German 21 cm Air-to-Air Rocket Combat effectiveness and Tactics
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.ค. 2024
- The Germans adopted air-to-air rockets in WWII, as shown in the "Masters of the Air" episode 3. The tactics included flying behind the bomber formations and lobbing the rockets into the combat wings. The German enemy airplanes would stay outside of the bomber’s defensive machine gun fire. The rocket equipped fighters out ranged the bomber gunners. This attack tactic had questionable success, but was brought to a grinding halt when long range fighters appeared in early 1944. The rocket equipped aircraft were very vulnerable to the escort P-51 and P-38 fighters.
- วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
My late father, Col. F.J. Henggeler, was squadron commander of the 563rd squadron of the 388th bomb group.
In the missions which he commanded he would be sitting in the CO-PILOT's seat. In this lead plane that he was in, he always would have been accompanied by his own tail gunner. The TG would call back to him from the rear when he spied a trailing German plane beginning to tilt its nose upward. Dad would then communicate to the entire group to slowly bank left or slowly bank right. The German plane would then have to tilt back down & realign itself on the formation. After several bouts of cat-and-mouse the German plane would dive down & try to find other targets.
I believe I have some tape recordings of 388th veterans discussing this.
Having written a couple of books about 8AF B-17 combat in late 1943 and early 1944, I'm happy to label the FW-190 beam attack scene as ahistorical. HOWEVER, I interviewed one B-17 gunner on a major mission deep into Germany in early 1944 who claimed a rocket went straight through the vertical stabilizer of his B-17 without exploding, but leaving a huge hole in the tail. I later discovered a photo of this very aircraft after the mission, and it fully confirmed what the gunner said about the damage (even though he didn't see the impact himself from the ball turret) but was told about it by other crewmembers. Two of the crew were killed in the mission, so he had other things on his mind. The damage reportedly occurred when their aircraft had fallen out of formation, so rocket attacks from different angles seem more plausible to me. So yeah, it was possible, but I still consider this scene dodgy. 109s and 190s did carry rockets, but I think they fired them from head on when attacking formations to break them up.
It seems a little odd to me that rockets would be fired against lone stragglers. Given the higher dispersion and greater burst radius, it seems the far more effective use of rockets would be "flock shooting" at dense formations, while guns should be used against lone bombers. I wonder what the story of this engagement is from the German perspective.
@@don_5283The goal was to get rid of your payload, as critical questions were asked upon returning to base with full ammo load
In Adolf Galland's writings post-war, he talked about taking inexpereinced Fw190 pilots up with "stovepipes" and telling them to sit out of range of the B-17s, close thier eyes and just fire their rockets. Now, definitley take anything Galland said with a massive pinch of salt because he was a lying bastard who served not one but two facist dictators *but* on this one I think he's probably telling the truth
Didn’t they use an acoustic sensor so it would explode at a certain distance?
@@Rebellpanzer Timed fuze......
And there go my childhood memories of a FW190, rocket equipped, strung from my ceiling, aiming at the Lancaster. Ahhh, the 1970's ...
We love the 70s don't we.
Several German figfhter pilots describe how these were used. The time delay was set to about 1000m (not 1000 yards). Range was estimated from the stedometric range finder in the standard ReVi sight using bomber wing span. The missile was spin stabilized so the coanda effect meant the missile veered to the side but this offset was dialed into the sight. Heinz Knock describes attack a landing barge with a set. It became impossible to use these against the bombers when P-38 appeared. So the P-38 did work.
-The Germans introduced a specialized unguided missile the R100 and R100BS of diameter 22cm. The missile had a fixed time delay fuse but the Oberon radar gunnery system fired the missile automatically taking into account range, air density and air speed. It was intended for blind attacks against night bombers but also in daylight as well. Me 262 and Ar 234 etc.
1000 meters is 1093 yards. Close enough to the same distance for this topic and within the margin of error.
@@bguen1234 off the projector fall off with 9% range. Error works out about 20% greater distance.
