Made Bumper with a V2 mod I just got. Bumper 8 was the first rocket to be launched from the grounds of Cape Canaveral back on 24 July 1950 (Coming up on 70 years!!!). The Bumper rockets were V2’s with a modified (larger fins) WAC Corporal sounding rocket acting as a second stage.

While Bumper 8 & 7 were launched from Cape Canaveral, the previous Bumpers were flown from White Sands . Bumper 8 actually flew before 7, 7 was on the pad and upon T-0 there was a stick fuel valve so Bumper 7 was cleared off the pad and Bumper 8 flew first, with 7 five days later

The structure crews used to integrate the vehicle by hand was nothing more than painters scaffolding. In this photo you can see the scale of the WAC Corporal sounding rocket which acted as the second stage. As previously noted you can see the modified fins with more surface area.

The “blockhouse” for Bumper was a temporary beach house with sand/dirt and sandbags piled around it. I think it’s easy to say it was very primitive. Only a few years later at pad 56 you would find the blockhouse roof was 7 feet thick, and Redstone in a sense was an upscaled V2.

Note that there’s no window. There were 2 mirrors placed at 45 degrees facing each other so the crew in the structure could have views of the pad without being in actual line of sight in case of a failure. This allowed them to be behind the safety of the dirt pile.

This was Cape Canaveral 8 months after the first launch. Only developed land is the lighthouse, pad 1-4 area, and the town of Cape Canaveral, visible just north of the pad. The people of the surrounding area saw Bumper as some kind of gimmick prior to the launch.

Rumor has it that during early launches from pads 1-4 Von Braun had communication wires ran from the blockhouse to the lighthouse and up the stairs. It was his preferred spot to view his launches with binoculars.

I hope you enjoyed this thread, I may try and do more like it where it starts out as a KSP build, and turns into a history lesson. I hope you learned a thing or two, and if you have any further info let me know! I’d like to learn another thing or two as well