The most secret weapon of the Luftwaffe

[parsifal]

British sonar was not better and an operational advantage in radar did not develop till early 1943 and then only in certain areas.

Then why did German Asdic fail to deliver any outstanding results of any note?

I would say this as a qualifier to my own argument. Asdic even today is reliant upon the expertise of the operator, and also on the absolute necessity to work as a team.

Both sides lacked these critical abilities at the beginning, and it was the allies who developed the tactics needed to make the available technologies work. However, if as you say the Germans had superior sonar in 1939, then there would have been higher ratio of sinkings by the germans. It never happened, whereas, the allies, as they slowly solved their other issues, did dramatically increase their rate of sinkings (of Uboats).

If your claims were correct, one could expect a higher rate of sinkings of British submarines. There is no evidence of this ever occurring. Your explanation of why that might be is just plain wrong Im afraid, Says a person who learnt this as job.

German active sonar lacked a blind spot and had a beam that could locate the target in 3 dimensions. The low losses of british subs relates to their different use.

In what way? British submarines by the end of 1940 had sunk crippling losses of german controlled shipping. German supplied sonar for her major maritime partners also never delivered much in terms of results. You need to back this claim up, but i can tell you, categorically, that it is a baseless claim.

The microwave radar you so proudly speak of was not deployed on British submarines till the dying days of the war.

According to The Defeat of the German U-boats: The Battle of the Atlantic By David Syrett, "From March (1941) the allies began to pull ahead of the Uboats technologically as new electronics and tactics began to render increasingly unworkable the tactics of the surfaced attacks from withiin the convoy. Two electronic devices , HF/DF and radar rendered Uboat surfaced attacks unworkable, though they would continue for some time in other parts of the battle front. Once the escorts were fitted with radar , which occurred gradually from March 1941 on) Uboats found it nearly impossible toi emply their favourite tactics as successfully as they had. Under good conditions it was sometimes possible to detect periscopes with allied radar......"

For instance the Type 291W radar of the T class submarine operated at 1.4m (twice the wavelength of seetakt). A microwave set the type 267W was not introduced on Royal Navy subs until the very end of the war though the US subs hand something a little earlier.

Here is the truth about submarine radar. Submariners were scared to use it and rightfully so since both side had detectors. The only folks who dared were the Americans with 3cm radars at the end of the war with the Japanese as the Japanese seemed to lack detractors, their own 10cm radar could detect the US 9cm radar but not 3cm.
The German sub radar was
1942 Seetakt FuMO 29, forward pointing phased array for detecting targets ahead
1943(early) Seetakt FuMo 30, rotating antenna for all round scanning, retracted pneumatically.

Equipment - Radar of German U-Boats
View attachment 305689
Above: U-643 (type VIIC) showing her FuMO 30 antenna. On the port side of the conning tower you can see the
UAK symbol given to the boats built in the Blohm Voss yard)

1944 Hohtenweil U FuMo 61 rotating 50cm radar with PPI, automatically retractable in conning tower
1944 (late) or early 1945 Berlin FuMo 84 microwave radar in sealed lenticular antenna could operate while under water.
1944 (late) or early 1945 FuMo 391 Lessing, single whip aerial could clear the area for 30km around the U-boat in a single undetectable pulse prior to surfacing.
1945 a automatic trscking microwave anti aircraft radar was tested called ballspeil on a U-boat.

All this yielded what for the Uboats. Im not making any claims from a technology point of view. My claims are made purely on observed results? What result can all this technology you are quoting actually deliver for the Uboats.....ah nothing.....

In terms of the low number of British submarine losses, this is due to their lower number and different employment

Nope. Maybe later in the war, but at the beginning, 1939 to 1941, there were, on average a greater number of British Boats operating against the germans than German boats operating against the British.

