WWII 5.0 inch HVAR air-to-ground rocket, attacking with the broadside firepower of a Light Cruiser
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ก.ย. 2024
- The WWII 5.0 inch HVAR air-to-ground rocket was considered to be the best tank destroying weapon in WWII. It was faster, and packed enough punch to destroy German tanks. This video will focus on the rockets specifications, usage, tactics and its combat effectiveness.
I am over 70 and was always interested in technical material about WWII aircraft, tanks , ships. It amazes me how many things I never heard of turn up in this channels wonderful videos.
So true. This guy does his research and puts it across in a concise, easy to understand way.
I knew a fair amount of some of it but was amazed about homing torpedoes and no wonder they were kept so secret.
My dad, flying an F6F-5 from USS Lexington, managed a 5-inch HVAR hit on a moving Japanese destroyer during the Philippine Campaign in the fall of 1944. I don't know if the Navy adopted the line-painting technique, but it seems reasonable to a non-pilot.
In 1960 I was in aircraft weapons training school when I learned that an IR homing system and proximity fused warhead was put at the front of the 5 inch HVAR to produce the Sidewinder, or GAR-8 as it was known then, now AIM-9. Later, at a fighter base in Germany, we loaded Sidewinders on F-100 aircraft and then had fire control specialists verify the operation of the aircraft-missile interface. One man sat in the cockpit to power up the missile and listen for the lock-on tone, while another stood in front of the missile with a lit cigarette for the IR detector to follow. Watching the guidance head inside the missile dome follow the cigarette as it was moved was rather impressive. A very effective weapon.
Interesting anecdote!
That is one way to get people to quit smoking...😉
Very interesting and informative article. Thank you!
@@Allan_aka_RocKITEmanIt actually seems like a good way to make sure people continue smoking, if you think about it.
Yeah no. Sidewinder and HVAR have nothing in common save diameter. The Sidewinder uses a different motor.
From what I've found, China Lake was supposed to be making an IR fuze, but figured that they could just make an IR tracking system to guide the rocket.
Love the pic of the P-47N with TEN of these plus bombs. All the versions of the P-47 were potent but the N was just insane lethal. Oh, yeah-I got 8 .50s once the bombs & rockets are done.
I've not seen the line painting method before.
Works with bombs too. In il-2 great battles there is a skin fir the mustang that has them and there is a very good tutorial on TH-cam on how to use them.
I'm dumb.
Got no idea how it works. 😂
@@redtobertshateshandles basically when the target passing the line under your wing, for each line you know that you have to pass it a z certain altitude, make a 90 degree turn while driving on the target, count to ten and release, at that point the target is under your nose. I tried it for fun but I find it simpler to just dive on the target and with a bit of experience you know when to drop the bombs when the target just passes under the gun sight to under the nose, or how to aim the rockets a bit under the circle of the gun sight. But they are very inaccurate, it's fine for ships and buildings, kind of okay for trains, but for tanks and vehicule it's very unreliable. In real life they had between 3 and 5% hits on tanks and trucks.
@@matydrum Tanks will be damaged even by near misses. The blast does things like knock out optics or damage treads. This is much of the effect artillery (the biggest tank killer in WW2) had on tanks.
@@pauldietz1325 studies after battle showed that just e very few panzer were lost to rockets but it was non the less very effective because (and pow interrogation showed it) that panzer troops were very scared of them and it caused cahos, destroying soft targets acompzgning the panzers, trucks ans so on, killed personal and made the panzer troops seek cover under trees and such, and moving mainly by night, this considerably help delaying them and reducing their effectivity, so even less than 5 percent of rockets hit the tanks they were aimed at the constant air cover and ground attacks tremendously helped. And german had the feeling of being completely let down by the Luftwaffe. Flak was deadly though.
I always learn something new from these videos. Never heard of the wing lines or noticed them in any WW2 documentaries. Will be looking for them.
This aiming via wing marking is really a new method to my knowledge. Very much thanks.
I believe the AIM-9 Sidewinder started out as a guidance package for a 5" rocket.
"When the rocket was found to hit an armored vehicle, however, that vehicle was destroyed".