Have to say, mate. Your channel is consistently superb in detail, but artfully concise and accessible to all. A serious resource and a credit to you.
Twin-engine Luftwaffe fighters often launched their rockets from the rear of a USAAF bomber formation before closing in for gunnery attacks. On 20 June 1944, ZG 26 elements conducted just such an attack on a B-24 formation belonging to the 492nd Bomb Group. The Me 410s attacked six-abreast in a couple of waves, each wave firing its rockets in unison before initiating gunnery runs. During debriefings, 492nd Group veterans complimented the skill of the German pilots.
Flying such twin-engined fghters when U.S. fighters were around was a risky prospect.
Good stuff, my man! My dad was a B-17 pilot in World War II, and we shot down over Amsterdam… He and his whole crew survived the war in a POW camp in stalag Luft one. I find your videos. Extremely interesting!
The Nickname from this 21 cm. German Air to Air Rocket was "Dödel"! And hi was very good in the Air Battle of "Schweinfurt 1943"
I find this video to be worthy.
Yes, extremely worthy. And yes, from the evidence presented from period sources, there are adequate facts to question that the shown scene was embellished, perhaps for dramatic effect.
Belton Cooper(Deathtraps) witnessed a rocket attack during the Ardennes Offensive(Battle of the Bulge) in which a a successful rocket attack brought down five B-17’s in a single salvo.
This late in the war, was the Luftwaffe still fielding these types of attacks?
Cooper has a rather shady ability to put himself in the center of everything-despite being non combat personnel.
You continue to provide rare content in a field of study with countless contributors.
The Allied airmen were fortunate that the Germans hadn’t figured out the proximity fuselage.
The proximity fuze truly was one of those wonder weapons the Allies used.
The Germans had a canon shell FLAK proximity fuse program up until 1940. In 1940, due to the Battle of France, a fuhrer order was sent out that all programs that could not produce fieldable weapon within 6 months was suspended. The program didn't restart till 1942. One of the vacuum tubes, a cold gas thryratron, was handed over with the Oslo Letter to British intelligence with a crude diagram in 1939. At the same time the Germans were using this shock hardened vacuum tube/valve to arm, disarm and set time delay in aerial bombs. The German Rheinmetal electronic fuses were the only bombs that could be shipped with fuses in the bombs safety. They could be armed and armed in flight at any time by charge/discharging a capacitor.
-The British were inspired by these German developments to put the Physicist John Cockroft in charge of making a British proximity fuse. Since Cockroft had an atomic bomb to develop the work was handed over to BuOrd of the USN. The US got a fuse in service by end oif 1942. The British test fired their own fuses (which detonated on a radar double pulse when the radar tracked shell merged with the target in 1942) but relied on the US fuse which was in production.
-The Germans restarted their program in 1942 and were test firing shells in what is now Poland in early 1943.
-The German fuse was called Rheinmetall Kuhglochen. They fired about 1000 test round of caliber 88mm.
-The German fuse was electrostatic. As a shell rotates is flight it generates a huge electrostatic fireld which interacts with objects near it like and aircraft.
-The shell had a singel nose whiker aerial which picked up the presence of an aircraft through the 500Hz field from shell rotation. This was band pass filtered and applied to the striking anode of the cold gas thyratoron. This triaged and fired a pre charged capacitor through a fuse link that detonated the shell.
-One problem was that the thyratron needed a little radium to preionise the argon gas so that there were no time delays or inconstancy in firing. They were working on a pre biased tetrode to eliminate the need for radioactivity.
-Range went from 1m,2m and then 4m. Finally 10m.
-They never got i into production, factory in present Poland was over run.
-It was unjamable. BuOrd looked at it but didn't like that it didn't work in rain. It had a nose contact fuse.
-The cold gas thyratron could also make accurate programmable time delays. This allowed the fuse to be gated or set in the barrel.
