OT: Drawings of the 1942 German V2 Rocket

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It was more than that, the Allies knew enough to constantly change their altitude during flight to evade flak.

A 1943 U.S. Army Air Corps training film here:

The training film also debunks the idiot who said:
"...especially the Germans, who had primitive radar technology"
Looks like they had very sophisticated fire control radars, directors, and coordination of multiple gun batteries, as well as their usual excellence in tactics development.

 

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It's very hard to hit a plane with a bullet, even if you have radar

aiming assistance. It took proximity fuzes to get the hit ratio down.

Unless the fuzed projectile was maneuverable, which they weren't, the proximity fuse relaxed the prediction and pointing accuracy of the target somewhat. It was not a miracle weapon.

 

[Phil Hobbs]

Believe whatever you want, Phil. There were a lot of forward
observers who passed information from site to site by radio. All the
mountains didn't help matters. A lot of orders had to be hand delivered
by courier, but only if they weren't time critical. There were no phone
lines along the coast lines, or to most military sites prior to the
construction of "White Alice", the first 'Over the Horizon' microwave
communications system. If they took over Russia, it would have been
little problem for them to have a floating launch platform or even to
land it along the coast and go inland on one of the many rivers. The US
built planes changed hands at what later became Ft. Greely. That
airfield had many names over the years and isn't to be confused with the
original Ft. Greely, which was located at Kodiak.

I prefer to believe what I have direct or at least documentary evidence
for, or a credible detailed account by someone who was there.

So some poor guy on a mountaintop someplace. _That_ I don't doubt. But
even Hitler wouldn't have been crazy enough to build a launch
infrastructure and drag in V2s to try beaning him.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 USA
+1 845 480 2058

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[Phil Hobbs]

Big Bertha was a world war I gun. Maybe you are thinking of the Gustav gun. That was very effective during a couple of WW2 battles

Cheers

Klaus

Right, they didn't have to reduce the Belgian forts in WW2, because
there weren't any any more. Liege, Namur, and one other one whose name
I can never remember.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 USA
+1 845 480 2058

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[[email protected]]

It was primitive. The Germans had huge antennas and gridded tubes,

kilowatts at hundreds of MHz.

Well they were ahead of their time then because the entire U.S. early warning system PAVE PAWS operates at relatively low frequency UHF and uses huge antennas. Low frequency does not necessarily mean low resolution. Apparently it is the frequency of choice for very long range and very large volume surveillance.

The US had cavity magnetrons making

megawatts at 3-30 GHz, waveguide technology, reflex klystron LOs, cool

signal processing, all sorts of land, sea, and airborne long range and

high resolution radars.

You're making an apples to oranges comparison.

Until they captured some of our gear, they

couldn't even detect our radar signals. US radar canceled the Uboat

effectiveness.

Bull. They were playing the typical game of measure/ counter-measure, and nothing was ever "canceled."
http://uboat.net/technical/detectors.htm

The German radar technology was especially deficient in night

fighters.

Not going to waste time looking into it because you're probably wrong aboutthat too.

 

[[email protected]]

Over London, it took on average over 2000 aa shells to hit a German

bomber. Prox fuzes improved that by something like 10:1.

That sounds like an inflated statistic to me.

Patton stormed across Europe significantly aided by prox shells. The

dividing like between East and West Germany would have been many miles

to the west without them.

Patton wasn't shooting down airplanes.

Prox fuzes seriously diminished the Kamakaze threat, too. It's hard to

hit a plane with a bullet.

Yep- planes are too easy, these days we use bullets to shoot down missiles, or at least that's what they claim they can do with Phalanx.

 

[Adrian Tuddenham]

...The US had cavity magnetrons making
megawatts at 3-30 GHz, waveguide technology, reflex klystron LOs, cool
signal processing, all sorts of land, sea, and airborne long range and
high resolution radars....
...US radar canceled the Uboat
effectiveness.

Whilst it is correct that the U.S. manufactured and used these things,
the credit for inventing many of them should go to Randall, Boot,
Blumlein and others in the U.K.

 

[Uwe Hercksen]

Depends which ones you mean. IIRC the real Big Bertha was an excellent
weapon: a railway gun reduced the Belgian frontier forts in a few days.
Later on there was the Pariskanone, called Big Bertha by the press,
which was a complete waste of effort.

Hello,

there was the V3 gun also.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-3_cannon
It was stationary and should bomb London from northern france, but it
was destroyed by Allied bombing raids before completion.

Bye

 

[Uwe Hercksen]

It took 30 tons of potatoes to make the alcohol to launch one V2, while the rest
of the country was starving. About 10 times more slave-labor workers died making
the things as enemy population died. It was a civilian terror weapon, and the
Brits had already shown that they would carry on.