In 1940, the average Uboat availability in the Atlantic was somehere between 10-12 boats per month, whilst for the allies it was 15-18. Not only were there British Boats to contend with. From September we see added to the allied OB the Polish, then the Norwegian, then the Dutch Navies. The French operated 2-3 full flotillas of boats in the North Sea and the Kattegat. Some of which remained in British service after the French surrender. In terms of new construction, British and German construction through to the end of 1940 were almost identical. After 1940, German construction slowly began to pull ahead, but their loss rates also skyrocketed, whilst british losses sharank to virtually nothing. .

1 German U-boats had to operate on the surface a high percentage of the time. The indiscretion ratio, the ratio between time on the surface recharging and that underwater on electric power was very high. This was because of the high speed required to approach a convoy.

Actually this relates to wolfpack tactics and with one exception, these werent employed until September 1940. Until then, Uboats concentrated on ambush attacks on independant sailings. By contrast, Allied subs remained bound by the stop and search policies until March 1940. Only then did they finally adopt an unrestricted attack policy, and then only against german flagged shipping. Until after June 1940, most British attacks were done on the surface, because ROE limits prevented them from doing otherwise.

Moreover, after slaughter of early April 1940, virtually all German shipping travelled in heavily defended convoys. Many allied and neutral flagged shipping remained independant sailings until September. After that virtually all shipping, including neutral shipping had to be convoyed because in August '40 the germans declared that all ships in all zones would be sunk on sight.

There was greater risk for the Allied subs operating until June 1940 than for the Germans. Even after this date, the threat remained higher, as the ratio of escorts in the German convoys remained very high, and much of the shipping lanes were fully protected by the Norwegian Leads, backed up by defensive mines .

2 British submarine was used for ambushes in coastal shipping, reconnaissance. For instance a T class submarine could charge its batteries as fast as possible, in say an hour and a half, and then spend the next 2-3 days submerged cruising at say 2 knots.

Ah no, British submarines did not operate that way early in the war. They would detect a convoy and chase it in the same way as the Germans had to, except that the British subs tended to do it submerged. The Royal Navy type "T" submarine had an underwater navigation speed of up to 16 knots, but at that speed an endurance of less than hour. At 2 knots it had a maximum endurance of 40 hours. At 2 knots the chances of achieving a firing solution against a 10 knot convoy was virtually zero. Recharge time was about 12-14 hrs.

Plus all this is irrelevant to the fact that German escort densities were far higher than for the Brit convoys. Typically in 1940 a convoy in the western approaches (the main killing field) with 45 ships would have 2 DDs and 2-3 corvettes as escort. SC-7 for example, in October, had 4 escorts defending 50 ships. By comparison the typical attacks against the german convoys in the Kattegat were 10-12 escorts for a 3 or 4 ship convoy....

 

[parsifal]

3 While allied anti sub warfare resources were concentrated the Germans had to disperse theirs.

I dont know where you are getting your information, but its the opposite actually. 1940-42 the BDU enjoyed almost complete knowledge of escort dispositions. Occasionally the allies would get a lucky break and be able to re-route their convoys around U-Boat concentrations. During the Happy times, August -November 1940, nearly all the Uboat sinkings were in the western approaches, this concentration of effort continued (slightly to the west) in 1941. Once the Germans gained control of the French Atlantic ports, and began to introduce new longer range Boats the Allied escorts thinned even futher.

By comparison, the German only really ever had to worry about limited sections of the Norwegian and Baltic coast. From May 1940, the Baltic was effectively closed, so the entire campaign had to be fought from limited "fronts" so to speak, through choke points, because of the effects of the norwegian leads. This greatly assisted the German escort by using natural features to great advantage. Still they were unable to prevent the rupturing of their merchant service.

When U-boats operated in shallow coastal waters again at the end of the war their losses dropped since it was possible to hide on the bottom.

what????? Placing a submarine in shallow water is not an advantage or safety measure anyone with any experience in sub warfare would ever consider an advantage. German losses fell away at the end of the war because they were not patrolling in active areas, they were using them to defend places like the Norwegian coastlines. One only has to look at the losses suffered by the Soviets to get an idea of how dangerous shallow water is to a submarine, Or the italians.....