These rockets would have become much more dangerous, if used with proximity fuzes. The Germens did develop proximity fuzes for air-to-air rockets, but none of them reached massproduction before end of the war. Insted of using radio-proximity technology, like the American proximity fuzes, the German versions were accustic based, designed to react on the vibration from the propellers of the enemy planes.
Thank you very much for your research and your posts. Very well done and very informative.
Another great video.
Thank you so much for your hard work and dedication.
The intent of this comment is twofold:
First, to note that the USAF postwar developments of AA rocket makes a lot more sense to me now. Higher rocket velocity, proximity fuses and radar fire control could have increased the effectiveness of those attacks to an unbearable level. Though they did prove a technological dead-end so who knows... (thinking of that infamous incident in the US where fighters failed spectacularly at shooting down an unmanned civilian aircraft)
Two, to provide additional level of engagement with the algorithm in the hope of boosting traffic to this channel.
A video on the effectiveness or lack thereof of the p-38 as bomber escort would be very interesting. I have looked into this a bit, but think I'm missing a lot of things. This video reporting it's effectiveness against the rocket equipped 110 makes a lot of sense.
I have never being so educated by each and every video
I enjoy your videos and appreciate your hard work in producing these videos..... Thanks so very much for your time and efforts and know that your truly appreciated for your hard work, keep up the great work you do......
Luftwaffe also evolved newer rockets and tactics following this, developing the highly effective R4M rockets mounted on the Me-262. Fortunately it was another case of too little, too late.
Notable fact Its also german that put their hands to infrared related technologies like night vision and ordinances guidance first, if eastern wasn't mean next door in 1944 they could achieves first guided missiles in couple years.
Very interesting summary. Thanks for this video.
Another great vid!
Thanks - I've always wondered if these rockets worked...
Very interesting video. Thank you.
Wow absolutely frightening in itself! Count me out ! 👍. Brave souls. 🙏
Excellent work!
I can't remember the source butl recall something about a flight of 12 B-24s being sttacked by ME-410s with rockets that shot down all 12 aircraft.
Thanks for a very interesting topic! I wonder why these are not portrayed in war films very much? Seems like a spectacular video effect. I understand why the Allies postponed usage of proximity fuses now. If the German's got that tech in 1943, things could get nasty with those rockets!
Very interesting, thanks.
Well done, well done. Crazy that in Mid 43, the Germans were the first to use Air-to-Air Rockets and be the grandfathers for Air-to-Air Missiles and weapon systems. Yes, the Allies and such were testing their own versions but no evidence proves that they were the first to use it and get confirmed kills out of it. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
US WWII Bombers, i love your presentations with original documents. Where do you get your copies from? I study US army medical department and USAAF in Britain, and have been looking for your Flak documents as your previous videos. Ive searched online and cant find them?
The guy in the thumbnail pic must have gotten extra helpings of schnitzel to be able to lift a 240lb rocket like that! Compare to the four guys doing it at 0:41.
"Artillery in the sky" :D I'm amazed, that with German technical brilliance they never developed ground-to-air RC guided rockets.
Radios were still quite bulky at the time and they didn't have lasers yet, so actually getting the signal to the rocket without the rocket's exhaust disrupting it would have been a problem. Even after the war, the best option for guided surface-to-surface rockets was a very long cable.
Their “brilliance” never stretched to electronics. They were ten years behind the allies with radar just as an example.
They actually got one in production but just missed out on service> They tested 4 designs: 1 Messerschmitt Enzian (a wild flower) , Rheinmetal Rheintocheter (Rhine daughter) Wagnerian character), Henschell Hs 117 Scmetterling (butterfly) and the EMW Wasserfall (Waterfall.)
The Henschell Hs 117 actually entered production. The Wasserfall was also scheduled for production and several were test flown..
Henschell 117 Schmetterling was a subsonic solid propellant missile with a range of about 10km and altitude of 9000m/30,000ft
EMW Wasserfall was a Mach 2.7 missile with an ability against a 18000m/58,000ft target maneuvering at 0.5G with a range of about 45km/28miles. Clearly able to take on a B-36.
