. I'll guide you over here. Now, they mark out an outline to compare the size of the giant World War II tank to the modern tank. To the right a little bit, Steve. That's good. Put side by side with a modern tank, the Rat would have been colossal. Weight, thousand tons. Length, 114 feet. And battleship-type guns. How devastating would such an enormous tank have been in battle? A Ratte tank had such a large diameter projectile that its destructive force would have been absolutely enormous. Many, many feet of concrete. Tremendous blast. Tremendous killing power. But its mobility was so limited, you can't go down roads with it. And you can't go over bridges with it. And it might be able to go through a river, but who knows if it had enough displacement, positive displacement, positive buoyancy to stay on the surface and get across the river without becoming a submarine. So I think in reality, it was more of a dream than everything else. Finally, Germany's Minister of Armaments stopped the project because he deemed it ineffective at a time of disappearing resources. For Stephen Hogger, the mystery remains to be solved. Did the Fritz X or any other of Hitler's sickle weapons have the potential to change the course of war? A vast underground site, 340 feet below a hilltop, containing ammunition reserves, concrete gun shafts and old railway tracks. A site reminiscent of a hideout created by the villains in a James Bond film. But this secret Nazi gun site was constructed in 1943 in northern France on order of Hitler's direct orders to fire a shower of projectiles over the English Channel towards London. Hitler was able to draw sketches. And so he was also interested in drawing plans for bunkers, for example, but also for big battleships and for very heavy guns. So he was indeed doing some work by himself with his own pencil for these special weapons. Based on the original Nazi construction plans, this CGI shows the advanced design of Hitler's gun site in northern France, never fully realized in wartime. The V3. V for Hitler's vengeance on London. Thin arrow-shaped projectiles were to be fired through a barrel whose projected length even surpassed Hitler's railway gun Dora. Propellant charges were to be ignited as the shell passed lateral chambers, boosting it to an incredibly high velocity for a maximum bombing range of 100 miles. On August 12, 1944, the US launched a counter-operation off the English coast. Joseph Kennedy Jr., JFK's older brother, was deployed to arm a bomber that was then to be remote-controlled into Hitler's cannon site. But the mission went wrong. Before Kennedy could parachute to safety from the armed bomber, the explosives detonated. It was a tragic failure of US intelligence. Over four weeks before, a British bombing raid had already rendered the Nazi gun site useless. With their six-ton towboys, the Royal Air Force had cracked the 18-feet-thick concrete slab containing the gun openings. One of the early British bunker busters landed directly on a gun shaft, creating extensive damage below. Today, a plaque commemorates Joe Kennedy Jr.'s courageous mission. Now, Steve Wiper and Hogger Bull transport the two replicas of the Nazi bomb Fritz X to Chino Airport in California. They will work with a company called AeroTrader, which owns original World War II bombers and has experienced test-dropping bombs from these planes. For Carl Scholl, who has been in the business of restoring World War II aircraft for over 30 years, the Fritz experiment will be a first. These right now only weigh maybe 200. We're going to have to ballast it to try to get closer to the real weight. This is our baby, RB-25. We've actually used this thing in several movies. We've launched the airplane from a couple of aircraft carriers over the years, and now we'll get to drop a Fritz bomb. That'll be different, too. We've never done anything like that. We've dropped torpedoes and parachutes and parachute dummies and things like that. But no German-guided bombs. So that'll definitely be a first. OK, well, we have a torpedo rack set up in the bomb bay, but I think with our configuration with your bomb, the span on it is too large, so we'll leave the bomb bay doors off, which we've already removed. Yes. And then we'll have to come up with a configuration to attach the bomb to our mechanism and then come up with a suitable release mechanism, which we can do. The Aerotrader crew has to modify the bracket for the bomb. The replica Nazi bomb is much bigger than the torpedoes they've dropped before. And they must determine how much the Fritz X should weigh and where it should be centered so that it safely leaves the airplane. How critical is, like right now, because of this structure, it's off to the side a little bit. How critical do you think that is? We must have both, because otherwise it could roll. OK. Yeah, we can do that. So we should cut that to two times. Yeah, we can cut it in quarters. Yeah, exactly. I mean, we can, we can put it up here. Or put it up there, yeah. We're trying to get the center of gravity as close as we can to the, not only the dynamic center of gravity of this device, but also the aerodynamic balance so that it's nose-heavy enough so that when it leaves the airplane, the nose falls away. If it's not enough nose-heavy, then the aerodynamic surfaces could potentially make it fly, which would give it a lift when it left the airplane, which would definitely not be a good thing. The mechanics team tries different options and adjusts the weight of the bomb with great care. Still, pilot Carl Scholl has safety concerns. We need the nose of this thing 100 pounds heavy so it definitely pitches down, because I don't want this thing going, trying to decide what it's going to do, because the center of gravity is neutral. I mean, it's definitely got to be nose-heavy. Why don't we grab a handful of jump rotors that are stators out there? Those things are pretty heavy. We bundle up 20 or 30 of those. The debate about the bomb's ideal weight continues for two days. I want this thing to be nose-heavy. Yeah, well, we're making it nose-heavy, but 100 pounds is based on where in the moment, the moment off the center line. So we can put 100 pounds right here. Well, it's not making the nose. Let's put the lid on the way you were talking about doing that. It's not making the nose. See what that does. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to add 50 more. That's, yeah, that's what we're doing. That's why we marked it that way. Finally, pilot Karl Scholl is satisfied with the results. Yeah, I'd be happy. Right about the same, yeah. The bomb will weigh close to 1,000 pounds. I don't want this thing going through the air like this. I want it to definitely go down. That way we can have some control over where it lands if it has, if it flies too much, then we don't know where it's going to go. U.S. Navy smoke flares are attached to the bomb's rear to better monitor the flight of the Fettsaig. But a safety test must be conducted so the flares don't place the plane in danger. Will the real destructiveness of Hitler's Siegel weapon be revealed in the drop test scheduled in a few days? Chino Airport, California. In just two days' time, an experiment team will test drop a reconstructed Nazi bomb from a B-25 bomber onto a replicated battleship outline. With this experiment, the crew wants to determine the ballistics and destructive power of the Fettsaig's bomb. The testing site is a remote part of the Californian desert on the property of bomber pilot Karl Scholl. Basically, this area, which is a quarter of a mile by a half a mile, will be our drop zone. And what I'd like to do is set up the profile of the broma, something like that, and be moving west to east and pick a point where we think we're going to hit the battleship. And that'll be our release point. And then by having the ground teams back here, kind of in a safe zone, that will help protect everybody from getting hit. Tony Ritzman, flying the B-25 for over 30 years now, points out the risks of the bomb drop. Once it falls free from the airplane, we don't know if it's going to pitch up and down, if it's going to enter into a roll moment, or quite conceivably, it could even pitch up and start tumbling. And so the first two or three seconds of release are going to be a little bit of a risky event as far as maybe the Fritz hitting us. In fact, the real Fritz X was so fast, it would have reached supersonic sound. That's why they had these roundish tubes at the end of it, you know, to prevent the supersonic sound speed, you know. We're in the testing phase. And if you'll remember, the Germans used up over 600 of these devices just learning how to drop them. And we're going to do it with two. The team schedules a preliminary test drop of one of the replica Fritz Xs for the next day. The German-American team has reconstructed the Nazi bomb in a remarkably short time. With the engines of the B-25 bomber running, we now want to eliminate the worst case scenario, the replica losing parts due to the pressure of the bomber's airstream. Standby to drop. Three, two, one. The modified release mechanism works perfectly. Well, we didn't really test it in the airstream. All we tested was the vibration factor with the engines running. But everything looked plenty stable, so I think we're good to go. But the Fritz X was not the only secret weapon in Hitler's arsenal. Across the ocean in Germany, a seemingly innocuous peninsula in the Baltic Sea close to the Polish border. In Nazi Germany, the area of Peenemünde used to be Hitler's high-tech rocket center. Secret operations started in 1936. And later, rocket launching sites extended to a remote island off the coast. It was here that the world's first ballistic missile took off. Hitler's vengeance weapon, the V-2. In 1944, the missile became the first man-made object to reach the border of space in its trajectory. Today, special permission is needed to enter the restricted area containing the rooms of Hitler's Cape Canaveral. The legendary Peenemünde also gave birth to another advanced Nazi rocket. The Wasserfall. A single rocket was designed to bring down a whole fleet of enemy aircraft. The plan was for the warhead to detonate inside of a bomber formation and its special liquid explosive would create a devastating blast area. The Wasserfall was really the first potentially effective surface-to-air missile that could have been widely used and very effective against bomber fleets. It really, of all the German weapons at the time, probably could have changed the course of war in the West. Possibly even a negotiated or a termed surrender. But Hitler regarded defensive weapons like the Wasserfall as defeatist. He didn't see the point. Instead, he promoted the vengeance and offensive weapons up until the very end of the war. Still dreaming of final victory. Now, over six decades after the first and most fatal missions of the Fritz X, the replicas of the Nazi bomb are ready for a bold test drop in a remote desert site. In a remote part of the California desert in a former military testing zone. A daring World War II experiment is about to begin. A test drop of two replica Nazi bombs onto a battleship outline marked