The Navy of God against Charis naval superiority

n7axw wrote:
Actually the accuracy of rockets sucked until much later when tech advanced to the point when guidance systems could be installed which was why the Russians developed their katashas as area denial weapons.

Don

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true but only to a limited extent
the AIRCRAFT rockets weren't "guided" as they would be in later decades, but they were accurate enough to hit trains, individual tanks etc if the pilot was skilled.
They were not like Katyushas.
Not every pilot had enough skill though to be precise and local conditions could interfere.

When an aircraft launched a rocket, the combined speed of the aircraft and rocket (around 1,200mph), plus the pilot being able to aim the launch vehicle, then fire the rockets in pairs to "walk fire" the weapons onto a target, gave a vastly better accuracy than any bomber could achieve in that era, except an expert in "skip" or dive bombing.
They could also use their guns against the target or flak defences

Again try to remember, a lot of the German and their European allies logistics went on canals, roads and trains, making them funnelled into paths that were easier to find something worth attacking, and cause less mass murder, than area bombing.

the Germans couldn't put "flak traps " up everywhere, that's impossible, they had to be concentrated in vital areas.
Flak traps to stop fighter/bombers are vulnerable to area weapon attacks themselves, especially at night when light flak wasn't very useful (days before radar guided weapons except for large guns in certain areas, Germans were lot further behind in that tech)
Light flak in such circumstances cannot be put in heavy defences except in a few places, so they were very vulnerable to being attacked themselves



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgTJZ_cWaT0

OK.

I won't address surface-to-surface rockets because I can't speak definitively about the topic.

BUT... I CAN speak authoritatively about unguided, AIR-to-surface rockets. I've personally fired hundreds of them from fixed-wing military aircraft at high speeds (typically 450-480 knots).

As soon as the rocket leaves the aircraft, it will follow primarily a ballistic trajectory. But the trajectory will also be affected by the lateral motion/velocity of the aircraft at the instant that the rocket was fired, and (to a lesser degree) other external forces (such as a crosswind) that are relatively small unless the wind is horrendous and is a pure crosswind (but even then, the apparent surface area for a 2.75" rocket is pretty small, and the time of flight - 2-3 seconds - doesn't give the crosswind much time to affect the trajectory).

I've fired both 2.75" and 5" rockets. The objective is to put the aircraft at EXACTLY the right airspeed (taking the headwind/tailwind into account), EXACTLY the right dive angle, and EXACTLY the right altitude just as the targeting reticle on the manual gunsight crosses the target. These parameters are known in advance (i.e., the ballistics are "known" for each type of rocket through empirical testing - THOUSANDS of times - and are documented in thick "Ballistics Tables" manuals). As an advanced jet flight instructor, I TAUGHT flight students how to get the aircraft to that proper point in 3-dimensional space repeatedly.

Now as to corrections (what if you're a little fast, a little slow, a bit steep, a bit shallow, a bit high, or - GOD FORBID - a bit low when the "pipper crosses the target). Yes, there are "back of the envelope corrections for these variables. There's also a "Kentucky windage" correction for crosswinds/lateral drift at release that we taught students about.

It ain't rocket science, it's physics. It requires a modicum of pilot skill (trainable) or - in my case (strains his elbow patting himself on the back) some inherent unquantifiable skill.

Rockets are just bombs that go faster... The same rules apply.

WeberFan wrote:OK.

I won't address surface-to-surface rockets because I can't speak definitively about the topic.

BUT... I CAN speak authoritatively about unguided, AIR-to-surface rockets. I've personally fired hundreds of them from fixed-wing military aircraft at high speeds (typically 450-480 knots).

As soon as the rocket leaves the aircraft, it will follow primarily a ballistic trajectory. But the trajectory will also be affected by the lateral motion/velocity of the aircraft at the instant that the rocket was fired, and (to a lesser degree) other external forces (such as a crosswind) that are relatively small unless the wind is horrendous and is a pure crosswind (but even then, the apparent surface area for a 2.75" rocket is pretty small, and the time of flight - 2-3 seconds - doesn't give the crosswind much time to affect the trajectory).