Hello,

they used alcohol as propellant because they were short on petrol
products. The first rockets build by the von Braun team in the USA used
alcohol too. Using alcohol with some water in it made cooling of the
rocket engine easier. Some years after the war they were able to use
rocket kerosine instead of alcohol.

Bye

 

[Uwe Hercksen]

It was primitive. The Germans had huge antennas and gridded tubes,
kilowatts at hundreds of MHz. The US had cavity magnetrons making
megawatts at 3-30 GHz, waveguide technology, reflex klystron LOs, cool
signal processing, all sorts of land, sea, and airborne long range and
high resolution radars. Until they captured some of our gear, they
couldn't even detect our radar signals. US radar canceled the Uboat
effectiveness.

Hello,

well, the cavity magnetron and the radar using it was invented, designed
and built in England.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetron

Bye

 

[Phil Hobbs]

Well they were ahead of their time then because the entire U.S. early
warning system PAVE PAWS operates at relatively low frequency UHF and
uses huge antennas. Low frequency does not necessarily mean low
resolution. Apparently it is the frequency of choice for very long
range and very large volume surveillance.

That's an over-the-horizon synthetic aperture radar. Not what you want
for close-range air defence.n.

Bull. They were playing the typical game of measure/ counter-measure,
and nothing was ever "canceled."
http://uboat.net/technical/detectors.htm

At the point where centimetric radar in airplanes and escorts could
detect a U-boat with a schnorkel, it was all over for diesel boats.

The Kriegsmarine had a sub with a much longer underwater range in
development, but never got it to work.

Not going to waste time looking into it because you're probably wrong
about that too.

Nope. Centimetric radar allowed enough antenna gain that the receivers
could reject the ground return. Otherwise their maximum detection range
was set by their altitude.

Also the minimum pulse width for a centimeter set was short enough that
the night fighters could stay within visual range despite the target
taking evasive action.

See e.g. Bowen, "Radar Days", Hanbury Brown, "Boffin", or R. V. Jones,
"Most Secret War" (aka "The Wizard War" in the US).

All great reads if you're actually interested in the technology.

Nobody says the Germans weren't smart. They still are, in fact.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[Phil Hobbs]

That sounds like an inflated statistic to me.



Patton wasn't shooting down airplanes.

They were used as antipersonnel weapons e.g. in the Battle of the Bulge.
Shrapnel is very much deadlier when the shell bursts 10 or 20 feet up
instead of a foot or two underground--even a foxhole doesn't help much then.


Cheers

Phil Hobbs


--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[Martin Brown]

Probably not. The main purpose of AA fire was to make the people in
cities feel better and that "something" was being done. The falling
shrapnel damage was no fun but the enemy bombs were a lot worse.

It may have been more like 8. I haven't read the book in a while. But even a
factor of 2 would have been miraculous.

At over 1000 feet per second a timed shell has to be set to millisecond accuracy
to do shrapnel damage. Direct hits on aircraft are wildly improbable. Prox fuses
took the altitude error out of the equation.

30mS either side was probably good enough in practice. Aero engines
don't like bits of fast moving metal anywhere near the works. However
the priority order of invention of prox fuses was Germany, UK, USA. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze#Design

Germany didn't put its electrostatic prox fuse design into production
until it was too late to make any difference.

One of my physics tutors at university was a named inventor of the UK
and first successful allied RF Doppler proximity fuse that ultimately
was capable of taking on a V1 flying bomb using radar assisted AA guns.

US provided the manufacturing and a minor refinement to the receiver.

Same with the cavity magnetron we gave away technology to the USA in
return for manufacturing. Tizard took over a top secret 6kW prototype.

 

[Phil Hobbs]

Probably not. The main purpose of AA fire was to make the people in
cities feel better and that "something" was being done. The falling
shrapnel damage was no fun but the enemy bombs were a lot worse.


30mS either side was probably good enough in practice. Aero engines
don't like bits of fast moving metal anywhere near the works. However
the priority order of invention of prox fuses was Germany, UK, USA. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze#Design

Germany didn't put its electrostatic prox fuse design into production
until it was too late to make any difference.

The British had an experimental photoelectric fuze quite a bit
earlier--it detected when it flew into the shadow of an airplane, but it
wasn't as reliable as they liked.

One of my physics tutors at university was a named inventor of the UK
and first successful allied RF Doppler proximity fuse that ultimately
was capable of taking on a V1 flying bomb using radar assisted AA guns.

