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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ส.ค. 2024
- The Radar War Before DDay - RAF Typhoons in action
Part of Build up to DDay Week
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Frequent WW2TV guest Matt Bone joins us to talk about the role of the 2nd Tactical Airforce in neutralising the threat of German radar ahead of Operation Overlord. For example RAF Typhoon fighter-bombers of No. 98 and No. 609 Squadrons attacked and destroyed the enemy radar station at Dieppe/Caudecotein. This installation would have given the Germans advance warning of the Allied invasion fleet.
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Excellent as ever. Really enjoyed listening to Matt. A wonderful tribute to our brave Typhoon and Tempest pilots.
I had a chuckle at the armourers putting together the rockets... I (somewhat) shared their pain trying to glue the rockets onto a 1/72 scale airfix! 😄
500 MPH covers 244.4 yards per second, or 6/10 of a second to travel the 150 yards Matt uses in his near-miss calculations at the 33:00 mark. That means there's a 1.2 second window to land a Typhoon rocket within a 30 yard radius (with everything else that's going on inside and outside the cockpit).
'But I've seen the paintings!!!'😂
Love it! Great presentation, by the way!
Excellent presentation and discussion. Thank you gentlemen.
I thought: “A video about radar - really?” Well, you proved me wrong - the topic was fascinating. Furthermore, the sacrifice of the pilots for just small part of Overlord was moving. Thanks for another great program.👍
Missed this one somewhere along the lines. Great episode presented by Matt, particularly at this time of year.
Brilliant detail
That memo, 21 minutes in, is wonderful.
Thanks for a fascinating progranne
Well done Matt Bone. I had no idea if this was going to be of great interest - but it WAS. How to make radar bombing unbelievably compelling!
Thank You.
Thank you!
As always, this was 2am for me, but it's airplanes, I'm a pilot, and it's WW2TV. Sleep had no chance. It got worse -- Matt Bone narrated a riveting narrative of dive-bombing physics, warbird tactics and aerial courage that had me reflecting until sunrise. Why? I'll leave that for the last paragraphs, below.
German radar could see all the way into the air bases in England. Over 800 C-47s would be taking off to drop over 10,000 paratroopers after midnight on D-Day. The flight was hours long. The Germans would have had all that time to realize the invasion was on, alert all their air and ground defenses, and inflict a bloodbath on the invasion forces. So the Allies had to take the radar network out before the invasion.
I'm a sucker for flying stories anyway. That said, these were single-pilot, single-engine missions, and the individual bravery of these pilots has never been really discussed nor portrayed with fidelity. Mainly because they were alone in their cockpits. Pilots who were not told of the urgency of their mission, and yet could guess that they were the leading edge of the invasion. Who were trying to bomb and rocket slim antennas. Who in some cases suffered fatal hits on their aircraft and decided to aim for the radar stations on their last dive.
I built models of these airplanes as a kid -- Spitfires, Thunderbolts, Typhoons. I thought fighter pilots were more glamorous than the ground attack mud-movers. This episode was a well-deserved recognition of pilots who paved the way for D-Day, almost literally, by flattening radar antennas all along the coast.
Finally, there's a special kind of valor that I learned about here. So as not to alert the Germans where the invasion was going to be, the Allies had to hit radar stations all along the Atlantic coast of Europe.
So imagine this -- you're a pilot assigned to a target a bazillion miles from Normandy. Whether you hit the antenna or not would not decide the invasion's success. But you were part of the effort to deceive the enemy. But the flak was murderous, and you were alone in your cockpit, and nobody else would know. Would you really push over and dive-bomb a single antenna?
Finally, the sun rose, and I went to bed.
Good analysis !!!
Thanks Paul and Matt, really appreciate learning more about the lead up to D-Day. For me the planning and preparation for D-Day is even more interesting than the astonishing day itself. Our debt to the men and women who served is incalculable. I sometimes wonder if Stalin who, understandably, was constantly pushing for a "second front" was aware of what a vast undertaking breaking into Europe was and what it entailed for it to succeed?
I love these discussions of WWII radar, its engineering at its finest. So I'm watching and at 20 mins you announce a spotlight is possible. FANTASTIC! No disrespect to the other technologies but Radar grew into its own in this war. Oh I'm a career electronic engineer so yes its a special interest.
That "The Fighter-Bomber Problem" graphic at the 22:00 mark was almost as great as the "bomb recall" letter that preceded it. GREAT stuff, Matt & Woody!
Only managed to see this after two years... but at least it fits the timeframe, leading up to 6 June, regardless of the year. Excellent show ! Great to hear and see this fantastic presentation ; and follow the sidebar. The videos on WW2TV are a trove.
Comin to this. Bit late - don't know how I missed it - but this is one of the most interesting D-Day videos I've ever seen! Brilliant!
Superb episode, 2TAF always a favourite. Well done Matt.
Thank you!
Only just came across this video. Bit late and a few quid short, but this was a really excellent presentation, and an excellent anecdote to finish with. Class act!
Another great show. Well done Matt.
Glad you enjoyed it
Very kind of you to say, thanks!
Excellent presentation. Thanks, Woody and Matt
Loved that one Matt, some fabulous information there. We had a Wurzburg and Freya radar just north of us (north of Mayenne) that was still operational in August as far as I am aware.
Thanks!
Superb presentation as usual, many thanks for these insights.
