American physicist Freeman Dyson had this to say about the V2 program.
1 " Those of us who were seriously engaged in the war were very grateful to Wernher Von Braun. We knew that each V2 cost as much to produce as a high performance fighter aircraft. We knew that German forces on the fighting fronts were in desperate need of aircraft, and the V2 were doing us no military damage. From our point of view the V2 program was almost as good as if Hitler had adopted a program of unilateral disarmament"
2 The V1 and V2 programs combined cost more that the Manhatten project. Each V2 launch took more than 30 tons of potatoes to make the alcohol for the fuel, this is while Germans were short of food. More people were killed in the V2 construction, than by it's warhead.
All the V1 and V2 accomplished was giving the American and Russian space, and missile programs a leg up AFTER the war was over.
All the V1 and V2 programs did was add many nails to the 3rd Reichs coffin. Now that IS something to bragg about.
Everyone of these statements is a miss-statement or has rational explanation.
Dyson sounds like one of those people who makes authorative pronoucements without studying that matter in depth.
I've numbered your quote in bold so I may answer it one by one.
1
The V2 program did not reach the maturity it required to be a cost effective weapon, though that was only a few months away. Timming is everything and also the most diffcult of things to get right. The Nazis were only months away from turning the V2 into a very cost effective weapon. Reuter quotes the cost of a complete V2 production at 3750 hours after the 10,000th example. This is actually about 1/2 the cost of a high performance fighter when the costs of the fighter is considered inclusive of engine, guns, avionics (radio, radio navigation). One key change was the use of the mischduse (mixing plate) combustion chamber which replaced the 18 subchamber design with its labyrinth of plumbing, this design became neccessary after EMW chief rocket engine designe, Dr Walter Thiel, died along with his family after a RAF bomb hit his home. The subsitution of stainless steel by passivate aluminium and aluminium itself by pressed steel added further cost reductions. The fuel tank was to be made out of fibre reinforced plastic (tested in the stretched winged A4b) The V2's electronic analog computer, the first in the world, was ingeniously accurate and cheap: it provided a cheap way of obtaining precision.
Now it needs to be noted that the V2 required no expensive pilot to be trained, nor his rehabilation in hospital when he was injured or on an invalid pension when he was maimed nor the ongoing support of his grieving widow and children. I required no airfield to be maintained or defended, no air-sea rescue, no escort fighters, jamming aircraft. It hardly needed a clearing in the woods and the kind of support provided by a maintenance crew to an aircraft. No V2 launch site was ever discovered let alone destroyed.
The other thing that needs to be noted is in regards to accuracy. The LEV-3 guidance system consisted of two gyroscopes with potentiometer pickoffs and one PIGA acceleromter to measure missile speed and control missile cutoff at the required velocity. Excluding the effects of missile malfunction and the double cross espionge system it provided an CEP of 4.5km; and in practice the system got close to this. Sounds miserable but it is considerably better than Bomber Command managed under H2S or the USAAF under H2X on a cloudy day. LEV-3 was primitive but was an interim system only. It incidenly proved its value in putting America's first man in space and also its first satelite into orbit, a function of its simplicity. The LEV-3 was to be replaced by SG-66 or the SG-70 whch had which 3 gyros were on a stable 3 axis gimbal that allowed the inclusion of a lateral acceleromter to null out cross winds. The method is more accurate 'in terms of the gyroscope conditions and also included refinements such as a dithers applied to the gyros to improve accuracy by breaking stiction. F.K.Mueller, the inventor of accelerometer also had gaseous bearing gyros in the lab one of which went to see in a u-boats inertial guidance system. It's probably fair to assume a rentry accuracy of about 1km with dome degradation upon re-entry due to high altitude winds.
About 20% of V2 launches were with the Viktoria beam reiding system, this was a simple 2 dimensional azimuth only system and neglected the elevation trajectory of the missile. It cut lateral dispersion in half, while a doppler system cut range dispersion by 10%. One could say the CEP was now and elipse of lenth 4km and width 2k radious.
The long worked upon ultimate system was "vollzirkel" (full circle) which used a colimated 3D beam riding system backed up by combined doppler speed and transponder range cutoff. It was dimensioned to control the re-entry point to within only 300m. Again winds would have caused dispersal.
Hence the V2 Swith the SG66 inertial guidance type system should have an accuracy of just over 1km while the 'vollzirkel' system just over 300m (perhaps 1/2km of dispersion on a windy day). SG-66 was test flown while voll zirkel was, after 2 years of tests, being produced in its hoped for final form. There was a lot of trouble avoiding ground plane interference.
2
The claim that the V2 cost as much as the Manhatten project is also wrong. The claim is that it was as much a proportion of German GDP as the Manhatten project was of US GDP was the original claim. Even this is doubtfull.
If one factors in 'weapons systems' such as the B-29 or B-17, includes rather massive R+D costs, NACA wind tunnels, dead pilots, unit production costs and new factories (that haven't been amortised) then they also look extremely rediclously expensive.
One only nees to consider that had the RAF raid no succeded in delaying the V2 (it targeted the workers housing like many bomber command raids) and had some decisions been made differently the V2 might have been in serice considerably earlier. Had the storms that pevented any supplies raching shore for several days dueing the normandy landings come earlier and lasted longer the landing might have failed and the V2 come into its own.
The production targets, originally seen as 1000 units a month were pushed to 4000-5000 month by Hitler, which is why the Dora forced labour factory came into the picture.
The A4b, the 'winged V2 of which two were launched (one succesfully) had a range designed to reach Britain from Germany. Interesting was its accuracy which was to be 180m. It used a midcourse update system which used a Wassemann radar layed on its side with a modified IFF transponder for range, a dithering and frequency changing system was used for anti-jamming provision.
So, the V2, in its refined form was an cost effective and accurate system that could have economically delivered destruction to specified areas.
It was possibly the most sensibe use of funds. Admitedly it was too late, but only by about 6 months.
The Germans could have fairly comfortably thrown 2000 missiles a month out. At 4000 hours/missile then 25 people could produce 1 missile/month and 25,000 over 1000. It was an affordable concept. Throw 2000 of these at the Spitfire factory around Castle Bromwich and they are bound to have an effect.
It's also wrong to compare the cost effectiveness of a Lancaster against a V2, the German had little chance of opperating a bomber force big enough, they could however build thousands of V2 at less cost than opperating bomber command and those missiles would get through.
The opportunity cost, ie no developing a fielded SAM may have been the only cost.