There were of course far fewer British submarines, a rare case of the Germans not being out numbered.

Nope, for reasons already explained, dead wrong for the early part of the war. Later in the war, I would need to do the arithmetic, but losses were so high that again I doubt they had any advantage of numbers after 1943. For example at the end of 1945, Germany surrendered with 200 subs, which is almost the same as the British, but then you need to add the allied subs supporting them.

The Germans were surprisingly slow to adapt their radar for ASV search but did so by early 1943. Hohtenweil on Fw 200 and Ju 290 could detect a convoy at 150km, a periscope at 6km and a life raft at about 10. It could detect individual ships and see aircraft taking of from aircraft carriers at 100km.

Surprisingly slow and unable to achieve much either.....no allied sub, or perhaps one, sunk by German ASV radar. Something like 50 Uboats were lost to these sorts of attacks.....Hmmmmm


HyperWar: Axis Submarine Manual (ONI 220-M)

 

[GregP]

From what I have read, Fastmongrel, the Ta 183 (design one: the only design that seems to have been built as a model during the war) was basically a flying wing that had a small fixed horizontal tail at the top of the fin for trimming purposes only. It looks strange to me aerodynamically, but not if you think if it as a flying wing. It had the potential to be either a really neat airplane or an abject failure. I believe the Ta 183 had reached the wind-tunnel test stage when the war ended.

Wiki, that paragon of reliable data, has this to say:

"The first of the "flying" IAe 33 prototypes, (No. 02) built in 1950, [N 5]completed its maiden flight on 27 June of that year, with Captain Edmundo Weiss at the controls. On the second flight, ex-Focke-Wulf test pilot Otto Behrens encountered severe lateral stability problems at speeds over 700 km/h (435 mph) and returned to the airfield as a precaution. Landing at very high speed, the aircraft bounced with sufficient force to cause the right main undercarriage strut to fail. During repairs to the aircraft, in order to rectify the "tricky" landing characteristics, the front undercarriage strut was increased in length, which served to alter the angle of incidence of the aircraft, while the shock absorbers were adjusted to have a greater "throw". Although never considered docile, the modifications improved the takeoff, landing and low-speed characteristics of the IAe 33. More serious aerodynamic problems persisted, stemming from tip stall— in which the wingtip stalled before the wingroot resulting in an unpredictable "rolling moment"— leading to a change in the wing leading edge near the wingroot, while the rudder was modified in an attempt to resolve the interminable lateral instability issues. In addition, the canopy was reinforced with two external frames and a small fairing was installed above the engine exhaust."


I believe that I they HAD built the original Ta 183 during the war, and if it had encountered problems that were flying-wing related, then the design might have had a larger horizontal tail fitted with an elevator. However, that is pure conjecture on my part as they never built the Ta 183. It just seems like a logical problem-solving step to me ... but perhaps not to the designer, had the aircraft been proceeded with. Sometimes what seems logical to someone many years later is NOT obvious at the time when things are being developed. The designer might have been keen to stay with the flying wing design and correct the issues while retaining the flying wing concept, even as the war was rapidly being lost.

What Germany needed was an advanced fighter built RIGHT NOW in numbers, not an advanced fighter that was an innovative flying wing that never got built even as a prototype.

It would have been very interesting technically for someone to have actually built and flown one, even post-war. I have looked for fight test reports on IAe.33 Pulqui II for years unsuccessfully. I did find one report that mentioned some "handling quirks," but they were not described in a meaningful way. The report I saw certainly did not say what Wiki claims above. The Pulqui II's development was comparatively problematic and lengthy, with two of the four prototypes being lost in fatal crashes.

I surmise that the Pulqui II had a few issues that were not simple fixes. Then again, maybe all it needed were simple wing fences, as on the MiG-15! Probably someone like Bill Marshall could look at the design and infer some flight characteristics. However, tipstall has historically been addressed with washout, slots or slats, wing fences, or a combination of same. More recently, outboard vortex generators have also been tried successfully, but not at jet speeds as far as I know.