I've fired both 2.75" and 5" rockets. The objective is to put the aircraft at EXACTLY the right airspeed (taking the headwind/tailwind into account), EXACTLY the right dive angle, and EXACTLY the right altitude just as the targeting reticle on the manual gunsight crosses the target. These parameters are known in advance (i.e., the ballistics are "known" for each type of rocket through empirical testing - THOUSANDS of times - and are documented in thick "Ballistics Tables" manuals). As an advanced jet flight instructor, I TAUGHT flight students how to get the aircraft to that proper point in 3-dimensional space repeatedly.

Now as to corrections (what if you're a little fast, a little slow, a bit steep, a bit shallow, a bit high, or - GOD FORBID - a bit low when the "pipper crosses the target). Yes, there are "back of the envelope corrections for these variables. There's also a "Kentucky windage" correction for crosswinds/lateral drift at release that we taught students about.

It ain't rocket science, it's physics. It requires a modicum of pilot skill (trainable) or - in my case (strains his elbow patting himself on the back) some inherent unquantifiable skill.

Rockets are just bombs that go faster... The same rules apply.

We're your rockets unguided?

For what it's worth buzz bombs and v2s did manage to hit London from the Netherlands..

Don

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"London" is a very, VERY big target....

at the end the V2 had around a 6 kilometre circle of error probability (meaning half would land in that area)
that is utterly crap if you're trying to hit anything meaningful, and the extreme costs of the V2 made it a colossal waste of resources

now, the V1 wasn't accurate either
but it was very cheap, compared to a bomber and crew, and only 4% of the cost of a V2
so for a long range area bombardment weapon it was pretty efficient
however, all German attacks suffered from counter intelligence messing with their targeting plus interceptions (except they couldn't intercept the V2)

Combining a V1 with better guidance systems, maybe flying too high to be shot down...longer range version...now you've got something with potential!



funny thing is, way back in "Off Armageddon reef", Merlin notes Arthur C Clark's story "Superiority"
and that is SO relevant to these and other discussions

cheap, reasonably effective, in your hands TODAY is much better than pie in the sky that doesn't do anything while the enemy gets nasty with you :p

Until you get guided weapons, your actually effective tools are unguided rockets, mine laying, skip bombing and dive bombing.
Rare units of highly skilled elites can pull off sinking the Tirpitz with unguided but specially designed weapons, but they are exceptions.
Sinking the transports the Tirpitz relies on to even MOVE is easier though

n7axw wrote:

WeberFan wrote:OK.

I won't address surface-to-surface rockets because I can't speak definitively about the topic.

BUT... I CAN speak authoritatively about unguided, AIR-to-surface rockets. I've personally fired hundreds of them from fixed-wing military aircraft at high speeds (typically 450-480 knots).

As soon as the rocket leaves the aircraft, it will follow primarily a ballistic trajectory. But the trajectory will also be affected by the lateral motion/velocity of the aircraft at the instant that the rocket was fired, and (to a lesser degree) other external forces (such as a crosswind) that are relatively small unless the wind is horrendous and is a pure crosswind (but even then, the apparent surface area for a 2.75" rocket is pretty small, and the time of flight - 2-3 seconds - doesn't give the crosswind much time to affect the trajectory).

I've fired both 2.75" and 5" rockets. The objective is to put the aircraft at EXACTLY the right airspeed (taking the headwind/tailwind into account), EXACTLY the right dive angle, and EXACTLY the right altitude just as the targeting reticle on the manual gunsight crosses the target. These parameters are known in advance (i.e., the ballistics are "known" for each type of rocket through empirical testing - THOUSANDS of times - and are documented in thick "Ballistics Tables" manuals). As an advanced jet flight instructor, I TAUGHT flight students how to get the aircraft to that proper point in 3-dimensional space repeatedly.

Now as to corrections (what if you're a little fast, a little slow, a bit steep, a bit shallow, a bit high, or - GOD FORBID - a bit low when the "pipper crosses the target). Yes, there are "back of the envelope corrections for these variables. There's also a "Kentucky windage" correction for crosswinds/lateral drift at release that we taught students about.

