Transcript What is a Secret Weapon?

WW 2 History Club
Secret Weapons
&
Wonder Weapons
23 - Dec 1- 2013
What is a Secret Weapon?
Secret Weapons are those that are (at
least initially) unknown to “the other
side” and are designed to have a
significant impact on the war’s
outcomes.
May be of any type including nontraditional “weapons”
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What is a Wonder Weapon?
Wonder Weapons are those that may or
may not have been secret but ultimately
had a significant impact on the outcome
of the war.
Many are, at first glance, rather mundane
and appear to lack the elegance of radical
and unusual weapons.
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What We Will Not Cover
• Manhattan Project & Operations Silverplate;
German atomic program
• Codes/Ciphers: Bletchley Park, USA SIS,
USN OP-20G
• British Air Defense System
• Radar generally
• German jet aircraft, stealth aircraft, …
• Lots more …
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What We Will Cover
• V1, V2, V3
• RAF 617 Squadron (movie night and book club)
• Radar support of bomber navigation
• Proximity Fuse
• Operation Storm
• Higgins Boat
• Special segment
• The Jeep
• C47
• Willow Run
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Ideas and Prototypes vs
Deployed Weapons Systems?
• History is littered with ideas and prototypes that
never made it
• Useless to argue, what if this or what if that
• Need > idea > R&D > design > engr prototype >
mfg capability > mfg prototype > pilot > full scale
> field use
• Logistics and maintenance
• Germans never quite understood this
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Quality vs Quantity
• WWII was a war of production systems
• If you out produce your enemy, you win
• Japan understood this and knew they had to get
the US to the negotiating table early
• Germany understood this; German
political/military leaders did not
• German designs tended to be highly engineered
and complex, not easy to manufacture or
maintain
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German V1
• Developed in parallel with V2
• Substantial development at
Peenemundee
• Project under Luftwaffe “management”
• Argus pulse jet (50 Hz) engine
• Original cruise missle
• Simple autopilot guidance system -- pendulum &
gyrocompass -- power by compressed air
• vane anemometer drove counter (set at launch) which cut
power/controls at “target”
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German V1
• Required launch ramp (one of its
problems)
• Not as portable as V2
• Initial altitude goal proved unreliable and was reset to
approx 4500 ft (much easier to hit with AA)
• Generally quite effective even though only 25% actually
made it to the target; much more effective than traditional
bombing
• Inexpensive (~ $2500); 1900 lbs of warhead, 5000 lb
weapon
• Approx 8,000 sorties
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Aggregate Family
• V2 was just one of a rocket series in various stages of
development from 1932-45
• Most famous was A4 or V2
• A1 1932 R&D project, alcohol and liquid O2, gyros in
front, one test firing
• A2
1934, similar to A1, gyros mid, two successful tests
• A3 1935, 3x larger than A1/A2, much larger engine,
similar liquid fuels.
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Aggregate Family
• A5 continuation of A3; used to test concepts and
systems for A4
• A4
only fully deployed system
• A4b/A9
longer range (450 mi vs 110 mi) version of A4,
used wings to increase range during descent why?
• A6 A5 variant used to test different propellants,
rumoured to also be a manned reconnaissance vehicle
• A7
naval version, never got to full prototype
• A8
“stretch” version of A4; never got to prototype
• A9/A10
designed to attack USA; two stage (A9 sitting
on top of A10)
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Aggregate Family
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Aggregate Family
• A11
final stage of a 3 stage system
(A9/A10/A11)
• A12
final stage of a 4 stage system
(A9/A10/A11/A12), orbital capability
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V2
• More portable than V1 (mobile launcher)
• No practical defense once launched
except “sending back” bogus results B24?
• Only “defense” was to attack launch sites
& manufacturing sites, and push launch
sites out of range
• 10X more expensive than V1
• Slightly larger payload (2200 lbs vs 1900)
• 6,000 built; 3,000 sorties
• Range ~ 200 miles
• At what target were most V2s launched?
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V1 and V2 Assessment
• Total program costs were approx 50% more
than the Manhattan Project
• Consumed huge quantities of resources that
could have been better used elsewhere (lots
of potatos)
• Not a significant impact on the outcome of
WWII but huge impact longer term
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V3 Gun
• Supergun used the multi-charge
concept (100 yr old) where a sequence
of “side charges” (solid rocket
boosters) adds velocity
• Four different designs in the queue by
early 1944; range ~ 60 miles
• Site constructed near Pas-de-Calis
was to have 2 facilities each with 5
banks of 5 guns for a total of 50 guns
all pointed at London (London was 103
miles away)
• Site was destroyed by RAF 617 Sqn
• Other smaller guns and sites operated
sporadically until early 1945
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V3 Gun
• Basic (original) Specs
– 430 feet long
– 150mm (~6”) shell; 310 lbs
– 300 per hour
– Muzzle velocity ~ 4900 fps
– Range ~ 100 miles
• Actually achieved
– Muzzle velocity ~ 3100 fps
– Range ~ 60 miles
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Bomber Navigation
• Daylight bombing did not work -- both Germans
and British figured this out quickly
• Bombing at night was a navigator’s nightmare
• Butt Report (1941): 5% of bombs fell within 5
miles of their target
• German bombing was far more accurate, why?