 

[tyrodtom]

How can you call the Ta-183 a flying wing, when the very definition of a flying wing states " A tailless fixed wing aircraft, with no definite fuselage.

A lot of flying wings may end up with some vertical control surfaces, but I think most would agree that the Ta-183's very definite fuselage
would be stretching the definition just a bit much.
Having elevons like a flying wing, doesn't make it a flying wing.

 

[GregP]

Technically it had a small horizontal trim surface, but the aerodynamic controls were all on the wing. So whether or not it is technically a flying wing, it was controlled as one. So it probably would have had all the issues of a flying wing, had it been built.

Whether or not it was technically a flying wing is a question that is meaningless to me ... call it whatever you want and it's just fine. The flying characteristics would have been exactly like a flying wing, so that's how I think of it aerodynamically.

The original design used a T-tail, with a notably long vertical stabilizer and a seemingly undersized horizontal stabilizer. The vertical tail was swept back at 60°, and the horizontal tail was swept back and slightly dihedralled. The horizontal surface's small "elevator" surfaces were used only for trimming, the main pitching force being provided by the ailerons, which were well behind the center of gravity — their trailing edges' tips virtually even, horizontally, with the jet engine's exhaust orifice — and thus could provide both pitch and roll control, functioning as elevon control surfaces, as Messerschmittt's Me 163 tailplane-less Komet rocket fighter already did. Many problems beset the project, including the chance of a Dutch roll.

Interestingly, when Kurt Tank was working on the IAe.33 Pulqui II, the glider model built to investigate it was built by Reimar Horten of flying wing fame.

 

[Koopernic]

Technically it had a small horizontal trim surface, but the aerodynamic controls were all on the wing. So whether or not it is technically a flying wing, it was controlled as one. So it probably would have had all the issues of a flying wing, had it been built.
SNIP
Interestingly, when Kurt Tank was working on the IAe.33 Pulqui II, the glider model built to investigate it was built by Reimar Horten of flying wing fame.

The Hortons were rather good at making wooden models.

Most of the German "Luft46" designs were workable. One has to remember that these books and publications cover designs developed around 1941 as well as 1944-1945 when the Germans knowledge had grown.
Remember they were struggling with integrating the new propulsion with the new aerodynamics.

The prevalence of the tailless design as well as the high T tail reflects two imperatives. The first one is that the Germans wanted to avoid the problem of shock wave impingement on the tail elevator. The second less obvious one is the problem not faced by post war allied designers. This was the relative low power of the engines and the need to produce a Mach 0.9 design.

The low power meant the aircraft had to have low 'wetted area' ie low skin surface area to volume. It also compelled a requirement for short intake and exhaust ducts since long ducts lead to pressure loss in then duct and possibly engine stall issues.

The Pullgui II could have been successful but the Argentinians ran out of money and will power to develop an aviation industry, they lack one even today. The Pulqui-II was replaced by extremely cheap second hand F-86. The Pulqui had big advantages over the F-86, MiG 15/17 and Meteor. It had a much greater range and superior service ceiling.

Two Pulquis were lost during the test program. One to the failure of a weld in the wing box and the other due to a pilot error resulting from a preposterous acrobatic display by an Argentinian pilot designed to impress dignitaries. Wing box weld in a mature airframe industry with tools and skills should be necessary and premature displays of acrobatics by inexperienced test pilots are foolish.

An interesting note about the Ta 183 and the Pulqui-II is that neither initially had slats or strakes. German aerodynamicists had understood the advantages of wing sweep in the early 30s and had by 1940 understood the advantages in transonic performance and at the same time developed methods that could be used to control the low speed handing problems caused by spanwise flow. These included slats, forward sweep and the crescent wing of compound sweep. They also had wing fences, used on a Bf 109B for testing.