as a target area in the sand. This outline is a copy of the shape of the Italian battleship Roma. The Roma and the cruiser USS Savannah were both hit in the Mediterranean in September 1943 by the radio-guided bomb Fritz X. Now the drop experiment wants to solve the mystery. Did the Savannah survive because the Fritz bomb was technically imperfect? Or was the German bomb too powerful for its time? Ripping all the way through the battleships before having time to fully detonate. To replicate the conditions of 1943, the outline in the desert must be over 780 feet long and over 100 feet wide. Naval historian Steve Wiper confirms that the target outline is correct. We're pretty close, right? Yeah, no, you guys have a good layout. There's a couple of minor adjustments, but other than that, it looks really good. Yeah, tire. Go ahead and put it down. Here? Yeah. The outline work on the ground is a race against time. The bomber pilots are already on their way from their Chino hangar in the B-25 for a first scouting mission. The battleship outline has to be ready so that the pilots can gather important targeting data for the bomb drop scheduled for the next day. And the ground team finishes just in time. As the World War II bomber lands on the desert airfield, model maker Hogger Bull arrives with a special payload of the Fritz X bomb replicas. The next day will be the moment of truth, D-Day for the Fritz X. Will the experiment be successful? Model maker Hogger Bull will be on board the bomber the next day, radio controlling the Fritz X. Error trader pilot Carl Scholl is giving some last minute advice. Our drop point is correct. During the scouting mission of the target area, pilot Tony Ritzman calculated some data on the probable acceleration of the Fritz X for the test drop. The bomb is going to travel about 2,300 feet before it impacts. It's going to take about 12 and a half seconds from the time of release until it actually impacts. And when it hits the ground, it's going to be going about 290 miles an hour. But spotting the replicated battleship outline will be a challenge for the bomber pilots. I was able to spot the outline of the Roma shape from a good distance. But because of the altitude we're dropping from, that disappears under the nose long before we reach the release point. So we picked a couple of landmarks way far out in the distance that will allow us to hold a constant heading and fly directly over the Roma shape. The day of truth for the Fritz X experiment. Every one of the team works on their final preparations. For safety reasons, the replica's warhead is not packed with explosives. Oh, you had it. What did you do? To better monitor the bomb's trajectory during the drop, Steve Wiper devises a special camera contraption. To protect the camera from damage, we'll be pulled away from the bomb by a parachute system before impact. So we have a trigger that's released that catches the wind or the air slipstream. And then that will pull the drogue parachute, which will in turn pull the main parachute, which will in turn yank the entire camera module off the back of the Fritz X, hopefully just before it hits the ground. Now, the bomb and the bomber are ready for takeoff. Ready for the first test drop of a Fritz X bomb on American soil. Pilots Tony Ritzman and Carl Scholl prepare for the drop of the Nazi replica bomb Fritz X from the World War II bomber. A last radio check with Steve Wiper, who will be leading the ground team in the target area. Before takeoff, Tony Ritzman holds a final briefing on worst case scenarios. The moment of truth is about to arrive, so let's talk about what we're going to do here. We're going to climb out, do a 270 degree climbing, right hand turn, go about a mile to the west. First pass is going to be a dummy pass, just so that everybody is comfortable with the drop line, the run in, your position. When you're going to be dropping, so I'm going to hear that on the radio. Do you have a signal you want to give me? Carl is going to start the countdown. Five, four, three, two, one, release. At that point, it's all yours. Yeah, I realized that. All right, let's talk about what can happen that can go bad. If the Fritz X really starts shedding parts, you know, the tail's vibrating or something really, really unsafe, I'm going to go out here and punch it off, okay? If we do the release and it doesn't release, I'm going to come right back here and land and hope it doesn't disengage when we touch down. It'll be the smoothest landing of my life, all right? If we have an engine failure, we're going to come back and land here. Don't panic. We've done this before. We can land on one engine. Other than that, we'll come back and then we'll do number two. Any questions? Pilot Carl Scholl believes in a good omen for this day. All the times that we've been doing different drops, we've never had an emergency as such. Actually, I bet $100 that we will hit the ship. As the pilots prepare for takeoff, the ground team is heading for the battleship target outline in the desert. When I see you in place, we'll start rolling out. A little more to your left. The B-25 is not identical, but closely resembles the German planes that dropped the Fritz X during the war. The bombardier had to crouch in a glass compartment at the nose of the plane. Today, this will be the job of bomb model maker Holger Bull. It's his first ride in an American bomber. Okay, Holger on the nose. We're rolling in. I'm ready. The Fritz X replica first seems to be stable in the air pressure. But then something goes wrong. You just lost a part. You got a streamer coming