Giving the Nazis F117s

[Grey Wolf]

I remember this film, but what the hell was it ??? Someone went back and did this... Then a lot of it was set in the alternate future it generated

Grey Wolf

[Landshark]

Originally Posted by Grey Wolf

I remember this film, but what the hell was it ??? Someone went back and did this... Then a lot of it was set in the alternate future it generated

Grey Wolf

Philedelphia Experiment 2

[Chris]

Would there be much of a difference? F117s are slower than most 1940 fighters and radars were not so common. Most likerly result is that the RAF flies more CAP patrols and radar development is hampered.

Unless the planes have nukes of course.

Chris

[Landshark]

That was the POD. The plane had a single nuclear bomb which was used on Washington DC. Presumably the Germans bluffed the Allies that they had more and could wipe out any Allied city they wanted to. The film makes the point that after the initial flight the Germans couldn't get the plane to fly again, though how they managed to get an F-117 to fly across the Atlantic is beyond me, they haven't got that much range.

[robertp6165]

Originally Posted by Chris

Would there be much of a difference? F117s are slower than most 1940 fighters and radars were not so common. Most likerly result is that the RAF flies more CAP patrols and radar development is hampered.

Unless the planes have nukes of course.

Chris

Not actually true. The F117's cruising speed is 500 mph. It's top speed is 600 mph. The top speed of the piston-engined fighters current in 1940 was about 350 mph. By the end of WWII that had increased to 450 mph...still slower than the F117. About the only thing which would have been capable of dealing with an F117 would have been a ME262, a Lockheed P-80 or a Gloster Meteor, none of which were available until the final year of the war. If Hitler had F117s in 1940, he would have cleaned our clocks. The Battle of Britain would have been a total disaster for Britain...the radar warning system would have been totally ineffective, and the fighters available couldn't have caught the F117 anyway.

[Chris]

Well, in a stright fight like the air battles of 1914-18, you might be right, however..:

-The RAF has a place to defend. The F117s have to come to that place to be any good. That minimises the speed advantage

-The RAF had experience with Combat Air Patrols and watching posts. Once it became ovious that Radar was useless, the RAF would use the old early warning stations to give the raid warnings instead.

-The F117s would be irreplacable. The RAF can replace every plane it loses.

-How are the F117s armed? Unless they have an unlimited supply of missiles, they'll run out in the first battle, and if the germans can't replace the bullets, they'll soon run out of guns as well.

-Finally, how are they guided? Without satiliettes, how oudl they find their target in the dark of night?

Chris

[MattRice]

Originally Posted by Chris

Well, in a stright fight like the air battles of 1914-18, you might be right, however..:




Chris

-The RAF has a place to defend. The F117s have to come to that place to be any good. That minimises the speed advantage

A Hurricane or a Spitfire simply wouldn't have been able to catch the F117. If by chance they could have, the chances of shooting the F117 down with their .30s is minimal to say the least...



-The RAF had experience with Combat Air Patrols and watching posts. Once it became ovious that Radar was useless, the RAF would use the old early warning stations to give the raid warnings instead.

Not if the F117 was beetling along at Nape-Of-Earth they wouldn't. And even if some HomeGuard did catch it zipping past, it would be over its target before the old geezer could call in the sighting.




-The F117s would be irreplacable. The RAF can replace every plane it loses.

This is true, but if the Germans are careful there should be no reason they would lose their F117s



-How are the F117s armed? Unless they have an unlimited supply of missiles, they'll run out in the first battle, and if the germans can't replace the bullets, they'll soon run out of guns as well.

They wouldn't have to fire their guns (do they have guns?) because they wouldn't have to fight the Hurricanes and Spitfires because of their speed (see above) and missiles probably wouldn't work on prop aircraft anyway. And I'm sure the bombs could be designed to fit the appropriate racks so they wouldn't run out of bombs to drop on Fighter Command bases.

And that would be their job... To knock out Fighter Command, which is what the BoB was all about...