Would it be possible to find someone who can talk about the role of Signals in D-Day. Not signals intel, but rather the role of signals in keeping the army connected on the ground. My father served in Signals arriving at Normandy on D-Day+1 from what I understand. The particular role he had was as a driver for a small unit that went around fixing up the telegraph lines that had been cut by the Germans. Not a glamorous role but something that was necessary for communications for the Army. Yet it seems the role of these back-up troops is mostly forgotten.
I will be doing a Signals week at some point
Many thanks. I need a month on a sailing boat to get over it. Each syllable of every word bears the weight of many lives.
This retired Radar guy approves. When will you do the German Radar presentation?
I don't know exactly when I'll do a German radar show, but its on my list
Great show guys 👍
Much appreciated
Thanks very much
From D Day to VE Day , the 2nd Tactical Airforce had the highest loss rate of all RAF Commands .
Possibly with the focus on the American 8ths fighter battles against the Luftwaffe the true picture of what pilots went through is forgotten , their losses from returning home shooting at anything that moved cost them dear in fighters and pilots.
There is a good pod on utube about P-47 Thunderbolts in the last days of the war , if I remember correctly eight went out on a mission and one came back .
Again relying on my memory , Aircraft Monthly had a couples of editions about Arnhem and the fight to relieve the Para's . Again USAAF P-47's were heavily involved and lost over forty aircraft. History worth remembering.
Brilliant as expected! Slightly early for me to watch live on a Saturday morning, but at least I wasn't tempted by drinking games in the chat after last night's wine!
Thanks for watching and ALWAYS avoid the drinking games.
From September 1943 RAF was offcially called RADAR in RAF.
How about doing Typhoon and Tempest operations post DDay . When losses were so high , volunteer pilots were recruited to make up the losses.
Arguably if some of the rockets are cross threaded, bent a bit or have a dinged fin their inaccuracy is going to give the volley a shot gun effect compensating for the other inaccuracies. Some go long; some go short; some hit straight; so the target does get a bit messed up even on a bad dive.
ty 🙏🙏
Not sure if it ever got off the ground but a German Radar episode would be very interesting
German radar was in some ways ahead of the Allies. A great idea for a show
Was there a specific reason to not use P-47 Thunderbolts instead of Typhoons?
I'm not _that_ knowledgeable about WW2 planes, but as far as I know, the Thunderbolts were very tough and could carry a lot of ordinance, too.
So it seems like they also could've done it, and maybe taken fewer losses?
Also, wouldn't the Mosquito have been better for strafing runs?
Maybe they'd have been so fast that the AA just failed to lead the target enough?
Lastly, why did they go for dive bombing instead of very low very fast strafing or flat bombing runs?
It seems like the targets were so hard to see from up high, and they had to start pulling up so soon, that there was basically no chance to actually hit the antennae.
In that sense, an earlier dive to pick up max speed, and then a strafe while skimming the tree tops, would appear to increase both the hit and the survival rates.
I mean, they didn't do these things, and they weren't stoopid/wasteful, so clearly I'm missing something - I just don't know what :)
Basically because this mission was given to 2 TAF who had Typhoons rather than the 9th AF. In terms of tactics, as Matt explained, the method used was considered the "best"
(52:10) 1940? Surely not. The Typhoon didn't enter production until mid 1941 at the earliest and was not used operationally until May of 1942. Perhaps he means late 1942 which is when the standardized Mark IB with cannon armament began to be produced in relatively large numbers.
Slip of the tongue I expect
Yes, my bad, totally meant 1941. R7620 was one of 56 Sqn's original MkIa. She had all the mods, flew through most of the war, ending up at De Havilands before being struck off charge in 1945. R7651 lasted until 1946.
@@MatthewBoneyAbroad Thanks for the clarification.
The Typhoon did not have to hit the tanks At Falaise just the constant bombardment was enough to make the Germans abandon their tanks
I think you will find that for a VC to be awarded the action has to have been witnessed I believe the witness perished as well
Seems to me it that instead of using the "Abdullah" homing system, it would have been far more effective to use pathfinder Mosquitos equipped and OBOE or other radio navigational aids to locate and mark the radar sites the positions of which had already been precisely determined through signals intelligence data and photographic reconnaissance.
Maybe, but for whatever reason the job was given to the Typhoons and Spitfires and they did a remarkable job
@@WW2TV I just meant a pathfinder Mosquito would have been better for finding and marking the target, not attacking it. The ability to have a navigator and another set of eyes (i.e. two crewmen) in the guide aircraft could make a huge difference in locating the target and would obviate the need to rely on homing in on emissions from the radar site which as Matt said were usually turned off as the aircraft were detected approaching.
@@thegreatdominion949 The Abdullah system, once turned on, gave the pilot the course to fly via some dots. He would then mark the target with smoke with the strike package following up close behind. I think in the context of the D-Day ops, the locations were known and photographed, moving forward and trying to find the mobile and train based sites, that could very well have been a better option.
@@MatthewBoneyAbroad Thanks for the additional info.
@@thegreatdominion949 Only two Squadrons of Mosquitos equipped with OBOE (30-40 Aircraft Maximum). CEP of the OBOE system, 50% of weapons within a 600 x 200 yard oval. No visual bombing capability and aircraft had to be at 10,000 feet plus to be tracked by ground stations.
Great point on the larger radius of effect of the 1,000lb bombs. Absolutely superb explanation of the factors involved in dive bombing and rocketry, the modern observer finds it easy to imagine 21st century smart weapons on a good day when they look at these raids - even planners at the time often overestimated what could be achieved with bombs, rockets and artillery.
Regarding the closing comment, yes air crew reports of the incredible numbers of ships (and other aircraft) since D Day make the scale obvious, no wonder the order to radio silence on the subject was given at the time!