Both were to be compatible with the same 13 guidance systems the Germans had.
-Elsass was probably the most advanced. A conical scan auto track locking radar FuSE 64 Mannheim tracked the bomber. Another similar radar locked on to a transponder on the missile and a mechanical computer based on FLAK predictor technology calculated and intercept with a radio command to get an intercept. Manual Optical tracking could replaced one or both of the radars.
-The system that won out, for Wasserfall, was a beaming riding system. A conical scan radar locked onto the target and a receiver synchronized to the rotation centered itself in the beam.
-A simple system involved one or two operators tracking the elevation and bearing of the target. This elevation and bearing was sent to the missile autopilot which would head in the direction of the target. Another operator would use a joystick to nudge the missile into the center of the target.
-There were a couple of terminal homing systems as well. Madrid and Hamburg for infrared homing, Blaupunkt MAX-P for passive homing onto allied microwave radars on night fighters and ground mapping radars and MAX_A an active homing system.
@@annoyingbstard9407
They had working radio guided glide bombs by 1943, used in Italy at least.
Germany at that time where testing ground to Air rockets.I think in Peenemuende.Saw a docu years ago.
Great video...👍
I've always wondered why the R4M rockets appeared so late, given the chance of multiple hits they offered, and leaving the aircraft relatively clean once fired. The R4Ms did not require a Me-262 to be useful... Instead they fumbled about with these clumsy looking tubes.
Apple made Masters of the Air strictly for your review of accuracy 🤣
Your channel is great. And the scene portrayed seems unlikley, not that it couldn't happen, just unlikely
The pilots carrying the rockets hated them for the added drag, even after firing the rockets, the tubes, they called "stove pipes" still disturbed the flying characteristics of the fighter, single engined or twin engined
Keep up the good work sir
Wow...if they had a decent proximity fuse for these it would've been devastating.
top notch
A VT fuse would have changed the equation radically. OTOH a VT fuse in German AAA prolly would've have made fighter interception itself unnecessary.
The Germans had a canon shell FLAK proximity fuse program up until 1940. In 1940, due to the Battle of France, a fuhrer order was sent out that all programs that could not produce fieldable weapon within 6 months was suspended. The program didn't restart till 1942. One of the vacuum tubes, a cold gas thryratron, was handed over with the Oslo Letter to British intelligence with a crude diagram in 1939. At the same time the Germans were using this shock hardened vacuum tube/valve to arm, disarm and set time delay in aerial bombs. The German Rheinmetal electronic fuses were the only bombs that could be shipped with fuses in the bombs safety. They could be armed and armed in flight at any time by charge/discharging a capacitor.
-The British were inspired by these German developments to put the Physicist John Cockroft in charge of making a British proximity fuse. Since Cockroft had an atomic bomb to develop the work was handed over to BuOrd of the USN. The US got a fuse in service by end oif 1942. The British test fired their own fuses (which detonated on a radar double pulse when the radar tracked shell merged with the target in 1942) but relied on the US fuse which was in production.
-The Germans restarted their program in 1942 and were test firing shells in what is now Poland in early 1943.
-The German fuse was called Rheinmetall Kuhglochen. They fired about 1000 test round of caliber 88mm.
-The German fuse was electrostatic. As a shell rotates is flight it generates a huge electrostatic fireld which interacts with objects near it like and aircraft.
-The shell had a singel nose whiker aerial which picked up the presence of an aircraft through the 500Hz field from shell rotation. This was band pass filtered and applied to the striking anode of the cold gas thyratoron. This triaged and fired a pre charged capacitor through a fuse link that detonated the shell.
-One problem was that the thyratron needed a little radium to preionise the argon gas so that there were no time delays or incostancies in firing. They were working on a pre biased tetorde to eliminate the need for radioactivity.
-Range went from 1m,2m and then 4m. Finally 10m.