Once the Pulqui-II had the wing fences and added the handling improved and the addition of nose ballast got rid of the super stall problem.

 

[tyrodtom]

It's not me or you who makes the definitions.
Since the only way the Ta-183 flew was as a scale model in a wind tunnel, just what do we really know about a full size flying aircraft would have been like ?

Aircraft usually change a great deal from preliminary drawings and models. Who could say if the developed Ta-183 might not have ended up close to the Pulgui II.

 

[GregP]

Hi Koopernic,

The Pulqui II had a service ceiling of 49,200 feet and range of 1,920 miles. The F-86F had a service ceiling of 49,600 feet and range of 1,525 miles. Earlier Sabres had a service ceiling about 1,000 feet lower ... not much of an advantage or disadvantage for either plane. Service ceiling seems about the same for the F86F and the Pulqui has a slightly better range, enough to maybe make a difference. We KNOW the combat history of the Sabre and it is excellent. The Pulqui II is an unknown that might have been a great plane. The F-86 was definitely a great plane, if ever there was one.

I think the Pulqui II had potential, but I would not ever say it was going to eclipse the F-86, with a pretty darned good combat record and a long service life. It might have had the possibility of being as great as the F-86 had Argentina built and exported them, but Argentina has not participated in many conflicts across the globe otherwise. So if they had built it, the plane would likely have been a local "great" player, but not a global player of particular note.


You're as pleasant as ever, Tom. They'd have to have made at least one Ta 183 to have ended up even close to the Pulqui II since the Pulqui II actually flew. Production of the Ta 183 was overtaken by a major event; the end of the war. So it's development had all the future potential of the Ta 152 ... nothing. The end of the war ended it. The Pulqui II was very possibly an evolution of the Ta 183 concepts, but I'd be surprised if even one component was common to both of them.

I look at the Luft 46 designs as a pretty good fantasy world with nothing rooted in reality. If any of the designs were even CLOSE to reality, someone would have been interested enough to fund one, build it, and fly it. They built almost everything else in the 1950's. Why not a design with good potential that was almost already designed? It's much more likely that the Luft 46 stuff is mostly modern fabrications of half-completed drawings salvaged from German design houses. Where were all these designs in the 1950s and 1960s? I never saw them at the time and I was very interested in early jets.

Whatever the case, they weren't built and it's really tough to argue intelligently about planes that never flew. So I won't even try. I'll just say their website is interesting and let it go at that. I look at it once every 2 - 3 years when I have nothing better to do and want some entertainment.

 

[cherry blossom]

...snip ...
Ah no, British submarines did not operate that way early in the war. They would detect a convoy and chase it in the same way as the Germans had to, except that the British subs tended to do it submerged. The Royal Navy type "T" submarine had an underwater navigation speed of up to 16 knots, but at that speed an endurance of less than hour. At 2 knots it had a maximum endurance of 40 hours. At 2 knots the chances of achieving a firing solution against a 10 knot convoy was virtually zero. Recharge time was about 12-14 hrs.
...snip...

You are correct that some of the later T Class submarines could make 15 knots submerged but that was after being modified from 1948 by (according to Wikipedia) "the removal of deck guns and the replacement of the conning tower with a "sail", a smooth-surfaced and far more symmetrical and streamlined tower. An extra battery was installed, and a new section of hull inserted to accommodate an extra pair of motors and switchgear." The T Class during WW2 were limited to 9 knots submerged.

 

[tyrodtom]

When the Pulqui II first flew in 1950, it did have a better top speed than the F86a, that first flew in 1947.

But the Pulqui II was 4000 lbs lighter, and had a engine with about the same thrust as the F86a, so surprise, surprise, it was faster.
It had a disappointing rate of climb though, even the A model Sabre was about 50% better.

But by 1950, the Pulqui II was up against later models of the Sabre, and by the time the 4th prototype Pulqui flew in 1959, it's development was so far behind nobody needed it.

