stats and defence methods for V-1
A major assignment of the 50th AAA Brigade, Antwerp X was the name given to the heroic defense of the port of Antwerp against V-1 flying bombs by 22,000 antiaircraft artillerymen from three nations.
Organized quickly and secretly, this huge command was mobilized just after the V-1 attacks on Antwerp began late in October 1944. Then, for 154 days and nights without interruption, and with ever-increasing fury, the "Battle of the Buzz Bombs" was fought on the cold wet flats of northern Belgium and southern Holland.
Hundreds of miles closer to the Allied lines than any other usable port, capable of handling 90,000 tons of freight a day, Antwerp became a priority target of German V-1s (and , later, the V-2 rockets) for the last five months of the European War. 5,000 buzz bombs carrying five million pounds of ultra-high-explosives were targeted against the city.
The incredible story of how the Allies organized an American-British-Polish joint defense command against the German assault resulting in some 2,100 V-1s destroyed in mid-air and another 1,500 sent crashing into fields short of their targets .
In all, the Germans produced about 30,000 V-1s. They launched 10,492 flying bombs against England and about 8,000 against Continental targets.
Missile-inflicted casualties on the Continent mostly in the Antwerp area totaled 14,758, although only 211 V-1s hit the central port areas.
Between 2 and 9 August 1944, the Allies dropped 15,000 tons of ordnance on German support facilities. Losses were heavy 1,412 airmen and 197 planes but thereafter the V-1 launch rates dropped by half.
Detection, Tracking, and Force Control
The first method, called "running commentary".Each station provided a controller who advised patrolling fighters of the incoming missile's course and position. Pilots devised their own intercept vectors. Thus, they ran the risk that several aircraft might chase one bogey, but the method worked well overall, especially with additional ground input for final interception.
"close control," was used by fighters patrolling over the English Channel. Radar controllers vectored the pilots on intercept courses with the incoming V-1s. The V-1s crossed the narrow channel very quickly in perhaps as little as four or five minutes and did not stay on radar for very much longer. This cut reaction time to a minimum.It also meant that the defenders had to commit a larger number of aircraft for the same degree of barrier coverage.
Interceptors.The British initially assigned 12 fighter squadrons to the campaign, but many other units tried to engage the speedy missiles on a catch-as-catch-can basis. This only confused the controllers and antiaircraft gunners alike, and many defending aircraft were damaged or shot down by mistake. Within a few days the Allies had limited the effort to their best fighter types, and as the summer wore on, they continually assigned additional units to buzz-bomb defense. By mid-August, 21 Allied squadrons were committed exclusively to V-1 interception, and two more assisted as required.
The buzz bomb's small size and camouflage paint made it difficult to see from above in daylight, especially in the summer haze. The pulse jet's exhaust flame was easily spotted at night, but it tended to appear to the eye as a point of light at an uncertain distance. Even if the sky were clear and moonlit, the V-1's narrow wingspan gave few depth-perception cues for effective gunnery. Moreover, the short reaction time forced the RAF Fighter Command to maintain standing patrols, and fatigue quickly became an additional factor.
As the defenders became more experienced, they found that the best tactic was to approach the missile from above and astern in a long, shallow dive. They usually opened fire at about 300 yards but were careful not to close to less than 150 yards because of the turbulence of the pulse jet's exhaust and the lethal radius of the fireball that would be produced by detonation of the V-1's large warhead.V-1's fuselage was a simple metal cylinder tapered to a point at both ends.This shape tended to deflect projectiles fired from a beam-end aspect. At first, pilots averaged about 500 rounds per kill; this dropped to 150 later in the summer. Much more famous, of course, was the tactic of simply flying alongside and tipping the vehicle with a wingtip.
the defense planners also presumed that the V-1s would approach London at an altitude of 6,000 to 8,000 feet. As chance would have it, the V-1s flew much lower 2,500 feet on average and this zone fell between the respective altitudes at which British light and heavy guns were most effective. Finally, to make matters worse, the initial plan was not well thought-out. It stationed the guns close to London and put their fire-control radars below the terrain line to avoid an anticipated German countermeasures effort. This had the double disadvantage of reducing the gunners' tracking times and allowing the damaged V-1s to fall within the target areas. These errors were soon corrected, but the most serious problem remained unresolved: how to coordinate the fighter and AAA efforts.
