I seem to recall reading the UK was starting to run out man power towards the end of WW2 ? Perhaps some of the AA crews could have been used in other roles ?
WI No V-2 but more and better V-1's?
- Thread starter tallthinkev
- Start date
In many cases British AA crews were made up of a high portion of non deployable personnel (older less healthy, women). If the threat became high enough they could place Royal Navy ships off the coast to create an additional band of AA. If the 'improved' V-1 had higher altitude capability American 120mm batteries (available but never deployed outside CONUS) could be made available.
TDM
Kicked
Yeah while I m sure V1's could have been improved somewhat and still be deployable during the ongoing conflict, we're getting pretty close to modern cruise missile capability here and the V1's were just not that close to that.
Well it's not like they were overly accurate in the first place
Multiple people having putting forth schemes to make them more accurate. Making them also zig zag is mutually exclusive.
I vaguely recall that they did exactly that. Just as aircrew in training were re roled. As were non infantry into infantry regiments.
At work.
Well.... if you're going to talk about complete alternatives. Scrap the Me163 development in total and butterfly forward the Lippisch P-12.
Yes its ground handling was about the same but at least it used less 'Pilot melting' peroxide fuel to lift off.
Plus a Mach 2, wooden delta with a 45 minute flight time gives you better range coverage than the Me....
Of course, bugger actually hitting the targets at that speed but still...... The upward firing rockets and all that. (^_^)
Cheers
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If you add R4M rockets to the jet fighters, the odds of hitting bombers goes up.
There’s a reason why air to air rockets were a technological dead end, even with radar fire direction.
My understanding is that Luftwaffe bomber kills went up when the R4M's were used.
Considering the R4M's were introduced into battle in the last months of the war that's not really surprising is it?
A single engine fighter will always be more difficult to shoot down than a four engine bomber and I'm not saying the R4M's were a perfect weapon jut that they improved one's chances of downing a large four engine bomber than just using cannons.against a single target, not so much
Battle of Palmdale - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
marathag
Banned
True, but the drone wasn't maneuvering, and the F-89 had radar and a predicting gunsight tied into it. Plenty of time for target lock and firing solution
Over 200 rockets.
Now the earlier F-89 that had the guns, could have done the job with ease
Good point and mine was that the Me-262 alone was not a game changer but mated to the R4M and introduced earlier it might have been, might.
Having a twin engine V-1 would almost double the cost. Pulse jets weren't safe enough for human flight. Hanna Reitsch, the Nazi aviatrix crashed several times while flying the Fi-103. The pilot would have more chance of dying before he reached the target, and it was estimated he'd have a 1% chance of successfully bailing out. This was more a weapon for the Japanese. If they could get devoted SS Men to fly them it might have been worth it. Notice that the leaders who come up with these ideas don't volunteer to carry them out themselves.
The link earlier mentioned that the F-89s in this case did not have functioning gunsights. Still amazing that they missed a drone which wasn't maneuvering, of course, but they didn't have it all their own way.
thaddeus
Donor
double the cost and still a fraction of any other aircraft they produced? that was the whole point of using them to attack GB, to compensate for their lack of bombers and spare what aircraft they had left?
you are conflating my posting about research done on pulse jets (never applied AFAIK) with reported observations on single jet models?
the OP here is for NO V-2 program and presumably some greater efforts devoted to the V-1 program? thus my noting some of the experiments that never left the lab, we don't know what could or could not be made to work? pulse jets were obsolete and never pursued after the war.