 

[Token]

Around late 1943 as SCR-584 was entering service the Germans introduced the Mannheim FuMG 64 radar. As it also had a 3m dish it is often confused with Wurzburg. Output power was doubled, power drive was added, precision electronics for tracking was added and range accuracy was 10m. The second issue of this radar of early 1944 added electronic tracking and reduced ranging precision to 6m. It could track through windows once a target was found.

Once radars went to conical scanning then auto track was a near given. Con scan was, like several other aspects of radar technology, more or less independently discovered by several efforts around the same time.

The FuMG 65 track through chaff / window, do you have any specifics on it? How this was achieved? There were a couple of systems during WW2 that had an ability to do this, and I believe they all did it the same way, however the details are not easily found.

In general the way early systems (and still some today) tracked through chaff required a radar to achieve auto lock / track before the chaff event occurred. At the time chaff was dispensed the operator recognized the event by the "bloom" of the target and the separation of the chaff from the actual target in the A or J scopes (this is easily seen and recognized by even a crudely trained operator) and manually activated a button / control and the radar entered a "coast" mode. In this mode the angles and range rates in the track loops continue at their last values. If the target did not change vectors the radar could reacquire auto track as soon as the operator recognized the aircraft was through the chaff and allowed the radar to track.

Other radars tried to automatically recognize the bloom of the chaff and set the coast mode, but this was typically less successful than allowing the operator to decide it was time to use the technique.

The Germans invented radar first not the British.
<<snip>>
Radar was an invention of the German Navy. It was the brainchild of Freiherr von Kunhold an Admiral and the Physicist in charge of the signals Branch of the German Navy. After finding fundamental physical limitations in using sonar for blind fire control his idea is to extend the pulse echo techniques in sonar to the radio frequency field.

"Who invented radar" is an argument that is very difficult to back up. As I said before, it was something that happened in multiple places at about the same time when the general level of technology supported its realization. You can talk about who detected a ship first, or who detected an aircraft first, but that gets really unclear for some events depending on what is meant by detected.

I contend that it is almost impossible to say that any one nation or individual invented radar.

Radar, then and now, is not limited to pulsed type systems or air defense. The first radars were CW systems, and did not yield range, yet they were what we would call radar today. Many people experimented with this prior to 1925, and several systems could be said to be operational by then. By about 1925 the concept of pulsed radars was being experimented with for various applications. For sure Breit and Tuve did this in the US in 1925, but their system was obviously not a usable air defense radar type of device. Still, it was a pulsed radar and it did function, it was only a matter of further developing the technique specifically for air defense.

Allied radars created their pulse by dumping a huge 'spark' like an automotive ignition coil into the tube. The Germans turned the tube on and off via its control grid and so were able to precisely control frequency and phase which was locked with a oscillator. They had less power but could get the same range an accuracy and some other information to boot such as Doppler.

Many radars today still use a high voltage pulse to generate the RF from a magnetron or other high power keyed oscillator. In general this results in an incoherent pulse (although there are ways to make it coherent, such as RF pumping, as well as semi coherent systems) but this is perfectly adequate for detecting and tracking targets. A really good thyratron for switching at the power levels required for radar was not available until the end of the war, but other techniques of soft-keying the transmitter worked well enough to do the job.

The MOPA (Master Oscillator Power Amplifier), or PAT (Power Amplifier Transmitter), technique you describe was not unique to the Germans, although they tended to make greater than average use of it for radar applications at the time, when later in the war many Allied radars were keyed-oscillator types.

Turning a tube on and off via the control grid exhibits no control over frequency or phase, one could take an ungridded amplifier and have the same frequency control via master oscillator. Phase noise may be higher with an ungridded tube, but the phase is just as controlled. Also the power of a radar has little to no impact on range accuracy, other than as a factor of raw SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio), in which case lower power for a given technique is almost always less advantageous. Less power simply means that a radar will detect a given RCS target at less range for a given level of receiver processing technology.