out the back end of the thing past the tail of the airplane right now. Is it the worst case scenario coming true? Is the replica bomb disintegrating from the pressure of the airstream? Wow, I see a parachute with the cameras. All clear. The bomb body itself is still intact. It was the parachute of the camera contraption devised to monitor the bomb that broke loose too soon. Okay, so you're saying the parachute released, but the black camera body is still attached. Looks like the black camera body is still attached. Yeah, I copy that. Apologies. Okay, you should have the target inside Holger. We're turning inbound now. I will do my best to get it into the target. When that thing drops, do not take your eyes off the Fritz X. Forget about the bomber. Watch the Fritz X because we are definitely in a danger zone here. The countdown starting now. Five, three, two, one, zero. Release. It's on. I felt it go. There it goes. Look at it. Look at that thing go. Here it comes. Look at that thing go. That was perfect. Okay, this is ground crew. Fritz X dropped beautifully. It was perfectly controlled. Went into the ground somewhere about 50 to 100 feet short of the stern. Over. Roger, we have that. Very good. But it turns out the first replica missed the target by 100 yards. Still, the penetration and destructive power of Hitler's smart bomb is revealed. And it, like you said, it was cooking. Where's the front end? Buried way down in here. The bomb's incredible acceleration almost smashed it into pieces when it hit solid ground. Look at that. The edge of it. Crushed like on a real crash of an airplane with high speed. This was a thing which was straight and fine. Now it's short like a rotten old knife, you know. The team gathers reference data for their second and final test drop. This will be their last chance at hitting the battleship target. There's the stern. Right there. I think we have a good idea of what happened and the glide path that it follows. So the next drop we should be closer if not be able to hit it. On the second drop, Huggable joins the ground team to observe his replica's drop in person. In the cockpit, the pilots debate how best to readjust the release point for the Fritz X. I see the treeline points right at it. No, it doesn't. The treeline is off to the left of it. That's the problem. Finally, the pilots find the proper reference point for the bomb's release on the replica ship. That's what's better this time. Three... Two... And this time, the smoke flare ignites. Okay, B-25 is going in to land. Again, the experiment proves the destructive power of hitting a smoke bomb. Look at all the wreckages. Even without the benefit of explosives, over seven feet from its total length of 11 feet are buried in the ground. And this time, the Fritz X can even closer to hitting the battleship outline. Steve, how far was it? 57 yards. So our bomber crew really did a great job. Had this been underway at, you know, a moderate speed, like approximately 20 knots, I think that there's a very good chance that this bomb would have actually hit the outline. Well, knowing that in Germany, hundreds of millions of Reichsmark, you know, and the work of dozens of engineers, scientists, and so forth have been involved, you know. So seeing all that, then I think we did a good job, you know. When the bombs dropped from the aircraft, they performed exactly as the originals did. And as they came down in their arc, it was like watching a movie of the real thing, except we were there to live it ourselves. And that was just fantastic. The replica experiment unlocked the mystery of Hitler's secret bomb, Fritz X. The bomb's specific aerodynamics designed by German engineers in the 1940s, now, for the first time, has been successfully recreated by the German-American team. The replica bomb's acceleration and penetration abilities were shown to have a highly destructive effect. Even without explosives, they almost completely disintegrated. Therefore, during the war, the Nazi bomb's penetration power was too strong for much of the battleship armor of the day. The USS Savannah got lucky when the Fritz X penetrated her hull. It went so deep so quickly that the explosion went off too late to sink the ship. But if the Fritz X had been perfected back then, could it have changed the course of war? Towards the end, Hitler's weapon programs became more and more desperate. In 1944, the dictator pushed for another last-minute weapon, the Co-162. With a top speed of over 560 miles per hour, it was the fastest jet at the time. But the German air force was running out of pilots. And some Nazi fanatics had the ingenious idea to send boys from the Hitler Youth into air combat. So they nicknamed the jet Volksjäger, the People's Fighter. A dictator's final desperation. But the jet's rush into production led to the death of many pilots and machines. Awaiting the invasion in France in 1944, Hitler dreamt of crushing the landing forces with bombs like thunderbolts. But the new generation of Fritz X that could resist Allied jamming of its control signals was not in mass production yet. On June 6, 1944, D-Day, Allied fighters supporting the landing prevented the few German bombers left from bringing the smart bomb successfully to enemy targets. But what if the Fritz X could have been deployed on the US troops approaching Omaha Beach, fulfilling the evil fantasies of the Nazi dictator? A sinister scenario, imagining hundreds of Fritz X bombs thundering down and countless US soldiers killed even before reaching the beach. Hitler's smart bomb could have turned D-Day into a doomsday for the Allies.