Effect of the R4M rocket being invented pre-war?

Engine and airframe were both inexpensive by WWII standards. Why not marry then together plus inexpensive underwing racks for FF rockets? 6mm armored tray (or bathtub) to protect pilot from ground based machineguns. The two wing mounted MG would be retained for self defense. Aircraft weight low enough that performance should be acceptable with only 1,000 hp. Wide track landing gear helps when operating from rough forward area airfields. I'll hazard a guess such an aircraft would cost less then twin engine Hs.129.

I think Koppernic that the chance of the Nazi's getting their infra-red proximity fusing system (based upon their 'Spanner' research sytem, fitted into a R4M type rocket would mean it would have likely no room left for its warhead of any useful size;
..remember they were using vacuum valves made from glass with rare alloyings and rarer gases (for their era), with relays as much governed by convergent electrical values/frequencies (of volts, amps or Hertz) inconjuntion with capacitance condensor based systems; like what you find on/in bikes and cars made before the mid 70's - mechanical programmed controllers as opposed to programmable(/electronic*) logic controllers.

*electronic in the sense that the electronic chips handle most of the logical permutations and have multiple 'maps' or options to choose from to govern each action depending upon specified recognised data input its linked to receive.

davebender said:

Engine and airframe were both inexpensive by WWII standards. Why not marry then together plus inexpensive underwing racks for FF rockets? 6mm armored tray (or bathtub) to protect pilot from ground based machineguns. The two wing mounted MG would be retained for self defense. Aircraft weight low enough that performance should be acceptable with only 1,000 hp. Wide track landing gear helps when operating from rough forward area airfields. I'll hazard a guess such an aircraft would cost less then twin engine Hs.129.

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It would cost less but also do a LOT less.

And BTW replacing the skinny V-12 with a radial almost 2 feet wider just might mean the wing root guns have to move. Trouble there is a good part of the wing is full of fuel tanks.

You can change most anything but the more changes the less cheap the idea becomes.

Shortround6 said:

You can change most anything

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But never as easily as many today seem to imagine

Cheers

Steve

The rocket was a remarkable development, easy to produce and apparently deadly at least in the air to air role. All good and worthy of praise. the difficulty is in the thinking behind it. it took 5 years of hard fighting, not to mention the best experiences in Spain as well, to reach the point that conceptually it could be considered. You dont get to that point by waving a magic wand. There is no other way to conceptualizing a weapon like this without having to pay the piper, and in this case the price was four years of living and dying in the air. in the same way as the trench experiences led to the development of tank warfare, or better yet, those same experiences led to Von Hutiers revolutionary concepts of bypassing point of resistance to restore mobility, with no technology advances, it took years to even learn that these ideas were needed. The same applies to the R4M. Its not obvious or intuitive....it was an idea that was simple, but it took years to learn that it was even needed. You cant just say "suppose they were there". it sidesteps the fundamental question, of how "they" could become aware of its need in the first place

A bad feature for ground attack aircraft. By the time you switch to an armored fuselage tank (similar to Me-109) plus the other changes there's little of the original He-100 remaining.

However I still think the idea has merit. Essentially we want a smaller and lighter version of Fw-190F for CAS until 1943 when BMW801 engine makes the Fw-190F possible.

The "need" dates back to WW I.



Knights of the Air: Le Prieur Rockets - Dieselpunks

The "need" being a weapon that would deal with aerial targets that the aircraft guns of the time had trouble dealing with.

In 1915/16 there was a lack of effective tracer or incendiary ammunition for the machine-guns. With the arrival of better ammunition the guns became more effective and the rockets faded.

By the late 30s Hydrogen filled aircraft (balloons) were not a common target, Good (not great) tracer and incendiary ammunition was available and people were looking to automatic cannon for more target effect against all metal aircraft. For air to air use the rocket would have to compete for development funds with the auto cannon. For air to ground use it would have to compete against both the auto cannon and light bombs (which were cheap and already in existence).
Please remember that just about everybody overestimated both the target effect of their bombs AND the accuracy of their delivery.

The Russians were the only country to use rockets for air to air and air ground combat in the late 30s/40-41 and effect might best be described as mixed;

From wiki so.........

" during the Battle of Khalkhin Gol. A group of Polikarpov I-16 fighters under command of Captain N. Zvonarev were using RS-82 rockets against Japanese aircraft, shooting down 16 fighters and 3 bombers in total.[1]

and yet " Early testing demonstrated that, when fired from 500 m (1,640 ft), a mere 1.1% of 186 fired RS-82 hit a single tank and 3.7% hit a column of tanks. RS-132 accuracy was even worse, with no hits scored in 134 firings during one test. Combat accuracy was even worse, since the rockets were typically fired from even greater distances."

The air to air combat occurred at a much closer distance than 500 meters?

Granted these are not the German R4M but do serve to illustrate the state of the art in 1938/39.

Rockets always present a dual aspect for weapons development, they are cheap from the stand point of not needing an expensive (often very expensive) gun to to deliver the payload (shell/warhead) and can use cheap steel (rolled tubing.etc) as the firing stresses are not great but they use much more propellant to get a given payload to a given distance.

Specs for the Russian RS-82 from Wiki:
Body diameter: 82 mm (3.2 in)
Wingspan: 200 mm (8 in)
Length: 600 mm (24 in)
Weight: 6.8 kg (15 lb)
Explosive weight: 0.36 kg (0.8 lb)
Fragmentation radius: 7 m (23 ft)
Maximum speed: 340 m/s (1,115 ft/s)
Range: 6.2 km (3.9 mi)
Spread: 16 angular mil

Please notice that for a 15lb rocket, about the weight of a 75mm shell, you get .36kg of explosive which is about 1/2 the amount (or less) than most 75mm shells.
As for target effect. "To further complicate the matters, RS-82 required a direct hit to disable light German armor, with near-misses causing no damage. RS-132 could defeat medium German armor with a direct hit but caused almost no damage to light or medium armor with a near-miss."

Now even if the Germans could get their rocket to have much better accuracy (Precision and Cheap never go together) how much better do you need? 4 times better is still pretty lousy. 1 hit per 24 rockets fired? in test not combat?
Germans may have better propellant and better explosive (they did use better explosive in the R4M but then they had a few more years to come up with it.)

Curtiss P-36 Hawk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Lightweight P-36 has adequate performance powered by 1,000hp radial engine. Late 1930s Germany should build something similar except with R4M rocket rack under each wing and a bit of armor around cockpit.

Sure isn't a He 100 with radial engine is it?

Guess the Germans really missed the boat with this one.



Several hundred planes already in German hands, production facilities already in existence for airframe, engine, and guns.

Of course neither plane even had self sealing tanks let alone adequate armor for ground attack (late model Hurricanes got 320-340lbs of additional armor for ground attack duties) so you could expect either one to gain over 500lbs over their 1939/40 versions.

davebender said:

Curtiss P-36 Hawk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lightweight P-36 has adequate performance powered by 1,000hp radial engine. Late 1930s Germany should build something similar except with R4M rocket rack under each wing and a bit of armor around cockpit.

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Shortround6 said:

Sure isn't a He 100 with radial engine is it?

Guess the Germans really missed the boat with this one.

View attachment 275677

Several hundred planes already in German hands, production facilities already in existence for airframe, engine, and guns.

Of course neither plane even had self sealing tanks let alone adequate armor for ground attack (late model Hurricanes got 320-340lbs of additional armor for ground attack duties) so you could expect either one to gain over 500lbs over their 1939/40 versions.

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The He100 used the DB601. And it wasn't ready until after 1940:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_100

Mr Bender had proposed using a He 100 because it was cheap( with no figures as to how or why it was cheap) re-engined with a large diameter radial engine (BMW 132) while keeping the wing root MGs.

P-36/Hawk 75 is a far cry from the He 100 being designed for a radial engine in the first place (even if it only had one airframe powered by the original engine).

razor1uk said:

I think Koppernic that the chance of the Nazi's getting their infra-red proximity fusing system (based upon their 'Spanner' research sytem, fitted into a R4M type rocket would mean it would have likely no room left for its warhead of any useful size;
..remember they were using vacuum valves made from glass with rare alloyings and rarer gases (for their era), with relays as much governed by convergent electrical values/frequencies (of volts, amps or Hertz) inconjuntion with capacitance condensor based systems; like what you find on/in bikes and cars made before the mid 70's - mechanical programmed controllers as opposed to programmable(/electronic*) logic controllers.

*electronic in the sense that the electronic chips handle most of the logical permutations and have multiple 'maps' or options to choose from to govern each action depending upon specified recognised data input its linked to receive.

Click to expand...

I have quite a lot of information on the various proximity fuses in development in WW2 Germany. I have nothing on that of the R4M's except that Adolf Galland said they were planed during his interrogation. The allies did develop an optical proximity fuze which saw use on air launched rockets: the photocell was too sensitive to shock for use in a shell. The R4M fuse would have been similar, I suspect it would have used only one vacuum tube. I suspect such a fuze would have been more suitable for the slightly larger 70mm Fohn rockets.

The Germans did have a functioning proximity fuze suitable for the 88mm shell, it was firing in late 1943 and ready sometime in late 1944. Quite interesting, extremely jam resistant, extremely cheap so cheap it was no more expensive than a nose contact fuze shell, but of low range 5m though they managed to extend range to 15m in ground test. About 2000 test rounds were fired. It used electrostatic principles and as the shock hardened cold cathode tube didn't require a quiescent current they didn't require a battery, they precharged a capacitor to blow a fuze link to detonate the primer. Given their positive experience with going for a direct hit it would have been deadly. Shock hardened thermionic valves had been developed but never made it into production. Goering in his interrogation by Spaatz says there would have been production in 5 months.

I have been fairly critical of the R4M but to give credit where it is due it appears the Soviet S-5 rocket family is a copy/development of the R4M. The nominal 57mm caliber is diameter of the rocket tubes, the rockets themselves being 55mm.
Not only is diameter the same but the length/weight and fin arrangement is very similar. It did take the Russians until the mid 50s to get the rockets into service.

As the family expanded different warheads were added which had better target effect than WW II warheads would have had. Of course with another 8-10 years of rocket propellant development the Russian rockets had higher speed/longer range.

S-5 rocket - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Russians apparently had accuracy and target effect problems. Granted they may have been using the rockets a longer ranges than the would have been the case in in WW II.