Allied Air launched rockets of ww2

Does anyone know why the allies didn't consider using their air
lauched rockets as air-to-air weapons during the war when the jets
started appearing? I thought it would have been a good idea to ward
off any attack from ME-262s or me-163s which were too fast to attack
with guns.

Prowlus wrote:

Does anyone know why the allies didn't consider using their air
lauched rockets as air-to-air weapons during the war when the jets
started appearing? I thought it would have been a good idea to ward
off any attack from ME-262s or me-163s which were too fast to attack
with guns.


It may have to do with the fact that shooting down a 550+ mph jet
fighter with unguided, relatively slow (~ Mach 1), short-range rockets
is much harder than doing it with a stream of bullets. In Korea,
bullets were good enough to bring down quite a lot of fast jets!

Andreas

"Prowlus" wrote in message
om...
Does anyone know why the allies didn't consider using their air
lauched rockets as air-to-air weapons during the war when the jets
started appearing? I thought it would have been a good idea to ward
off any attack from ME-262s or me-163s which were too fast to attack
with guns.

Given that the bullets were faster than the rockets
and that there was zero chance of achieving a hit
it seems unlikely to have been considered a good idea.

Keith




----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups
---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =---

"Prowlus" wrote in message
om...
Does anyone know why the allies didn't consider using their air
lauched rockets as air-to-air weapons during the war when the jets
started appearing? I thought it would have been a good idea to ward
off any attack from ME-262s or me-163s which were too fast to attack
with guns.

Given that the bullets were faster than the rockets
and that there was zero chance of achieving a hit
it seems unlikely to have been considered a good idea.

Keith




----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups
---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =---

In article ,
Prowlus wrote:
Does anyone know why the allies didn't consider using their air
lauched rockets as air-to-air weapons during the war when the jets
started appearing? I thought it would have been a good idea to ward
off any attack from ME-262s or me-163s which were too fast to attack
with guns.

The VVS was using air-air rockets against the Japanese over Manchuria
in 1938 or so. They made quite extensive use of them in the early
part of the war against Germany (before giving them up as ineffective,
iSTR).
Compared with the allies (well, the Russians) the germans were very slow
in trying air-to-air rockets.

--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
"Time has stopped, says the Black Lion clock
and eternity has begun" (Dylan Thomas)

On 1 Jun 2004 15:21:56 +0100, (ANDREW ROBERT BREEN)
allegedly declared to rec.aviation.military...
In article ,
Prowlus wrote:
Does anyone know why the allies didn't consider using their air
lauched rockets as air-to-air weapons during the war when the jets
started appearing? I thought it would have been a good idea to ward
off any attack from ME-262s or me-163s which were too fast to attack
with guns.

The VVS was using air-air rockets against the Japanese over Manchuria
in 1938 or so. They made quite extensive use of them in the early
part of the war against Germany (before giving them up as ineffective,
iSTR).

Compared with the allies (well, the Russians) the germans were very slow
in trying air-to-air rockets.

And the nature of the intended targets (relatively large and slow
bomber formations rather than small, fast, and nimble fighters, jabos, etc.)
made the german AA rocket a viable option at that point in the war.

--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) quirk @ swcp.com
Just an article detector on the Information Supercollider.

The Germans did use rockets against Allied bombers. They put launch tubes in
the wings of FW-190s with the tubes set at about an 80 degree angle to the
wing cord.

The idea was to fly under a bomber and fire the rockets into it's
underbelly. You could detonate the bomb load, destroy the bomber, and have
the whole mess falling on you quicker than it even takes to describe.

WDA

end

"Prowlus" wrote in message
om...
Does anyone know why the allies didn't consider using their air
lauched rockets as air-to-air weapons during the war when the jets
started appearing? I thought it would have been a good idea to ward
off any attack from ME-262s or me-163s which were too fast to attack
with guns.

"Taki Kogoma" wrote in message
...
On 1 Jun 2004 15:21:56 +0100, (ANDREW ROBERT BREEN)
allegedly declared to rec.aviation.military...
In article ,
Prowlus wrote:
Does anyone know why the allies didn't consider using their air
lauched rockets as air-to-air weapons during the war when the jets
started appearing? I thought it would have been a good idea to ward
off any attack from ME-262s or me-163s which were too fast to attack
with guns.

The VVS was using air-air rockets against the Japanese over Manchuria
in 1938 or so. They made quite extensive use of them in the early
part of the war against Germany (before giving them up as ineffective,
iSTR).

Compared with the allies (well, the Russians) the germans were very slow
in trying air-to-air rockets.

And the nature of the intended targets (relatively large and slow
bomber formations rather than small, fast, and nimble fighters, jabos,
etc.)
made the german AA rocket a viable option at that point in the war.

The Luftwaffe did of course use AA rockets against US and UK bombers in
thelatter stages of the war. The Me-262 was certainly equipped to fire them.

John

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Prowlus" wrote in message
om...
Does anyone know why the allies didn't consider using their air
lauched rockets as air-to-air weapons during the war when the jets
started appearing? I thought it would have been a good idea to ward
off any attack from ME-262s or me-163s which were too fast to attack
with guns.

Given that the bullets were faster than the rockets
and that there was zero chance of achieving a hit
it seems unlikely to have been considered a good idea.

Keith




----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet
News==----
http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000
Newsgroups
---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption
=--

Of course the UK had ground based rocket AA defense systems. Not sure how
effective they were ! but to see and hear them was pretty impressive :-))

BMC

In article , Glenfiddich
writes
On 1 Jun 2004 06:23:49 -0700, (Prowlus) wrote:

Does anyone know why the allies didn't consider using their air
lauched rockets as air-to-air weapons during the war when the jets
started appearing? I thought it would have been a good idea to ward
off any attack from ME-262s or me-163s which were too fast to attack
with guns.

Did any of those WW2 aircraft rockets have any sort of guidance and
homing?

Since a direct hit on a fast-mover by an unguided rocket was and still
is VERY unlikely, the next question that comes to mind is whether WW2
era air-to-ground rockets had proximity fuses and fragmentation (or
better) warheads.

The air-ground rockets used by the Typhoon, Beaufighter, Mosquito, and
even the Swordfish, had a selection of warheads: 60 pound high explosive
shaped-charge for armoured land targets, and solid 25 pound armour
piercing for use against submarines (if these punched a hole in the hull
the U-boat crew could never get to the site of the hole to fix it so the
sub slowly sank). There was also a concrete one for practice.

Being air-ground they did not have proximity fuses, but interestingly,
post-war, the air-ground rocket was used in trials to build air-air
missiles. A heat detector was installed in an instruments package in
the nose and it was fired up a ramp towards a hot target mounted on a
tower. When the rocket passed the target it set off a flash bulb to
show the precise moment it had detected the hot spot. That was the easy
bit - finding an optical filter that would detect the target and ignore
the Sun took some time. There were also ground-based detectors that
were tested against low-flying Mosquitos to see if they could detect the
heat from the engine exhausts (they did). I saw some interesting
footage of the experiments some years ago.

Without those features, their battle effectiveness would have been,
at most, the psychological effect of near-misses.

'It is the most exhilarating thing in the world to be shot at - without
result.' W S Churchill.

Cheers,

Dave

--
Dave Eadsforth