As it was shown that a rocket marginally could penetrate the Tiger I's top armor, I suspect that "destroyed" in this instance means operationally destroyed---the vehicle isn't functioning anymore, but could be repaired and re-crewed, rather than "permanently" or "irrecoverably" destroyed, where it will never see service again. "What is a lost tank?" is a contentious topic on armored warfare forums.
The Germans were rather notorious for only counting tanks as "lost" only if they couldn't recover them. Even if the tanks were so badly damaged they needed to be sent back to the factory to be completely rebuilt they weren't counted as "lost". On both Western and Eastern fronts in 1944, this often meant such "not-lost" German tanks that could maybe be repaired, but had to be blown up or simply abandoned on retreats, never got listed in the 'lost' bucket. By contrast, Soviet losses counted everything, including tanks out of action due to causes other than battle damage (mechanical failure, mishap, etc) and Soviet "irrecoverable" losses included tanks scrapped due to wear and obsolescence. Finally, everyone counted their enemies "operational losses" as kills.
So, when everyone says "we destroyed 20 enemy tanks", it means "we claimed to have rendered 20 enemy tanks non-functional for a some duration." However when it's "we lost 20 tanks" it may or may not mean something quite different depending on the army. In the example above, it's quite likely that if Allied fighters using rockets knocked out a whole platoon of Tiger Is they never would show up as "lost" on German paperwork, as the Germans would consider them repairable.
They Sidewinder missile is still 5" in diameter. When they were building them at China Lake they used leftover Hvar motors.
I have known about the Army Air Force use of rockets in WWII for a long time, but I didn’t know how successful they were until watching your video just now. Thanks for all of your detailed research on these interesting historical aircraft, weapons systems and tactics.
Another video with excellent research logically presented. Thank you!
I must admit that the first time I came across the fact that being hit by all these rockets from an aircraft was the equivalent of being hit by a broadside by a light cruiser made be stop and think for a second or two, because until that point I had not considered what the effect would be. But when you consider the calibre of each rocket and how many were being fired you can see the connection. Having said that seeing a P-47 coming barrelling towards you you'd probably think it was a light cruiser.
The Royal Air Force Typhoons when firing rockets at German tanks would attack end on to the tank, aiming for the gap between the tanks hull and the ground. The reason for this was to get one of the rockets to hit the ground just below the tank and the bounce up to explode at the bottom of the hull which was the thinnest part.
You don't say where you found that nonsense information or perhaps you've mixed up RP tactics & gunnery tactics. All vehicles, even the most heavily top-armoured, will be destroyed by one rocket, but getting one rocket on target is extremely difficult - pilot coolness, skill & huge buckets of luck are required! As an example, the Battle of the Falaise Gap resulted in thousands of abandoned, damaged & destroyed vehicles of all types - an analysis of causes came up with SIX vehicles effected by RPs - that's around a 0.4% success rate [we know how many RP sorties there were]. The chances of bouncing an RP under a vehicle is so near zero that you can can forget about it - it was certainly never a Typhoon tactic using rockets! Never. If you think about it statistically diving on a vehicle at 60 degrees presents the pilot with a vulnerable area around the size of king size bed [the turret top, the rear flat above the engine] whereas a bouncy rocket with a delayed action fuze, to attack the underneath, has to skid/bounce into a 'letterbox' that's maybe 15% the area of a top attack. WWII rockets are not good weapons against vehicle-sized targets except for the extraordinary, immobilising terror effect on crews - misses produce very little shrapnel.
P-47s firing machine guns also aimed for the gap to bounce the bullets off the pavement and into the bottom of the tank. Was very effective.
@@dfirth224 Sorry, but this is a myth. By definition, the angle at which the bullets would strike the underside of the tank would be the same as when they hit the road in front. If the bullets would bounce off something as soft as a dirt track, why should they be able to penetrate 10mm of armour plate at the same angle? For this to work, it would first be essential for the road to be harder than the armour. This reasoning holds for pavement too.
As a general note on those bouncing bullet stories...
There is an old TV documentary that can be found on TH-cam that repeats this canard by an unnamed P-47 pilot & it does not pass the smell test. He claims that the underside of "Tigers" were a weak spot, but actually the armour was the same thickness on the Tiger I underneath & on the top deck.
Also there's no way a pilot will be able to identify various tank types while prepping for an attack [only 3% were Tigers]. He also mentions that he'd go for the fuel trailer attached to the back of the "Tiger" - but this is decades of living scrambling his memories, you'll not find a single photo anywhere of a Tiger towing a trailer, also note that the preferred approach for an attacking a tank is from the sides or the rear for obvious reasons.
@dfirth224 it wasnt effective
What you have is one pilot *saying* they used to skip rounds underneath a tank.
But that doesn't mean it was effective. In fact we know it wasn't, because actual after action investigations found very, very frw aircraft actually destroyed bt aerial attack. You can also look at the ballistic performance of a .50 and see that it didn't have a hole in hell of penetrating the underside of a tank, from a dive, after a richochete.
@@nightjarflying Thank you for that. I seem to remember a German tank guy's memoirs somewhere, and they weren't too panicky about aircraft attacks - even heavy bombers. They buttoned up and sat it out. In some cases Tigers were overturned by the bombs, but the crew emerged unscathed. As for rockets, I think the "psychological effect" is very real, even to the point of not moving during daylight which would really limit an army's manoeuvring capability. You read many references of "Jabo's" causing mayhem. Probably not heavy tanks like Tiger and Panther but there were plenty other things around that would have been vulnerable, even horse carts.
Nice. I really like these and use hvar all the time. Its hard to aim but once you get it right it's very satisfying.
The acronym FFAR is now used for Folding Fin Aircraft Rocket, but its WW2 use as "Forward Firing" is a little funny: Presumably it would differentiate it from "Backwards Firing" - but firing a rocket backwards from a moving aircraft would involve it going through periods of negative, zero and positive airspeed regimes. It would be a little difficult to keep such a design stable . . .
But fun to watch
Backward firing antisubmarine rockets existed, I think there is a video about them here.
Edit: video is called MAD retro bombing, it's on the bombers fighting submarines playlist
They put such rockets on B24,s . The backwards firing ones .
Penetrates 3.75 feet of reinforced concrete?......."Wow", I said to myself "That seems optimistic"
Then I look further into the stats (1:42) and see its a 52 pound warhead measuring 5"x20"......52 POUNDS!!, APHE with a base fuse, flying at rocket speed, plus P-51 speed.
Holy Moses, that thing's gonna hit hard!
The warhead of the 5-inch HVAR contained an explosive charge of about 8 lbs of TNT. The British 60-lb SAP rocket carried 12 lbs of TNT as the explosive fill.
I think I’ve found my favorite gun cam/WW2 air war channel.
Good stuff cat!
😎👍
Another great video! Particularly interesting because I retired from VX-9 on NAWS China Lake, one place were rockets were extensively tested starting in WW II.
Another great video about weapons with specific facts and figures. Can’t ask for more than this. Thanks
Your videos are so well done! I always learn something new.
Great presentation and deep dive. The cited documentation and insights are outstanding.
11:53 what a cool picture.
Thank you very much for this video. I've been wondering about those lines on the wings of P-51s and P-47s. I knew they had someting to do with ground attack, but never had been able to find out the details that you provided. Thank you! HVARs were used in Korea, also, right?
As I have understood hitting a tank with this rocket was quite hard. But they had a devastating psychological effect on the tank crew. Especially the more untrained ones. What did happen was that they panicked and jumped ship in fear.
Even if the tank wasn't hit, any people around the tank (supporting infantry, tank crew outside, etc.) the rockets barrage and strafing bullets would scatter them, if not make a mess.
This is the time of inadequate weapon guidance, so you typically volley-fire them in this case.
Near misses often damaged tanks enough to render them less effective (or ineffective). Mobility impairment or destruction/decalibration of gunsights.
The concussion could kill the crew if the rockets hit the tank but did not penetrate the armor.
The 5-inch HVAR gets all the love and attention while the 4.5-inch M8 tube-launched rocket gets forgotten. Poor old M8 . . .
The extra half inch made all the difference... [obligatory "that's what she said"]
They look cool but must've been crazy draggy
They were, but they can be jettisoned and are clean
Top quality as usual
Another excellent, well researched video. Thank you
I like your presentations, you tackle niche, unique topics and bring surprising primary sources to light, like hydrophone recordings. I watched a number of them and my only nitpick is, that I wouldn't call them 'deep dives', because you present rather one sided reports and analysis without adding anything on your own. This is perfectly OK in itself, but without materials from other involved parties and benefits of present day knowledge, I consider this video a presentation, not a deep dive. Still, you're doing great job.
Interesting and informative. Something you see in old films of the war but don’t give a lot of thought or curiosity to. Nicely done!
Love the old diagrams 👍
Laminated! They'd make great posters for the den 😁👍
Explains that the rockets have the equivalent firepower of a light cruiser.. Immediately shows picture of said light cruiser... Me "Ooooooh"
If you´re interested in this subject I recommend "Normandie- a statistical analysis" by Zetterling, a Swedish teacher at our West Point.
He analysied the German reports and they(according to the reports from German units) weren´t effective in knocking out panzers since the aim was bad and pilots over-reported. It seems that the usual damage on the Panzers(if any) were fixed within 24-48 h.
It looked very dramatic from the air though, soft skinned and lightly armored vehicles were more susceptible though.
spectacular fast review
The stats on expenditure were pretty interesting.
Two and a quarter million 50 cal rounds !!
Not to be sneezed at.
They might not make a big bang, but they would have been destructive.
60% more explosive filler than a US 105mm Howitzer round. That 105 could tear up a lot of things so this rocket should be able to tear up even more. Oh and I graduated from Caltech and you will be glad to know that we still built and launched rockets, just for fun off the back porch of the dorm.
HVARs are still widely used on test tracks. If not used as main propulsion (Hurricane Mesa) they are used as "trimmer" motors (Holloman High Speed Test Track)
Old production, or new?
@@davidg3944 All batches we used were of Korean vintage from the USN. Stocks have mostly been exhausted, replaced by Zuni's - except Zuni's have relability issues.
Definitely old, we don't really have the capacity to produce new ones at the same rate. I imagine the profit margins are very slim on these old rocket designs.
They used them in the mythbusters episode where they tried to cut the car in half. I wander how the propellant ages is it less reactive or more? Aditionalty what was the manufacturering tolerance in regards to consistency across battlches with them when they were new
@@Cjs-n2n The HVAR and Nike booster propellants age, reducing the total impulse. Both are duel-based (gun cotton and nitroglycerin) and pretty stable. BTW, Mythbusters procucer (Lynda Wolkoski) contacted me at the Holloman track and I sent them to NM Tech where they filmed the car cut in half episode.
German AFV crews greatly feared rocket attacks.
Love your vids.
12:33 "Cost"
1x gallon of gas =
1x .50 round expended.
War Math
140 pound rocket sank a destroyer? Damn!
Destroyers have little armor, perhaps none in the hull.
Probably multiple hits, but a single hit on a magazine or torpedo tube could theoretically do it.
@@KARLMARX56yeah those torpedo racks or reloads were highly vulnerable
@@KARLMARX56 The Brazilian cruiser Bahia sank in 1945 after Oerlikon 20mm rounds were accidentally fired at a rack containing mines and depth charges during an exercise shortly after the war.
@@HermesBarcelos
Dang, 1 second everything is fine....
✌️🍀
Great video...👍
As usual great video. In your opinion how did the 5" HVAR compare with the British RP-3, the Soviet RS-82/RS-132 series and the various German air to ground rockets?
The HVAR was better for the same reason that it was better than the FFAR: the larger rocket motor accelerated it faster, and to a higher maximum velocity. That meant less ballistic drop over its flight, and the high acceleration got it up to a speed where the fin stabilization was really effective much faster. All of this is a fancy way of saying that it was notably more accurate.
But also much heavier. An aircrafft could carry substantially more RP-3s than HVARs, and neither was anywhere close to being described as "accurate" given the extreme limitations in air-ground gunnery of WW2.
Was the saying "broadside firepower of a destroyer" for the FFAR or HVAR?
Might not matter much, if the only real difference was the rocket body diameter and hence speed.