• Significant use of radio beams to direct bombers
– 1930s: Commercial blind landing aides
– Extensions in 1939/1940
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Knickebein
One beam along
which bombers flew.
One beam to tell
bomber where to drop
Investigation was
Operation
“Headache”
Countermeasures
were “Asprin”
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X-Gerät
One beam along
which bombers flew.
3 beams to tell
bomber where to
(automatically) drop
Countermeasure:
Send out false “Elbe”
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Y-Gerät
Essentially a radar system that tracked aircraft and sent
instructions to the pilot how to alter course and where
to drop
Countermeasure:
RV Jones, et al, figured out what the Germans would try
next and were ready with countermeasures. 2nd signal
sent to German ground station confused the ground
station. When Luftwaffe eventually realized that British
were jamming the system all along, they lost confidance
in such systems and did not deploy further systems
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British Gee
Radio beams used to form “2D grid over target area;
eventually expanded to substantial size “grid”
Aircraft able to compute a “fix”
Initially deployed with pathfinder groups
Ultimately quite successful even as Germans developed
countermeasures for local navigation in the UK; bomber
losses due to navigation problems dropped by 65%
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British Oboe
Radio transponder approach
Ground control would fix the bomber location; ground
would instruct pilot re course and target
Accurate to about 35 yards at 150 miles
One aircraft at a time; OK for pathfinders
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British H2S
Airborne ground-mapping radar
Deployed in 1943
More important as bomber raids went deeper into
Germany (Gee and Oboe were range limited)
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Proximity Fuze
Miniature radar system in the nose of a projectile that
senses when the projectile is “sufficiently enough” and
detonate the war head
Used in anti aircraft, anti-armour, anti personnel and
general HE
Both US and British had working systems. US system
was adopted by both allies.
Significant improvement over previous methods, even
radar directed AA used by Germans
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Higgins Boat
"Andrew Higgins ...", Eisenhower said, "is the man
who won the war for us." "...If Higgins had not
designed and built those LCVP's, we never could
have landed over an open beach. The whole strategy
of the war would have been different."
The LCVP, aka Higgins Boat, was an adaptation of a 1930s workboat design
originally used in the swamps of southern Louisiana. More ...
The Higgins Boat Industries manufactured a large percentage of the US
Navy's vessels during WWII including PT boats, patrol boats and many
different types of landing craft. Higgins built over 20,000 boats during
WWII More .
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The Jeep
WWII was a war of mobility and motorized armies
More than half of German transport was horses
Not many horses in the US Army during WWII
The Jeep was a “go anywhere, do anything” vehicle that was the solution
to more problems than anyone imagined.
Cheap, light, robust, reliable, very adaptable, easy to manufacture, easy to
maintain
Willys Overland made 360,000
Ford made 280,00
50,000 sent to
Russia
German manufactured 51,000 Kübelwagens in total
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What was the
Seep?
C47 Skytrain
The C47 Skytrain, aka Dakota, R4D, Gooney Bird,
… was the military version of the Douglas DC3.
Like the Jeep, it was versatile, robust and easy to
maintain; an aircraft that was easy to fly and
would do just about anything asked of it
Approx 10,000 built
Approx 50 variants
Major impact on many campaigns
C-53 Skytrooper
Guadalcanal
Carry paratroopers
Bulge
Tow gliders
The Hump
XCG-17 assault glider
Berlin Airlift
AC-47 Gun Ship
It is still in service in a half dozen countries
Why R4D? Why Dakota?
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Willow Run
Widely assumed that Henry Ford was behind Willow Run and the amazing
B24 factory. Not so …
Henry Ford was anti-semetic, mildly pro Nazi and a complete nut case.
He refused to make Merlin engines for the British, … so Packard did
Without intervention from Wm Sorensen and Ford’s son, Edsel, Willow
Run would probably not have happened.
Can’t build aircraft “that way”, … meeting with Consolidated
Consolidated’s goals vs Sorensen’s plan
The result:
one B24 rolled off the assembly line every 57 minutes
Much better quality aircraft
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End
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Operation Storm
Japanese plan to bomb US cities and Panama Canal
Only reasonable approach was to launch bombers close
to target
How to get close: how about a submarine that carried
bombers?
Japanese I400 submarines
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