In article ,
Guy Alcala writes:
Stephen Harding wrote:

Chad Irby wrote:

In article ,
Charles Gray wrote:


The U.S. had a radar guided missile called BAT deployed towards the
end of WWII. The source material I've read claim that it sank a
Japanese DD, as well as hitting a bridge and it had a ragne of about
20 MI.
Forgive me for being suspicious, but that seems like *incredible*
performance for a radar guided weapon in WWII, given that I doubt many
homing radar missiles of the 1960's coudl be used both on bridges and
ships, to say nothing of a 1945 missile.
Does anyone have any more information about it, and more
importantly, why if it existed, did the Russians beat us to the punch
with the Styx?


The Bat was really an unpowered glide bomb, but did have about a 20 mile
max range, and was radar-guided. If you're talking about hitting a
single ship in the middle of the ocean, or a large bridge, it's pretty
easy to manage.

http://www.nasm.edu/nasm/dsh/artifacts/RM-bat.htm

Friedman ("U.S. Naval Weapons") describes its development and use at moderate
length. Carried by Privateers, it was first used after January 1945.
Quoting:

"VPB-109 was initially sent to Palawan in the Pilippines, where it encountered
poor conditions. For example, Bats dropped against a large freighter in a
land-locked harbor locked onto returns from the land surrounding it.
Transferred to Yontan on Okinawa, the squadron was more successful. As of 20
May it had expended a total of 13, of which five never had a chance due to
operational errors. Of the remaining eight, three were direct hits, two were
near-misses which inflicted damage, and only three failed entirelyin line with
the original expectation of 40% successes. In a later mission against a
6000-ton tanker in the Tsushima Strait, however, one Bat spun into the water
and the other struck several ship lengths short.

snip - extensive description of late-wat service of the Bat

Bat was an extremely advanced concept for 1944, for superior to anyone
else's antiship weapons. (I know the Rootin' Teuton will have chimed
in here somewhere) In some ways, it may have been too advanced. One
of the disadvantages of active radar seekers is makin sure that the
returns that the radar is seeing are those of your own missile. The
Bat's radar lacked both the frequency range (Bandwidth) and the
frequency stability - there just wasn't enough room for a Stabilotron
- the circuitry that kept the transmitter's frequency tied down tight
- in the airframe. I can't say for certain, but I suspect that we had
a case here of multiple Bats jamming themselves in some of these
attacks and trials. It's worth noting that the Navy backed away from
active radar seekers for a while after that, going with Command
guidance for A/G (Bullpup) and Beam Riders for A/A and S/A (Sparrow I,
Terrier, Talos). They did keep going with work on active radar
seekers, missing the mark with Sparrow II, and eventually getting the
Phoenix to work - (Although the Phoenix kept going through 3
generations of airframes - the Missileer (picture a carrier-borne A-10
(Well, Northrop A-9, more like) with a Missile Cruiser's radar adn a
flock of missiles. Sort of a killer E-2, in a way. Of course, it was
useless as anything but a Missile CAP airplane.), the F-111B, and,
finally, the F-14.

What was the bomb used in the CBI to take out bridges (the River Kwei
bridge amongst them)?

It was known as the VB-1 (AN-M65 1,000 lb. bomb) and VB-2 (AN-M34 2,000 lb.)
AZON (AZimuth ONly), and was essentially a modular guidance and control
package for standard U.S. bombs (much like the later Paveway LGB systems). It
was a radio-controlled bomb similar in concept to Fritz X (i.e., visually
guided by watching a flare) which, as its name implies, was steerable in
azimuth only (this was done to simplify it and get it into service quicker).

I may be wronk here, but IIRC, at least some of teh River Kwai Bridge
attacks were flown by a B-24 group that specialized in low-altitude
glide bombing attacks.
--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster