The Russians in particular had access to a lot of german techs, but their first SAM, the SA1 did not enter limted service until 1955.
I disagree. The russians decided to copy the Wasserfall in 1946 but after 1 and a half year of intensive research in their occupational zone, they didn´t found an intact specimen of the C2W, just a couple of destroyed frames and the single authetic object among them was part of an actuator. They also barely were able to reconstruct the technical documentation until 1947 and failed to get the key engeneerers for flight controll for them.
When they finally set up the R101 SAM project in 1948 following discovery of an intact but experimental C2W8 in Poland (a design approach discontinued by the german Wasserfall project in 1944) they buildt it up with so many modifications, that You barely can call it a genuine Wasserfall anymore. It took to the end of 1947 to finnish the drawings of the R101 and to 1949 for the first soviet R101 to be launched which continued through 1951.
However, as You note the Wasserfall was developed with 1944 threat environment in mind. Slow medium to high altitude bombers. The rapid process in aeronautic engeneering caused by the genral advent of the jet engine meant an unanticipated rapid progress in bomber performance in just a few years. The soviet R101 was already obsolete by 1950. The B-47 made its first flight in 1947 and had performance outside the interception envelope of the R101. The advent of nuclear bombs meant that all interception attempts had to be effective to be worth keeping. The B47 was able to deploy nuclear bombs with near impunity of R101. Thus, the soviets decided correctly to uprate performance by enlarging the R101 to the new R108 standart (with an interim R109 stage for testing). The project started in 1949 but it was found to be more easy to start from scratch as much had been learnt in the meantime about transsonic and supersonic aerodynamics. This was triggering the entirely new S-25 project, which inherited a lot of lessons learnt by the R101 project but as a new start.
It is entirely incorrect to blame the C2W as a failure based on performance matches against bombers, which were a good two generations beyond those of the designers scope.
If the germans were so close to finding a solution to the basic interception problem, why didnt someone hit on a solution sooner than they did.
They would, had the bombers continued to cruise with 200mph and had the nuke not been added to the weapon arsenal. The advent of jet engined bombers and nukes required much higher intercept solutions.
Also this business that jet techs are somewhat more durable than prop driven aircraft has no basis that i know of.
It is correct. The USAAF after statistical analysis of jet encounters found that it too significantly more hits for .50cal to down Me-262 than other twin engined prop A/C and developed a special jet killer ammunition 0.50cal API as a response. The USAAF did a fair study with their own jet engines and vulnerabilities against impact, shrapnel and blast effect and concluded that jet engines are less sensible to damage by these factors than where piston props. Later, when the P80 became aviable, it was stressed that the airframe was laid out for higher stress caused by higher speeds, which also was a benefit compared to piston A/C.
These were not supersonic aircraft, they were faster than the B-24s/B-17s, but only to the tune of a loaded speed of 520mph, compared to a b-17 of around 250mph .
If You use the enroute loaded cruising speed for the B52 then please alos use it for B17/24. The B24´s enroute loaded speed is certified with 180mph for the B17 it is often given with 160mph, which makes the B52 beeing 3 times as fast enroute. Both planes are capable to cruise faster but not sustained and only with low payload/low range profiles. This is a enormous difference in performance.
The B29 had more of performance but is still within the intercept enevlope of the C2W. The B29 is actually what triggered the whole C2W project.
The other furphy about the size of the warhead. Specifically, the belief or suggestion that a warhead of double size might make a significant difference to lethal radius. Ive seen a number of tests that show this otherwise. its because lethal blast radius is actually related to the volume of a sphere in non targetted ballistics. The volume of a sphere is
(...)
Now if the c2W is twice the warhead size, it wont have a lethal radius twice as big, in fact its lethal radius only increases to 305m at ultra high altitudes, and about 80m at more normal altitudes. You need targetedballistics to get much difference to lethal radius, and that wasnt developed until the 60s., and not by the germans, who by then were back in the business of weapoins development.
I stated previously:
... it had a warhead of less than half the size of the C2W, corresponding to a 1/3 smaller lethal blast radius
This is correct. Indeed I never claimed it to have 2 times the blast radius, the data I gave are suggesting a radius of~1.3 times that of the SA-2 at reference altitude. If you follow my data given above, I assumed spherical spreading, not linear scaling. The HE warhead of the C2W in the final version was 305kg, which is 2.24 times that of the SA-2, which is credited with a lethal blast radius (1 sigma 66.2% probability cat A) of 100m with this warhead in medium altitude. SQR[3] of 2.24 =1.30 and 1.3*100 is 130m for the C2W where the SA-2 attains 100m (66.2% probability). Or 78.5m for the C2W where the SA-2 attains 60m (2 sigma 95.4% probability). Using the 1 sigma probability range, a 130m radius to impact means that the burst can be 260m across (=850ft diameter). Placed in the middle of a tight combat box formation, such a burst has enough size to infict damage on more than one bomber A/C, though not all may be killed in this event. In any way, the burst is MORE dangerous than the smaller one of the SA-2 (or for that matter the large SA-1) by detailing blast effects only. However, by the mid 50´s, it became apparent that blast isn´t suitable anymore as previosuly in trials conducted against high flying jet propelled A/C due to their more rugged airframe design and less numerous sensible engine parts causing a return to shrapnel warheads, so a direct comparison is difficult to make.
As a note I distinctly believe that the blast effect drops with altitude caused by the fact that less particles in less dense higher altitude atmosspheres are involved in the formation of the pressure wave. I remember to have read it in a paper detailing blast effect at various altitudes conducted in 1952 by the US ARMY. But I can check.