-They never got i into production, factory in present Poland was over run.
-It was unjamable. BuOrd looked at it but didn't like that it didn't work in rain. It had a nose contact fuse.
-The cold gas thyratron could also make accurate programmable time delays. This allowed the fuse to be gated or set in the barrel.
Wow thanks. Rain would dissipate the electrostatic field? Probably cloud microdroplets also? @@williamzk9083
@@JK-rv9tp The U.S. spent roughly a billion dollars developing the VT fuze (about one-third of what was spent on the Manhattan Project).
Very interesting
They used what they had in stock!! Werfergranante and timed fuse (Zeitzuender),but never had time or capebelity to develop it.
The 190 looked very close to the formation when launching and appeared almost even with the rocket when it exploded. This was probably done to get everything in the scene instead of being super accurate. No doubt an explosion of one of these close to a bomber would be terrible similar to dreaded 88mm flak. The Germans were probably researching ground launched SAM rockets as well
4:38 here it's said the rocket has warhead 22.4lbs of explosive, but in 7:45 it says it has 80lbs warhead. Some other sources also hold it to have 80lbs (40kg) of explosive. This would be nearly as much explosive filler as the massive 300mm NbW42 rockets, of twice the size and mass of these 21cm ones. Is it possible that aircraft-dedicated WGr42/BR21 would have bigger warhead than infantry based Nebelwerfer 42 21cm rockets? Sounds hard to imagine how they'd fit it in, but on the other hand these aircraft-borne rockets were supposed to only go 1000 meters and explode, so they didn't need as much propellant as land variant shot upwards on distances of up to 7 kilometers. So what would be the case here?
Great vid and I have always wondered about the efficacy of these ever since I used them way back in SWOTL. If you ever run out of vid ideas, perhaps you might do an opinion "what if" the Germans had a prox-fuze for their weapons like this and the big AAA guns. Say right around the time the US put theirs in the field, too late to make a change?
We lost the war due to very limited access to strategic materials of every sort, industrial capacity (or lack thereof), and manpower. Not due to a lack of ideas of how to kill other people. There was no way to win the war after December 1941. Regards from Germany.
The video contemplating what if Germany had developed a VT fuse was just released.
@@WWIIUSBombers Thank you & Merry Christmas!
Make on on the R4M Orkan rocket, please.
@WWIIUSBombers -- Could you do a video on the bomber formations themselves, showing distances between bombers in all three axes? What has always puzzled me is how they didn't damage each other when shooting at enemy fighters slashing through a formation. Any data on friendly fire would be interesting too.
I have often thought the same thing.... Especially because. 50cal(12.7mm)would be nearly impossible to tell apart from the German 13mm in terms of damage.... Only I'd you found a projectile would you know if it was 13mm or. 50cal
I would second the question of the extent of "friendly" fire incidents. The video references 54 defensive MGs per wing in all positions. I can only imagine that in the heat of the moment gunners were concentrating on their deflection/defensive efforts without much, if any, regard for possible background objects....do any of your wonderful sources address this subject?
@@nigelsmith7366o
There are films and videos made by other yt channels which show gunnery training for bomber crews. They had specific fields of fire, they used intercoms to talk to the other crew members and the pilots, so that the pilots could relay info to the rest of the squadron on from where the attack was coming. The gunners didn't just shoot wildly.
The guns were equipped with interlocks (spacer, or cam) on the controls. It was a spacer added to the controls of the turrets. The spacers were placed relative to the positions of each gun in the formation. Therefore, when the gun was aligned on a US airplane, the interlock would prevent the gun from firing. There is a video on TH-cam that I watched showing how they worked. I saw it a couple of years ago and I don't remember what channel has it.
If they had more time to develop the sighting mechanism and got better fuses i could see this being extremely effective as a second wave of attacking craft after the fighter escorts had been engaged by non rocket equipped planes and therefore left the screen open.
Cool, I'm glad to find you. I subscribed!