US provided the manufacturing and a minor refinement to the receiver.

Same with the cavity magnetron we gave away technology to the USA in
return for manufacturing. Tizard took over a top secret 6kW prototype.

Building a tube radio that would survive being fired from a cannon was a
pretty good trick, for sure.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs



--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[[email protected]]

That's an over-the-horizon synthetic aperture radar. Not what you want

for close-range air defence.n.

Which part is not wanted for close-in? Patriot is phased array, if that's what you mean by synthetic aperture, and that's a close-in radar.

At the point where centimetric radar in airplanes and escorts could

detect a U-boat with a schnorkel, it was all over for diesel boats.

Not when the submarine could submerge before it was detected.

Nope. Centimetric radar allowed enough antenna gain that the receivers

could reject the ground return. Otherwise their maximum detection range

was set by their altitude.



Also the minimum pulse width for a centimeter set was short enough that

the night fighters could stay within visual range despite the target

taking evasive action.

That statement makes no sense because by the definition of night fighter there is no visual.

See e.g. Bowen, "Radar Days", Hanbury Brown, "Boffin", or R. V. Jones,

"Most Secret War" (aka "The Wizard War" in the US).



All great reads if you're actually interested in the technology.



Nobody says the Germans weren't smart. They still are, in fact.

The Germans knew all about magnetrons and cm wavelength technology before the war even broke out. Their requirements were different from the Allies, being more of a defense strategy against bombers. See WW2 section of :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_fighter#History

 

[[email protected]]

Of course. But the subsequent development and productizing happened mostly in
the US... the Brits just didn't have the resources. The klystron (receive LO)
was invented in California by the Varian brothers, and the waveguide work and
systems stuff was mostly done at the MIT RadLab.

Waveguides were not new in 1940's, much of the basic research was done
in the 1890's, see the Wireless World article "Victorian microwaves".
For instance C.J.Bose worked with circular waveguides in that era.

 

[[email protected]]

The Germans saw their first cavity magnetron in the wreckage of an

Allied bomber. The copper cavity itself is pretty much indestructable.

No, wrong. The Germans report that reverse engineered the magnetron radar captured in the Rotterdam crash noted that it was very much like a patented Soviet magnetron from the 1930s. They were well aware of cavity magnetron technology and possibilities.

 

[[email protected]]

On Thursday, July 25, 2013 3:27:40 PM UTC-4, Phil Hobbs wrote:

You need to understand that a lot of the techno history from and about the era is total bs written by total consummate bs-artists. Nothing worked as well as they claimed. Many of these so-called authors are advocates and lobbyists for massive government investment in S&T R&D regardless of how wasteful and pointless.
If the detection and destruction of the German U-Boat was the success that they claim, then how was it the U.S. put a $1B dollar into the development of the B-36 and 60,000 bomb with the dedicated mission of blowing through 50 ft reinforced concrete thickness of the German submarine pens on the coast of France, and this effort continued right into 1945, only to be terminated with the successful test of the A-bomb?
The night fighter radar performance is a similar overstated joke, what dammed good did it do if they couldn't accompany the bombers over Germany?

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On Thursday, July 25, 2013 3:27:40 PM UTC-4, Phil Hobbs wrote:

You need to understand that a lot of the techno history from and
about the era is total bs written by total consummate bs-artists.

As opposed to Usenet, check.

Nothing worked as well as they claimed. Many of these so-called
authors are advocates and lobbyists for massive government investment
in S&T R&D regardless of how wasteful and pointless.

The U-boat casualty and shipping loss figures aren't written by people
like that.

If the detection and destruction of the German U-Boat was the success
that they claim, then how was it the U.S. put a $1B dollar into the
development of the B-36 and 60,000 bomb with the dedicated mission of
blowing through 50 ft reinforced concrete thickness of the German
submarine pens on the coast of France, and this effort continued
right into 1945, only to be terminated with the successful test of
the A-bomb?

Having a fall-back position is a very good thing, especially considering
what was riding on the outcome of the U-boat war.

The night fighter radar performance is a similar overstated joke,
what dammed good did it do if they couldn't accompany the bombers
over Germany?

They did, but not until the P51 and P47 arrived. (Might have been the
P38 rather than the P47, I forget.)

Night interception by radar was a different issue.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs



--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 USA
+1 845 480 2058

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[[email protected]]

As opposed to Usenet, check.

All of Larkin's proximity fuze miracle reports come from that one book written by the former APL manager...

They did, but not until the P51 and P47 arrived. (Might have been the

P38 rather than the P47, I forget.)

Even then they couldn't hang around long, something like 20 minutes before they had to head back.