It ain't rocket science, it's physics. It requires a modicum of pilot skill (trainable) or - in my case (strains his elbow patting himself on the back) some inherent unquantifiable skill.

Rockets are just bombs that go faster... The same rules apply.

We're your rockets unguided?

For what it's worth buzz bombs and v2s did manage to hit London from the Netherlands..

Don

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No "guidance mechanism" as I think you intend the term. A casing, a warhead, and fuel (solid), and a motor. No gyros, no seekerhead, nothing.

EDIT: The 2.75" rockets tended to"wobble" a bit when they came out of the pod. The 5" rockets were like God's own roman candle going downrange. If you ever launched them at night, you had to close one eye so you didn't lose your night vision! They went right where you aimed them though...

SilverbladeTE wrote:
now, the V1 wasn't accurate either
but it was very cheap, compared to a bomber and crew, and only 4% of the cost of a V2
so for a long range area bombardment weapon it was pretty efficient

Yep. British were quite worried about the possibility, that Germans might add some simple mechanism to V-1 autopilot, that would make missile zig-zag on later part of trajectory. It would not significantly affect accuracy (it was low anyway), but would drastically reduce the effect of anti-aircraft fire against them. Fortunately, Germans were much more worried about Fi-103 range, and their main efforts were concentrated on it (the last model, being in developement when the war ended, were supposed to have enough range to hit London and Paris from the positions in Germany)

Combining a V1 with better guidance systems, maybe flying too high to be shot down...longer range version...now you've got something with potential!

Essentially it was what USAAF were trying to do. General Arnold essentially considered manned bombers as things that would quickly go obsolete, and was very interested in all kind of guided missiles.

During the war, USAAF tried to develope their own response to V-1 - the JB "Bat" missile (no relation with Navy's "Bat" glide bomb). It was supposed to be a turbojet powered missile with high subsonic speed (up to 900 kmh) and 1000+ km range.

Unfortunately, they gave the developement to Northrop... who predictably decided to make a flying wing, yeah. Also, the planned turbojets never worked as well as planned.

So, USAAF tried something else - they reverse-engineered the V-1 as JB-2 "Loon" missile. Essentially it was a carbon copy of V-1, but with AZON-type azimuth control system. It was supposed that the JB-2 would be tracked by radar on 250+ km distance, and guided by "left", "right" and "dive" command with enough precision to hit specific industrial tarjets.

On practice, results weren't exactly as stellar, but Arnold ordered JB-2 in production anyway. He was very concerned about the possibility, that unless Air Force would claim a stake in missile territory, the missiles would go into artillery area of competence. He wanted the missile to be mass-produced by early 1946, to the planned invasion in Japan. The idea was to barrage Japan pre-invasion with enormous barrage of cruise missiles - about 300 launches per day! - to soak up the air defenses.

Eventually, hovewer, he stuck on logistic issues. The planned launch ratio was logistically unsustainable. It would require 25% of all USA cargo shipping in Atlantic being redirected to Pacific, and would cause 10-15% drop in ammunition production due to enormous demands on powder and rocket fuel for boosters. Arnold tried to get support from Navy, but admirals weren't exactly enthusiastic either, and only agreed on limited scale combat testings. Anyway, war ended before any JB-2 could be launched in anger.

WeberFan wrote:OK.

I won't address surface-to-surface rockets because I can't speak definitively about the topic.

BUT... I CAN speak authoritatively about unguided, AIR-to-surface rockets. I've personally fired hundreds of them from fixed-wing military aircraft at high speeds (typically 450-480 knots).

Excellent summary, WeberFan!

Dilandu and WeberFan
Thanks for the info, well done guys

SilverbladeTE wrote:Dilandu and WeberFan
Thanks for the info, well done guys

You are welcome)

[quote="SilverbladeTE"]"London" is a very, VERY big target....
[quote]

Actually...Britian is a large target. London is a small one...

Don

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