Allied radar pulled ahead only after early 1943 and by late 1944 the German had caught up.

You can argue about if they ever really caught up or not, and then you have to talk about did they catch up on the developmental front or the applied and operational front? The Germans had some great minds working on some great things, however by late 1944 the war was going poorly for them, and as time went on fewer and fewer of these new things made it into actual service. This was exactly why I said of the Germans "with few new systems fielded in any number". The late war wiz-bang radars were fielded in the tens or few hundreds numbers, compared to the early war thousands.

It was not in raw technology that the Germans lagged, but rather in the applied technology actually making an impact to the war effort. I still contend the Germans started (lets say in 1940) with a lead in some significant ways but that by mid to late 1943 that lead was gone, and they played catch up from then on. Even early war they never had a technology lead in the development front, only on the operational front.

T!

 

[parsifal]

A very good summary. its times like this I wish I had the technical background to support the history

 

[drgondog]

Technically it had a small horizontal trim surface, but the aerodynamic controls were all on the wing. So whether or not it is technically a flying wing, it was controlled as one. So it probably would have had all the issues of a flying wing, had it been built.

The primary issues regarding a 'flying wing' was that high lift to edge of stalling did not develop a sufficient Pitch down moment even with the typical reverse cambered/reflexed trailing edge. If the small horizontal 'trim surface was not connected directly to the trailing edge of the wing then it did indeed perform pitch control functions similar to an elevator or flying tail.

Whether or not it was technically a flying wing is a question that is meaningless to me ... call it whatever you want and it's just fine. The flying characteristics would have been exactly like a flying wing, so that's how I think of it aerodynamically.

If it exhibited the same negative pitch behavior as the YB35 and YB49 you are correct. Stall at high AoA=dead

Interestingly, when Kurt Tank was working on the IAe.33 Pulqui II, the glider model built to investigate it was built by Reimar Horten of flying wing fame.

Directional stability (not pitch) was the primary role of spoilerons, ailerons and spoilers on which the drag of the inboard wing was altered to cause the bank and manage the turn to minimize form drag.

 

[GregP]

Hi Bill,

The small horizontal tail was connected to a trim wheel. The control stick was connected to the elevons. So technically the small H. tail DID perform pitch trim, but wasn't used in maneuvering flight. I'm not really sure how to classify it and, since it wasn't ever built, never did decide how I'd classify it. To be conventional you'd have to have some primary pitch control with the H. tail ... I think ... not just pitch trim to a trim wheel.

In the end, it matters little since it wasn't built. When they build such a beast, then perhaps it will mean something. I don't think anyone else ever built a flying, full-scale pitch control system. If they have I haven't heard of it. That's not to say it hasn't been dome. If they HAVE, then perhaps the inventor already classified it. I haven't seen a classiciation by Messerschmitt in everything I've read about it other than the unusual fact of having only pitch trim on the H. tail while primary pitch was elevons. There was a war on and I'm not sure they cared what it was. Just whether or not it could be built in numbers quickly. Apparently it couldn't be done.

In point of fact I find the design interesting since it was rather obscure in never being built in full scale, but I think the second and third designs would probably have flown better with conventional controls. Just a hunch; no analysis and no firm opinion either way.

 

[cherry blossom]

If I may be forgiven for continuing to pursue the off topic issue of sonar

Then why did German Asdic fail to deliver any outstanding results of any note?
...snip....

I think the situation was that Germany was testing a very good sonar over 1938-9 but that it was not generally deployed. The main difference between the Type VIIB and Type VIIC submarines was that the Type VIIC were slightly longer to accommodate the S-Gerät but the first Type VIIC submarines were completed without the S-Gerät. Thus in November 1940 at least, few sets were available. Similarly, Whitley's book on German Destroyers notes on page 85 that Riedel was fitted by August 1940 and Ihn was running trials with her new set in February 1941. Whitley conjectured from the comment that two months later Ihn was stationed ahead of the raider Thor and two other destroyers, Heinemann and Steinbrinck, to "use her S-Gerät" that the other destroyers had not yet been fitted.