-

[Matt]

blows dust off

I saw someone looking at this in the archives, and I just wanted to point out a few things.

1) F117s aren't really fighters, they have no guns and can carry no missiles
2) They can only carry JDAMs, LGBs, or Iron bombs
3) There's no GPS so the JDAMs are useless
4) Unless German can figure out how to make the guidance heads for Paveway bombs, they're SOL when they run out.... Since an F117 can only carry two bombs, it would be like pinprick on anything once those guided muntions run out.

[Nik]

Barrage balloons ( Expendable 'blimps' on steel cable ;-) were widely deployed to deter dive-bombers and straffing runs.

Flying 'nap of the earth' into an area littered by such is a *bad* idea...

[hans]

F-117 is "invisible bomber"

[Jesse]

In terms of the movie, the fact that they got the plane actually didn't seem that important in itself, the main thing was just that it was armed with a nuke that they used to destroy Washington. Then again, a big subplot was an American Nazi wanting to go back in time to warn them about getting the plane away from the nuclear explosion in time so it wouldn't be destroyed, which doesn't really make sense if the only thing valuable about the plane was that it carried a nuclear bomb. Plus it doesn't really make sense that the Nazis would know that the bomb on the plane was a real nuclear bomb if they hadn't already tested one or something. Oh well, it was a pretty crappy movie anyway.

[NapoleonXIV]

There was a story called Hawk Among the Sparrows which won the Hugo for Best novella in 1969. An armed spyplane SR-21 (actually more advanced than that but you get the idea) is ISOT back to WWI and must go up against the Flying Circus. But how can he fight them? He has no guns (an SR-21 would outfly any bullet in existence) and his missiles are heat seekers, which vintage Fokkers don't generate enough of. What to do? (Highlight for the answer)

He flies close past them at Mach 2, pulling them apart in the slipstream like so many kites.

[Nik]

And straining the lamp-oil, of course...

[aktarian]

And what happens when something breaks on it? Like FBW component? Or some computer chip? Or RAM material gets scratched and looses it's stealthines?

B-52 would be more usefull. Not that far in the future so spares could be produced. Not overly reliant on computers, more simple. Robust. Big bombload. Don't know if it could fly higher than RAF planes though......

Originally Posted by hans

F-117 is "invisible bomber"

Not everybody was informed of this....

[Melvin Loh]

There was 1 episode of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS the cartoon which had Venger the villain discover a trans-time portal, and captured both an advanced USAF contemporary fighter and a downed LUFTWAFFE airman from WWII, and his plan was to send this German dude back in time with the advanced plane to win the war for the Nazis and thereby prevent the heroes from ever being born. Didn't work though cos the German guy called Heinrich IIRC crashed the plane as he went into the portal and parachuted to safety on the other side- back to WWII- telling the children that he'd give them their future since they helped him.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by aktarian

And what happens when something breaks on it? Like FBW component? Or some computer chip? Or RAM material gets scratched and looses it's stealthines?

B-52 would be more usefull. Not that far in the future so spares could be produced. Not overly reliant on computers, more simple. Robust. Big bombload. Don't know if it could fly higher than RAF planes though......




Not everybody was informed of this....

It's all a matter of having a radar powerful enough to detect it. The Russians have devolped one, and are trying to sell it. For the F-117 shot down over Serbia, it's specualted that it happened on of two ways. 1) The Serbs picked up a trace of something on a regular radar and volleyed their missiles ala Gary Powers and the U2, or 2) They managed to track it somehow using the same tech that is used in your cell-phone.

[Tony Williams]

Stealth planes are designed to achieve 'radar invisibility' only within a certain range of frequencies - so they choose the ones most likely to be used by an enemy air-defence system.

The story goes that RN Type 42 destroyers were able to pick up the F117s flying to Iraq in 1991 because their old radars used an old-fashioned frequency which the plane wasn't protected against...

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

[Matt]

Now that I read that, I think I can recall reading about the old radars somewhere else. IIRC there was a third idea about the Serbs that they had some old 60s era radar that picked them up.