In mid-July the British decided to move most of the guns to the coast and establish "gun belts," where aircraft operated at their own risk below 8,000 feet.
Barrage Balloons. As a last resort, the British suspended steel cables from barrage balloons in the most likely approach corridors. This effort was the least effective response, in that the defenders had to maintain over 2,000 balloon stations that brought down only about 230 missiles.there is evidence that the Germans took the balloons seriously: some of the downed missiles had cable cutters built into their wings.
In Summer 1944, the Americans introduced two new wonders of technology to the battle against the buzz bombs that proved to be particularly effective. The first was was the "SCR-548" gun-laying radar, which was used in conjunction with an analog computer to automatically track and fire on aerial intruders.The second was the radio proximity fuze, which allowed a shell to explode when it came to within a certain distance from a target, rather than being detonated by a time fuze set before firing.
In January 1945, however, the Germans developed a new version of the V-1 with a range of 400 kilometers (250 miles) by reducing the size of the warhead and increasing the size of the fuel tank.They launched about 275 of these long-range flying bombs against Britain from the Netherlands in March 1945. British defenses were able to adjust to these last-gasp attacks, and the looming defeat of the Reich ended the campaign for good at the end of March.
The assignment to keep the Port of Antwerp open fell to Brigadier General Clare Hibbs Armstrong. He'd commanded an antiaircraft brigade in defending Paris from air attack, and in early 1945 was given the top-secret job to protect Antwerp, code-named "Antwerp X." Had it not been for those 22,000 AAA men commanded by Armstrong, Germany may have kept the Allies at bay and bought enough time for more of their wonder weapons(??)(At the height of the X campaign, 26 V-2s were hitting Antwerp each day )
The official book Antwerpen 50 Jaar Bevrijd reports that 12,000 V-1s were launched at Antwerp during WW II; Allied records indicate that only 2,448 got through, with 211 striking military targets. In addition, 1,341 V-2s were fired at the city, but few of them actually struck their targets. The docks that supplied 80% of the Allies' supplies were saved. Many Belgians, however, died, and the world got its first taste of the terror of the ballistic missile.
Many American AAA units participated in the six-month campaign to rid the Belgian skies of buzz bombs, including (our list is not complete, and is still being checked):
Headquarters Battery, 50th AAA Brigade
Headquarters Battery, 56th AAA Brigade
Headquarters Battery, 17th AAA Automatic Weapons Group awarded the Belgian Fourragere for action in the defense of Antwerp
Headquarters Battery, 30th Group
Headquarters Battery, 45th AAA Group
125th AAA Gun Battalion (Mobile)
126th AAA Battalion (Mobile)
136th AAA Gun Battalion (Mobile)
150th AAA Operations Detachment
184th AAA Gun Battalion (Mobile)
405th AAA Gun Battalion (Semi-Mobile)
407th AAA Gun Battalion (Semi-Mobile)
494th AAA Gun Battalion (Semi-Mobile)
495th AAA Gun Battalion (Semi-Mobile)
519th AAA Gun Battalion (Semi-Mobile)
601st AAA Gun Battalion probably outfitted with 90-mm guns.
605th AAA Gun Battalion (Semi-Mobile)
740th AAA Gun Battalion (Semi-Mobile)
787th AAA Automatic Weapons Battalion shuttled between Steenburgen, Holland and Antwerp to cover several of the so-called "buzz-bomb lanes" leading to the port. At Steenburgen the 787th was situated to shoot down V-1s as they headed across the North Sea to French targets. Their weapons were the 40-mm Bofors gun and quad-50 machine guns.
789th AAA Automatic Weapons Battalion
Members of these units received a campaign streamer embroidered Antwerp X that is a rare and mysterious artifact today.
http://www.strandlab.com/buzzbombs/
