Allied Strategic Bombing Offensive Called to a Halt

While it is possible that the Germans might have produced a viable SAM it certainly wouldn't have been the Wasserfall. The missile itself was a failure. One clear evidence of this is that the US Army post war fired a total of three of these in Project Hermes and then quickly abandoned it was poorly designed and poorly performing.

Aside from the problems with the missile itself, the Germans would still have also had to overcome the vastly superior ability of the Allies to jam the s**t out of every piece of German electronics. The Germans were trying to make their SAM wire guided but this obviously was impractical.
Next, the Germans lacked a sufficently advanced electro-mechanical computer system (say, equivalent to the one used with the US SCR 589 radar) to allow for automatic or semi-automatic tracking and guidance of a missile The US computer allowed the SCR 589 radar (and the similar British GL Mk IV and V) to lock onto a target and then track that target without operator intervention.
So, the Germans resorted to command guidance. Assuming they find a way to keep the jamming from completely blotting out their command system, and they have a missile that works, we can look at the results from postwar experiance with systems similar to those the Germans might have possessed.
The best equivalent I can see is the SA-2 Guideline Soviet SAM used in Vietnam against B-52 aircraft. These missiles without jamming had about a 5% success rate against the US bombers. This fell to less than 1% with jamming. SAM suppression also cost the N. Vietnamese quite a few missiles and launchers.
Even in WW 2 the Allies were aware that it was possible to run down a radar track to attack a radar. This opens the possibility that fighters or a ASM might be used to destroy the tracking radars for the missile. Certainly in the months before D-Day German radar operators in France became very touchy when such a system was being used by Typhoon fighters to locate and destroy radar stations. The German proceedure became to shut down transmitting when a high speed track that was closing on the station was detected.

Essentially, in 1943-44 the German electronics technology was not up to producing a viable SAM that could have even marginally effected the Allied strategic bombing campaign. I would also suggest you look at the US Nike program (started 28 Apr 1944) that produced the first viable SAM system in the world post war. The Nike was a massively superior missle to any of the potential SAMs the Germans were looking at. Its fire control system integrated a surveillance radar, two tracking radars, and a decent electro-mechanical computer. It also had anti-jamming features like putting the radar of different bandwidths to make jamming the total system difficult.

On the whole, I doubt that the Germans could have made a viable and useful SAM system within the historical context of the war even had they concentrated on doing so.

 

When do you think Germany was defeated? Delivery of production JB-2's started in January of 45. Note that that's not much more than half a year after the Germans started using them.

 

Actually the first US reproduced V 1 (aka JB 2 / Loon) was produced (airframe by Willy's Overland engine by Ford Motor) just 60 days after the first V 1 was launched against England. The USAAF cut a contract for these two US companies to produce 5000 per month and planned a mass firing of these continiously against Germany. After the first tests with the missile were conducted, this contract was scaled way back as wasteful of resources, the plan was dropped, and the missile relegated to just testing.

 

With the number of bombers in a bombing raid, that would be a large number of missles needed to be impactful enough for the allies to halt their raids. Even with the high number of losses that the bombers were sustaining, there was no plan nor would there ever be, to halt the campaign.

But, looking at the time frame, the allies could afford to halt their campaigns once the allies had landed in Normandy. The critical resource was about to be lost to the Germans once the Russians took the Rumanian Ploesti oilfields. It would not matter how many tanks, planes, missles or any other weapon was produced. Germany needed oil for gas and to run it's factories.

 

Very true indeed - very good point

Regards
Kruska

 

Although the Ploesti oil fields were extremely valuable, the Germans also had lots of coal gasification plants that produced plenty of POL products.

As for jamming the missles? Since theyre optically guided, just what exactly are the allies going to use? As I pointed out, partly cloudy skys will degrade the missles effectiveness while 10/10 cloudy conditions will make it worthless.

And also consider the radar technology that was present in 1944/1945. There is no way ANYONE is going to make a lightweight tracking and guidance mechanism without needing a missle like the V2 to carry it.

 

I wouldn't say plenty at least not in comparison to their requirements.

The allies had alread experimented with bright lights. Smoke is also a possiblity.

Even intermittent clouds could degrade it significantly.

The USN had one or at least prototypes although there were problems with it.
See: Project Pigeon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Here are some more:
[4.0] World War II Glide Bombs (2)

 

The second atomic bomb was dropped on a secondary target not because the primary target couldn't have been hit, but because the pilot had orders not to bomb by radar. The Allies had fairly accurate, for the time, radar bombing capabilities which would have been able to bomb through cloud cover. The radar that the Germans were able to squeeze into the "Wassefall" was not nearly as capable.

