Missile Gunboats in WW2?
- Thread starter phx1138
- Start date
I don't know about guided weapons. That might be a bit much for a PT Boat, but a PT Boat armed with hedgehogs instead of torpedoes might be pretty effective in certain situations.
Wire guided might be doable by 1945 without large bats but the short range would make them of limited use for naval applications. Might be used by SBoats against allied MGB or the other way around. Since they were packing automatic guns ( 40mm or 57mm on the allied boats) my money would be on the guys aiming the guns over the guys steering the missiles.
I think your biggest problem is going to be the horizon. At sea level the horizon is pretty close. There's a reason why FC radars are mounted as high as possible from the waterline.
Even assuming your radar sits 20-30 feet above sea level your horizon is still very close (6-8 miles from recollection). And if your missiles are wireguided and an operator then you're going to have issues getting them that high up for manual guidance. So you won't detect stuff far away enough to be able to take much advantage of the extra speed a missle willl give over torpedos. You can see why so much effort was invested post war in having helicopters able to hand off targets to patrol boats.
Even assuming your radar sits 20-30 feet above sea level your horizon is still very close (6-8 miles from recollection). And if your missiles are wireguided and an operator then you're going to have issues getting them that high up for manual guidance. So you won't detect stuff far away enough to be able to take much advantage of the extra speed a missle willl give over torpedos. You can see why so much effort was invested post war in having helicopters able to hand off targets to patrol boats.
Huh, well alright then. If that's the case considering we already had the American radar guided Bat glide bomb sticking semi-active guidance on an actual missile shouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility. As ModernKiwi says one of the main limiting factors though is going to be the distance to the horizon which at sea level is roughly just over six and a half miles from what a quick search tells me. But whilst that's not as long say a 5"/38 which has about 3 miles range on that it's also limited to how far they can see, plus sticking the radar even a little high up helps extend its range. Depending on how big the missiles are could we perhaps see them being put on corvettes, or possibly even something Fairmile D MTB-sized, as a way of giving it an extra kick against destroyers and bigger ships?
Put the radar on a mast 50' up. Now you've extended the horizon to 8-9 miles. Which in the scheme of WW2 things isn't too bad. I doubt you'd get very good range measurements out of it in anything but the smoothest seas though. 50' is very high for a PT boat although I imagine a corvette or the like might manage it OK.
Is there any way we could get active radar guidance on a missile that's small enough to be carried on say a corvette? One idea I had was you find the enemy, or even better someone else finds them for you, blind fire the missile on an arc trajectory to where they are and after a certain point the radar kicks in and guides it in for the terminal phase. Has the major benefit of being fire and forget so you don't have to stick around in gun range for too long. Something like that early enough could really ruin the Regia Marina and Kriegsmarine's day. Of course if you manage to get that then air launched versions would be even more effective, but that's a separate matter.
Sounds a lot like how the BAT's semi active guidance was supposed to work. And indeed how most modern SSM's work. So I'm guessing it would be possible with late war US/Britsh radar technology - albiet unlikely to be too reliable. Of course by that stage there's not much left of the enemy fleet to use it on...
For a DD or 'vette, that's not an unreasonable radar mast height (& for PTs, working in pairs wouldn't be a bad idea: one as an illuminator), if Bat is your weapon of choice. I prefer Felix because it's purely passive.ModernKiwi said:
That's pretty much my thinking, too: something with about a 500pd warhead, comparable to a torpedo, but smaller & faster, with a longer range & higher hit probability. Something also useful against merchants, for use by subs, too? Or useful against DDs for MTBs & subs?Simon said:
Working in pairs you can do that with *Seabat. A *Seacat would offer the same option, with only one ship.Simon said:
Do keep in mind that both BAT and Felix are bombs, not missiles. No propulsion system other than gravity.
Just by comparison: The Henschel Hs 293 weighed over a 1000kg and was airdropped and only had a range of 4-8km (depending upon drop altitude). You're launching from sea level. You need a lot more thrust than the few seconds that the Hs293's rocket gave it. Your sea launched missle is likely to weigh in around 1.5 tons. On a PT boat (35-40 tones top weight). you'd be lucky to get two on board.
Just by comparison: The Henschel Hs 293 weighed over a 1000kg and was airdropped and only had a range of 4-8km (depending upon drop altitude). You're launching from sea level. You need a lot more thrust than the few seconds that the Hs293's rocket gave it. Your sea launched missle is likely to weigh in around 1.5 tons. On a PT boat (35-40 tones top weight). you'd be lucky to get two on board.
If you can get active guidance on the missile itself for a fire and forget option then something like the set-up on the modern day Russian Tarantul-class corvettes, stick a pair of twin launchers on each side of a corvette and not bother with carrying reloads, would be rather interesting.
Adding wings/airframe & a 3" rocket would be dead easy. So would adding a motorcycle engine. (The GB-4s were much like that.) Say, a piston-engined Gargoyle with "heat vision"?ModernKiwi said:
Not actually. PTs or MTBs carried four torpedoes (about 3000pd each) & 4 tubes (about another 2000 each?).ModernKiwi said:
That works. I was thinking about something more like a small V-1 (very short span bipe/X-wing), with catapult launcher(s) & reload capability, something akin to IJN torpedo tubes, on a turntable of some kind.Simon said:
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