The comparison is to the amount of explosive in a 6" light cruiser shell. Navweaps says an armor piercing shell had 2 pounds of explosive, the common shell had 6 pounds, and the high capacity shell had 13 pounds, with all shells weighing 130 pounds, so it is a very good comparison.
One thing which confuses a lot of people is how little explosive there is in artillery shells. They hear that a 16" shell weighed 2700 pounds and think "Wow! A ton of TNT!" when they actually only had something like 40 pounds (armor piercing) and 150 pounds (high capacity). The destructive effect was from a ton of shrapnel flying around an engine room, magazine, or crew areas.
60Lb RAF rocket projectile
Where do you find those incredible publications you reference? Another fascinating video.
Many wartime and postwar documents, manuals, studies, reports, etc., have been digitized and are available online. Take the publication title and plug into your internet search engine of choice. You should be able to find many of them with a bit of digging.
Goggle something like " ww2 us army technical manuals"
There are a few sites that offer downloads for free of ww2 service manuals. I use ibiblio but there are many more. They have everything from weapons manuals to wrist watches, cooking and even a manual for the band on how to play field music.
@@primmakinsofis614 Library Of Congress has lots of digitized information.
I’d be really curious as to how much over claiming of tank kills might exaggerate the rocket effectiveness.
“RAM” (rocket) video next?
Actor James Garner described white phosphorous rockets being fired at North Koreans when he was caught behind the lines during the Korean war. Since HVARs were used in Korea, I thought there would be more info regarding this. Smoke artillery rounds were common, so was he wrong?
How can I contact you for something? A friend pulled up a ww2 US aircraft oil tank and we are wondering from what kind of aircraft it is from
I liked this.
I never knew aerial rockets could be used against under water targets.
Cruciform, pronounced Kru - see - form , cross-shaped
The tigers got themselves stuck in mud
I know this request make be silly but here goes. Could you research the story of American pilots who claimed they destroyed German tanks by bouncing machine gun rounds off of road pavement up into their light under their sides armor. They also claimed they could do it to Tiger tanks. I have read this many times. Is this possible ? Seems suspicious to me.
Believe it or not, this has been investigated. It wasn't possible. See the videolist of this same channel, because WW2US bombers already made a video with proof that .50 calibre rounds couldn't penetrate Tiger's bottom armor.
The guy that makes these video's is absolutely awesome.
Found it: th-cam.com/video/I084D8AZNZQ/w-d-xo.html
If link doesn't work search "P-47 vs Tiger Tank: can machineguns penetrate armor"
Tiger's thinnest plates could stop .50 cal, but other Panzers were mistakenly called Tigers. Ricochets from aircraft could have penetrated Panzer I, II, 35, 38.
Now I don't know about "destroying" a tank with a 50 cal. I could see getting a mobility kill by damaging the engine or track system. Now there is a story I read about the 82nd holding off an armored assault on a position in Sicily with only small arms. But they didn't destroy they tanks, just forced them to break off their attack.
Aiming these isn't rocket science... Oh wait... maybe it is😧 🎯
Hauly Moessssess!
Now this is a Vibe
They still use the 5" rocket motors in rocket sled tests.
Did somebody just strap 5inch Naval HE shell as tip of the rocket motor?
" the broadside firepower of a Light Cruiser"
Brooklyn or Cleveland?
I first heard that line in a documentary referencing British Beaufighters attacking German shipping with rockets.
I like the comparison between rockets and the planes guns.
P51 carrying ordinance? Must have been the B version.
Love the "Holy Moses" phrase.
Was Jack Parsons one of the researchers who developed this rocket?
Jack Parsons was one of the founders of JPL and Aerojet. They invented solid propellant JATO motors.
I wonder if any rocket firing was done in a vertical dive with dive bombers to see how accurate that was?
Well, to be sure, that is precisely what the forward air controllers did with 'Willie-Pete" white phosphorus rockets to mark targets from Broncos. Mohawks, Bird dogs, 02s and Loaches used them too but I think it was mostly the OV -10s that worked in the vertical a lot.
engaging
👍👍
💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥
To make it fair you need a plane coming in every 4-5 seconds.