 

The "Wasserfall" missile was not "optically" guided, the operator viewed a radar display which depicted the missile "blip", or return, in relation to the target return. The operator maneuvered the missile utilizing a radio control link to keep the two "blips" lined up. In any case, both the missile radar and the radio control link could be jammed using already developed jamming technology. Only a wire-guided missile, which "Wasserfall" was not, can avoid the jamming of a radio control link

"Guidance was to be a simple radio control MCLOS system for use against daytime targets, but night-time use was considerably more complex because neither the target nor the missile would be easily visible. For this role a new system known as Rheinland was under development. Rheinland used a transponder in the missile for locating it in flight (as read by a radio direction finder on the ground) and a radar unit for tracking the target. A simple mechanical computer guided the missile into the tracking radar beam as soon as possible after launch, at which point the operator could see both "blips" on a single display, and guide the missile onto the target as during the day."

 

This phrase made me laugh uncontrollably!

It seems that the general consensus is the Wasserfall would have been highly unsuccessful. Whether or not the Germans would have been able to counter electronic counter-measures is, and probably will remain unknown to us.

If 5% percent of the missiles would have been able to intercept US Bomber fleets (this is without jamming of any sort), a salvo of 40 missiles per raid (as estimated earlier) would result in a measly 2 hits.

Sorry Speer looks like you still lose!

Thanks for the great discussion guys : ). You will see me floating around the what-if board for a while.

 

Allied fighter-bombers successfully attacked armor and artillery units all the time, why not missile batteries mounted on trucks or other vehicles? And they wouldn't do it at night, they would attack during daylight hours. Only by surrounding the missile batteries with massive AA batteries could the Germans thwart this strategy, and that would be extremely difficult to do while the battery was on the move. Since Allied bombers attacked "around-the-clock", how do the Germans determine when it is safe to move the missile batterys? If they move at night, they risk getting bombed by the British, without being able to use the missiles, and if they do it during the day, they are going to be attacked by fighter-bombers and won't, in any case, be able to use the missiles against American bomber attacks.

I do not dispute that the Wasserfall missile batteries could be made mobile, only that to do so would be very costly to the Germans in terms of fuel and other resources. In fact, it might be necessary to rely on mobility to negate the effectiveness of fighter-bomber attacks; hide during the day and move only at night. But again, to move the batteries (and their defending AA) would be very expensive, and during the movement which would take several hours, the missiles would be worthless, giving the bombers windows of opportunity to attack at night.

It's not the size oif a Wassserfall missile battery that determines the set-up time, but the complexity of the guidance arrangements. The V-2 was a "fire-and-forget" weapon, requiring no radar or radio links, yet it required, exclusive of time on the road, two to three hours to set up. The Wasserfall missile batteries had to be tied into a ground-based radio location system in order to make the guidance system work. It also requires a radar system which would have to be recalibrated after each move to be effective. All of this makes it very likely that moving the missile battery frequently, say every day, would be highly impractical, even if there was enough fuel in Germany to move thousands of missiles on a daily basis, something I seriously doubt.

So moving the missiles over roads or rails degraded by Allied air attack would require hours and set-up time would require more hours, leaving the missile batteries worthless for possibly twelve out of every twenty four hours. Since they can't move during the day, that makes a night move necessary, but the British bombers attack at night, so that wouldn't work. And hiding by day means that the American bombers have a free hand during daylight hours. Sounds to me like the Germans have created a nightmare for themselves; not only expending fuel for a questionable air defense strategy, but deploying a weapon that will only work maybe half the time, if that.

 

You seem to have neglected several things I either stated or indicated.

My theoretical deployment procedure for Wasserfall batteries would be as follows:

• Missiles would be inactive during the daytime, and be stored in concealed locations; either covered by tarp or shrubbery, or underground.

• As dawn neared, the missiles would be manhandled onto the launch platform and prepared for a potential launch. The deployment of the missiles would not necessarily be mechanized. The youtube video I linked indicated how the missiles could be pushed about by a handful of men.

• When an air raid warning came into effect, the missiles would receive their final launch preparations and be ready to lift off at a moments notice.

• They would be heavily camouflaged up until the moment of launch, and the darkness would make them impossible targets for men piloting low-flying ground attack aircraft. They would look like any other tree. Remember!: during the day these missiles remain hidden.

Size does indeed have an effect on preparing the missile for launch. The setting up of large gantries and cranes would no longer have been needed, smaller crews would have been needed too. (no meillerwagens).

The only fuel expended on these missiles would be for the launch itself.

They would only be moved VERY short distances to their launch sites, a matter of a couple hundred meters at most.

