V-2 rocket offensive began on 8 September 1944, when "Lehr- und Versuchsbatterie No. 444" () launched a single rocket guided by a radio beam directed at Paris. Wreckage of combat V-2s occasionally contained the transponder for velocity and fuel cutoff. The painting of the operational V-2s was mostly a ragged-edged pattern with several variations, but at the end of the war a plain olive green rocket also appeared. During tests, the rocket was painted in a characteristic black-and-white chessboard pattern, which aided in determining if the rocket was spinning around its longitudinal axis. The original German designation of the rocket was "V2",
2-8-2 in 1946, the RSR imported fifty used United States Army Transportation Corps S118 Class locomotives, the so-called MacArthur Locomotives. Another eighteen new engines of the same Class were purchased around 1948-1949 to meet the post-war demand. The last type of Mikado steam locomotives for Thailand were seventy engines imported by SRT from Japan between 1949 and 1951, numbered 901 to 970. Of these, only Mikado no. 953 is still serviceable, even though it is no longer actively in use. The 2-8-2 wheel arrangement was rarely, but successfully, used on British rails. Sir Nigel Gresley of the London and North Eastern