Looking forward to seeing more. 👍
Look at all those 'likes'
If they had proximity fuze.....
MUITO SHOW
They needed a more streamlined rocket pod and should have used other Nebelwerfers systems.. [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebelwerfer ]
I wonder if these rockets explain foo fighters.
how many times did a German hit made the whole bomb load go off? any data on that? thanks for sharing.
They were working on RC-guided rockets. I think they were developing a seeker as well (IR). Did we really use the VT for AA much in the ETO? Just thinking if we did, they might've tried making a jammer if they happened to find a dud.
For just that reason, and to prevent Germany from developing its own VT fuze, it was not used to fight German aircraft over land.
The VT fuze was developed for the US navy, and the Navy prohibited its use over land and prohibited its supply to allied forces. Their thinking was that while the inevitable duds fired at sea would just sink in the ocean and be unrecoverable, if used over land the inevitable duds could be recovered by the Germans and be reverse engineered.
However, when Germany was about to begin launching V-1 cruise missiles at Britain, Britain had no effective defense against it. The British Prime Minister was able to appeal to the US president and get the prohibition against use over land and supply to Britain rescinded in the nick of time, and most V-1's launched were destroyed by the VT fuze, with most fired by US crews.
@@keithammleter3824
True story indeed - and well-reported, thanks!
I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) various US army forces - towards (or around thereabouts) the end of the Battle of the Bulge - started employing them (proximity-fused artillery rounds) against stubborn [retreating] dug-in/entrenched German ground-forces, utilizing them in a [very effective] overhead 'air-burst' employment. After a few barraging salvos from their 105 howitzers, loaded-out with such shells, most [surviving] Wehrmacht soldiers gladly came out with their hands _[literally!]_ in the air.
@@SharkHustler You are correct. The Wikipedia article on proximity fuzes says so under heading '"deployment", giving multiple references, including a contemporary US military document.
Heavy German artillery at 30,000ft.😮
how would an ac 130 perform as a bomber destroyer if it was used by the Germans in ww2?
Probably fairly well, unless bomber escorts were present - but then again, low-percentage loss rates per mission were already unsustainable for strategic bombing, so I doubt such mission would continue to be flown.
Where is any combat film footage?
☝
Thank goodness the Germans never got the fuzing quite right or developed proximity fuzing.
9:34 right below a guy is being ejected from the wreckage
It doesn't look like a single engine German fighter could jettison those tubes. What a Drag!
Historical accuracy us always subordinated to giving the viewers a good show with lots of fireworks. The movie clip is entirely historically inaccurate, mainly because the usage does not accord with the way that the rockets were intended to be used AND there is no way that the Luftwaffe would tolerate pilots that broke with standard operating procedure.
Pretty fireworks though !
Firing one of these rockets from 300 meters while attacking from the 3 o’clock position was almost certainly never done other than by a pilot in pure desperation or by a very inexperienced pilot. No PD fuze and way to close for the 5 second delay fuze. Although if range estimation and aiming could be done accurately, 12 mils from 1,280 yards was just over 46 feet. Just within the lethal radius of the rocket. Attempting a shot from anything other than the front or rear was a waste though. Frontal shots requiring timing that was probably beyond the reflex’s of a pilot in anything other than an ideal situation.
What was speed of rocket
another great video! and yes, hollywood embellishes , sometimes a wee bit much . if they didn't there would be a whole lotta crappy movies
Were rocket armed fighters used by Germans for ground attack? Seems like more logical use to me.
According to the ammunition manual they could also be used against ground targets.
Probably with an impact fuze.
Против Германии воевали четыре державы. И выиграли кое как.
Germans recommended rocket deployment from directly behind formations. Simulation depicts 3 o'clock attack, ie. maximum deflection. Fail.
it looks like the fw 190 is much too close, also, he overruns the rocket in a slight dive , how is this possible?
It's possible due to VFX artists not doing a lick of research about how WWII aerial combat actually worked, and instead made scenes that "look cool."