I have no doubt that their physical deployment would have been possible. Successfully identifying and knocking out each blacked-out missile during the night would have been simply too difficult for fighter-bombers. Many would have been lost fruitlessly searching for these targets that weren't even worth it.

T. A. Gardner has convinced me that the missiles themselves were the issue, not their deployment method.

He also very kindly pointed out I was incorrect about the Americans and their doodle-bugs! Very informative!

 

The capabilities of ground radar in 1944/1945 did not have the necessary accuracy needed to have a missile guided by an operator to hit a moving object several miles away.

To have an impact hit, you need accuracies on the order of feet. That type of accuracy didnt exist back then

You can get close and the blast radius of the warhead would be similar to heavy flak, thus allowing a degree of inflicted damage. But to think you can guide the missile for an impact hit, stretches credulity.

 

This is patently untrue. There were a number of radar sets in 1944 that could accurately track a single aircraft within literally a few feet of its actual position. Even the Japanese and Germans had sets that could manage this.

Here's one:

The SCR-584 Radar Tribute Page de KA9MVA

As for blast damage, if you go with something like the Nike system you have no shortage of blast and fragmentation effect. The Nike Ajax had three warheads spread though the second stage of the missile. The combined explosive weight was over 100 lbs. Three warheads were used to better break up the missile and cause more fragmentation effect among other things.

http://ed-thelen.org/

 

So as I stated originally, the missile batteries would not be truly "mobile" being moved normally only a matter of a few hundred feet, at most.

That means that they would be in fairly predictable positions from raid to raid and those positions could be plotted to within a small area. Even with camouflage (although it's difficult to understand how a missile, ready for firing could be "heavily" camouflaged), they would be vulnerable to air attacks by fighter-bombers, just as any other other flak batteries would be. Of course, if the Germans wanted to really protect them from air attack it would be possible to surround them with conventional flak batteries, but this seems to be losing track of the primary objective. The fighter-bombers would, of course, only be deployed against the Wasserfall missile batteries if they proved a significant deterrent to bomber raids, which I seriously doubt would prove to be the case.

If you only employ the missiles against daylight bombing raids, no ground-based guidance facilities are needed, but the radio control link is still subject to jamming and the operator would be very limited in what he could observe from the ground, so guidance would be very inaccurate and probably not effective against very high-flying bomber formations. And, of course, that leaves night time bombing raids completely free to continue their depredations virtually unmolested.

I agree that the greatest problems would be with the technology of the missile and it's guidance system, but I am explorinbg all issues including the method deployment to determine what counter measures could be taken if those problems could somehow be solved. My conclusion is that the missile's method of deployment was vulnerable to counter attack, and in any case, would have been marginally effective no more than half the time.

 

If the missiles were reliant on radar how about a few of the bombers or their escorts carrying an ARM? Given that they had guided weapons it shouldn't be difficult to cobble one together fairly quickly. That's the sort of solution allied OR teams were good at by the way.

 

There were no ARM's back then. And not for another decade.

OK, I will agree that it was possible for radar guided AGM missles to be used with sufficient accuracy.

But they were still easy to jam, and the allies had the capabilities to make life very difficult for the guidance personell to keep an accurate track.

And, once you put "x" number of missiles in the air, then the track radar performance degrades due to interferance also, "what target am I tracking with who's radar".

 

Allied countermeasures would have included (and many of these were already in place)

Jamming the search radar(s) of the SAM system making detection and tracking of the bombers difficult or impossible.

Jamming the fire control radar(s) making their use difficult or impossible

Jamming the command guidance signals. More difficult because of directionality but possible.

Using passive measures like chaff in large quantities

If the Germans had a proximity fuze like the Allies had jamming it to cause it to go off prematurely (the US tested a jammer for this purpose against their own VT rounds... using a live crewed aircraft no less versus a 90mm AA battery!)

In the case of optical command guidance (eg, needing to visually track the missile from the ground) employing smoke or other screening systems.

Attacking the SAM sites using fighter bombers ahead of the bomber stream.

Switching to night attacks.

Routing the bombers so they avoid many or all of the sites.

Begin using standoff missiles (load a V-1 on each bomber and launch it to ballastically fall on the target for example).

The problem here is that the Germans were simply behind the technological innovation curve completely. Even where they led they couldn't maintain their lead for long simply because the Allies had the resources and manpower to duplicate then surpass their position. The more critical and potentially dangerous the technology, the more likely the Allies were to do just that. This is why the US put cubic dollars into atomic bomb research and production; they didn't want the Axis to get one first.

 

That's in part because there wasn't a driving need for them. The pieces were all there in 44 and as I've stated it's the sort of solution that allied OR teams came up with when given a problem.

 

No, its because of the state of the technology.