Overall Favorite Weapon

The man sure was ahead of his time!

Nope, he never worked in the US. He did work in France for a while it seems, and Stalin even tried to kidnap him in some strange way(?) by the articles, because he had these ideas for the future, but the Russians didn´t succeed. The articles fail to tell how they tried to kidnap him.

"After the war he worked for the French government and he was one of the founders of the International Astronautical Federation in 1951. He served as its first president. After 1954 he worked as a professor for jet propulsion in Berlin, Germany."

Other interesting persons and history on this:

http://www.flight100.org/history/aus.html

 

Panzerabwehrrakete X-7 Rotkäppchen

Another most advanced weapon conceived by the germans in WW II was the Panzerabwehrrakete X-7 ("tank defense rocket") anti-tank guided missile, nickname Rotkäppchen ("little red riding hood"), project number 8-347. Developments for a guided AT missile begun as early as 1941 when BMW (the car company) offered the weapon to the army's weapons bureau. Because of the then generally good military war situation the army wanted to save the projected development costs of 798,000 RM. In 1942 Dr.Kramer of the german research institute for aircraft developed rocket engines for weapons that resulted in the X-series of guided bombs and precision weaponry of which the X-7 was the smallest family member.
The first prototype was followed by a larger production model with a changed detonator for the shaped charge of 2.5 kg. The back part of the main body (length 46.5 cm; diameter 15 cm)contained the two-stage solid fuel rocket engine 109-506 developed and made by the company WASAG. The wings were swept forward and had wingtips which housed the guidance wires, wingspan was 60cm. The small elevator/steering rudder assembly was set off 13.2 cm of the main body's axis. Total length including the protruding detonator cap (diameter: 3.8 cm) was 95cm. The fully loaded Rotkäppchen weighed 9kg.
The missile was to be launched from a start rail tripod that was 150cm long and weighed 15kg. the missile's rocket engine was ignited with a 300V battery. This fired the 2g gunpowder positioned in the two hollow half rounds of the gyro stabilizer. the explosion gases exited through two tangential openings and immediately brought the gyro to operating speed. Then the 3kg of propellant of the first stage of the rocket engine were ignited. They developed 68kp thrust and accelerated the missile to it's flight speed of 98m/s in 2.5 sec.
In flight the X-7 rotated around it's axis at a rate of two rotations/sec. Guidance commands from the gunner were transmitted over the two wires, one for longitudinal and one for lateral corrections. A delay mechanism let the steering rudder of the elevator only work when it was in the right position for the respective command, in other words, the elevator worked both as a (longitudinal) elevator and a (lateral) rudder. Guidance was achieved through optical tracking of the small tracer in the rear of the rocket that was to be kept superimposed over the target by the gunner's commands until it impacted (a method still in use today and known as CLOS for command-line-of-sight).
The second stage of the rocket engine developed a thrust of 6kg for 8sec. This sufficed to keep up a speed of over 300km/h and reach a range of 1200m. The shaped charge warhead was strong enough for all known tanks of that era.
A trial was undertaken on September 21st 1944 with seven X-7 missiles. Because of the unusual and unfamiliar flying characteristics the first four weapons had ground contact after some distance and therefore crashed. On the next two the rocket engine exploded on the way to the target. The last Rotkäppchen flew all the way and hit the target tank at a range of 500m dead center.
Only about 300 X-7 Rotkäppchen were completed; mass production was planned and had already started at the companies Ruhrstahlwerke in Brackwede and the Mechanische Werke in Neubrandenburg. Many almost finished weapons were captured by the allies.
It is unclear whether the combat trial at the front took place or which results it had.

Improvements of the X-7 Rotkäppchen were the Steinbock which used infra-red transmitting of the guidance command and therefore didn't require the wires. An automated tracking device was the Pfeifenkopf or Pinsel project. It utilised a machine that computed the changes in angle of the two sighting devices - one was to be aimed at the target, the other at the missile- into commands for the missile. This mechanism was further atomated in the Zielsuchgerät ("target aquisition device"). By using an image recognition device called Ikonoskop the missile was to seek its target through it's own optical sensor that compared the image data from the aiming device with the data it received from its own optical sensor.
Besides these avionics and electronic equipment, other long range ATGMs were the Rochen-600, Rochen-1000 and Rochen-2000 for ranges of 500m , 1500m and 3000m respectively. Another project called Flunder utilized many parts of the Panzerfaust including it's warhead and using it's launch tube for the rocket engine. None of these projects were completed.

http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust12.htm

 

Lately I´ve found this one very interesting and very damaging...

W. J. Lawrence wrote about the Tallboy bomb in his book, No 5 Bomber Group (1951)

It was an extraordinary weapon, an apparent contradiction in terms, since it had at one and the same time the explosive force of a large high-capacity blast bomb and the penetrating power of an armour-piercing bomb. On the ground it was capable of displacing a million cubic feet of earth and made a crater which it would have taken 5,000 tons of earth to fill. It was ballistically perfect and in consequence had a very high terminal velocity, variously estimated at 3,600 and 3,700 feet a second, which was, of course, a good deal faster than sound so that, as with the V-2 rocket, the noise of its fall would be heard after that of the explosion.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWtallboy.htm

http://www.altnews.com.au/hadrian/palladium/technology/earthquake-bomb.htm



This 12000 pounder known as Tallboy was found in the silt and mud at the base of the Sorpe Dam in 1958 after the dam was partially drained.

http://www.btinternet.com/~paul.steele/new_page_5.htm

 

As always, there's a book....

But this is a really good one - 'A Hell Of A Bomb ' by Stephen Flower ( Tempus, 2002 ).

It tells you virtually everything you could want to know about 'Tallboy' and 'Grand Slam', including every target, every mission flown, and details of all crews who delivered them....

 

Thanx Martin!

After reading about the "Tallboy" I must say it was/is a devastating weapon. Actually I just realized this after reading on its use and not before..

It was quite "amusing" to read how Wallis was seen as a "luny" professor at first and later on he was absolutely requested for more and bigger bombs!!!

 

In view of recent controversy, it is easy to sympathize with Wallis' views.

He geniunely felt that the way to win the war was with the 'earthquake' bombs, delivered with total precision on selected strategic industrial/infrastructure targets, rather than 'carpet-bombing' cities. Tragically, the means of delivery wasn't available earlier in the war.

 

Indeed,

looking at the pics you can see that area bombing was not necessary to get the results...


http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/diary/images/gi1244.jpg

Railway yards at Giessen



Road and Rail Bridge at Zutphen Destroyed


etc etc...

http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/diary/oct44.html

 

And there it goes....

http://www.ww2guide.com/grandsl.jpg

 

Some way above is the Sänger Amerika bomber project.

Also like the "looks" of the Horten 18....

Horten Ho 18 B Luft '46 entry

 

I'm the new one here but I must agree with Kai that Messerchmitt 262 is the best killing flying machine, but we must not forget mg45.

 

Tank-Churchill
Weapon-BREN
Plane-Mosquito

 

No, actually my fave weapon is the Lee-Enfield No.4.

 

These are only pound for pound

1.PPSH (with drum)

2.Panther

3.P-51 Mustang

 

My favourite weapons.

Bren gun Mk2,
P-40,
Cromwell cruiser tank.

Matt

 

P-40? The Curtiss P-40? Now that's a surprise

 

Hi,
Why are you surprised ?? Its one of the outstanding aircraft of WW2, if your not happy with my personal / historical accurate choices,i can change it to Hurricane or Typhoon.

Matt

 

Jesus!!! I forgot to add Stalin's Organ!! ( Katyusha )

Now that im thinking about it more, there are too many to name!!!

Its getting harder to breath!! anic:

 

I was just kidding, I have a soft spot for the P-40 as well. Now, a Typhoon properly handled, well...

 

8.8cm German Flak-gun

StuG III

P-38 Lightning

 

Let's see...

Small arm - StG 44 (very accurate, very stylish), BAR (just cause it RULES!) and Mosin-Nagant 90/30 (It's a classic, aren't it?)

Favorite vehicle - Tiger II (it's very beautiful, eh?), IS-2 (just damn cool!)