R4M was highly effective and X-4 could have been but otherwise german air-to-air rockets were useless.
Not including an impact/contact fuze seems to be an amazingly bad mistake.
Not including proximity fuze on something designed to be this cheap, sure, it's probably not a good choice, but at least understandable from the viewpoint of cost. But leaving out the contact fuze is just confusingly stupid.
As Redhand1949 notes among others, actual direct hits DID happen, and if not completely harmless, the damage caused was low to minimal.
A contact fuze would have changed all direct hits to crashed aircraft. AND it would also have allowed skilled pilots to use the rockets as direct fire weapons.
Probability of actually hitting the bomber was almost 0, spending resources on something that is pure chance would be stupid.
You probably mean incredibly lucky rather than skilled.😂
@@randomnickify A contact fuze is TINY and costs barely anything compared to the whole, and based on actual wartime reporting, bombers WERE hit, not all the time, but enough times that it was very obvious that it did happen repeatedly.
Compare the cost of adding those fuzes to the rockets, with how many 88mm shots, every one with an impact fuze, was on average needed to damage or destroy a single bomber.
Even if only half a dozen direct hits had been scored during the entire war, it would STILL be more efficient use of the fuzes than the 88s.
The cost of adding the fuze to the rockets is less than 1% of the total cost.
And we KNOW that the number of direct hits were greater than that.
A few dozen extra bombers shot down, at least. Still not hyper effective or anything, but the overall effect of the rockets would have been greater.
@@annoyingbstard9407 Either works.
But i think you underestimate just what kind of shots people can achieve.
@@DIREWOLFx75 It’s hard to explain things to someone who just invents facts and figures so you carry on believing that.
y
7:32 what aircraft is this?
Messerschmitt Me 410 Hornisse (Hornet), built to replace the Messerschmitt Bf 110 in the Zerstörer (Destroyer / Heavy Fighter) role.
Bf 110 would end up soldiering on until the end of the war alongside it.
Ta
Not saying that nobody ever tried such an attack, or that they were never successful with it. I would say however both are highly unlikely to the point that if attempted any successful attack would be an almost pure fluke. Hitting a fast moving plane from a fast moving plane with a slow moving, wildly inaccurate projectile from a maximum deflection position would be pure luck. To actually hit THE plane you shot at would be little short of a miracle.
If it ever happened, I'd guess it was some wallah seeing escorts coming and decided to just fire the bloody useless things off to get rid of the weight, in the general direction of the formation, and got hella lucky and hit something.
They should send them to Ukraine.
Did the job until long range escorts showed up.
I read the book, and it was grim. They have deviated from fact in the clips presented thus far. A pity. What made Band of Brothers great was the lack of embellishment. CGI is a travesty - the film makers can't help themselves to add "thrills" for the audience.
My first thought is when the VFX were being done there were no historical advisors or someone in charge with the power to veto fantasy nonsense. But then, the aerial combat scene VFX were always likely to be fantasy --- just look at what was depicted in the teaser trailer for this series.
Just eyeballing it, it appears like the German fighter would likely be caught in the blast as well. In addition the fighter appears to exceed the speed of the rocket for a bit shortly after launch, which seems unlikely.
Masters of the Air is looking worse and worse. This is pretty minor but the problems are definitely stacking up against the series being worth watching.
I disagree. Maybe to a rivet counter it may be u watchable, but it still tells a story worth telling. Especially to those who have no clue about the sacrifices made. It may not be 100% accurate but I'm still enjoying it. Episode 3 alone was fantastic.
I think the masters of the air rocket clip is typical entertainment industry bull s**t. Anything that comes from them is more than likely false.
To summarize, it is BS and should have been left out of Masters of the Air.
I am losing faith in this series.
It must have been nerve wracking for all the participants both the bomber crews and the interceptor crews. Bombers must have felt like sitting ducks and the fighters must have been terrified of the 100s of the guns aimed at them.
Algorithm.