The situation changed by very late 1941, when some sets were supplied to Italy, and over 1942. By the end of 1942, GEMA had completed over 1500 of their sonars according to page 125 of GEMA: Birthplace of German Radar and Sonar by Harry von Kroge. The Italian torpedo boat Circe received one of the sets and I wanted to argue that this was reflected in her success in sinking the submarines HMS P38 and HMS Tempest in February 1942. However, Circe had earlier sunk HMS Grampus and HMS Union before acquiring the German sonar, suggesting that she had an unusually competent crew.

Of course, even if German sonar was up to or beyond British standard in 1942, the RN soon moved ahead again with new designs to work with Squid.

 

[Tracker]

A bit of a deviation; but from the pictures from the first post is it just me or does anyone else see the similarities in design? Not the Horton flying wing but the head on design (omitting the nose on the attached aircraft).

 

[tyrodtom]

That's a Cf-100 isn't it. I just don't see nothing in common, other than 2 engines.
Horton, two engines buried in the thick wings with the intakes on the wing leading edge, cockpit centered behind the intakes, nose wheel up front.
Cf-100, two engines on top of the thin wings, intakes about 6-8 feet in front of the wings leading edge, cockpit forward of intakes, nose wheel, where nose wheels usually are, forward, just not all the way forward.

 

[GrauGeist]

A bit of a deviation; but from the pictures from the first post is it just me or does anyone else see the similarities in design? Not the Horton flying wing but the head on design (omitting the nose on the attached aircraft).

That head-on view and the configuration looks alot more like the proposed Heinkel He P.1080 project than the Ho.IX

 

[parsifal]

If I may be forgiven for continuing to pursue the off topic issue of sonar

I think the situation was that Germany was testing a very good sonar over 1938-9 but that it was not generally deployed

.

The main difference between the Type VIIB and Type VIIC submarines was that the Type VIIC were slightly longer to accommodate the S-Gerät but the first Type VIIC submarines were completed without the S-Gerät. Thus in November 1940 at least, few sets were available.

Uboats relied principally on hydrophones for their detection systems. The principle of hydrophones was simple enough. It consisted of two pairs of underwater microphones which listened to the sound of ships' propeller noises. By measuring the amount of time it took for sound to arrive at each of the microphones, the device could triangulate the bearing of the vessel from the U-boat. The radioman could also tell if it was a merchantman or warship, but not the range, direction or speed it was moving. Because sound travels much further underwater, hydrophones could pick up distant convoys traveling up to 100 kilometers away. For maximum effectiveness however, the U-boat had to submerge and stop all engines while the hydrophones listened in for a few minutes. It also had an added bonus of being passive. Its technically incorrect to refer to these as a SONAR. They are actually sophisticated listening devices and derivatives are still used today

Gruppenhorchgerat (GHG)

The standard U-boat hydrophone, the GHG (Group Listening Apparatus) was installed in U-boats from 1935 onwards and used throughout the war on some boats. It consisted of two sets of hydrophones mounted on each side of the bows, covering two arcs of 140 degrees on the sides of the U-boat. Because the hydrophones could not be rotated, the triangulation was most effective with sound sources coming from the sides, with deteriorating accuracy as the source moved to the front or rear of the boat. Consisting of 24 hydrophones, the GHG could pick up lone vessels up to 20 kilometers and convoys up to 100 kilometers away. The detection range however was also dependant on sea conditions.

Kristalldrehbasisgerat (KDB)

The KDB (Crystal Rotating Base Apparatus) was an improvement of the GHG in that it was rotatable and hence able to provide more accurate readings from any direction. The disadvantage however was its extreme vulnerability to depth charges.

Balkon Great

The Balkon Great (Balcony Apparatus) was an improved version of GHG. Where the previous had 24 hydrophones, the Balkon had 48 hydrophones and improved electronics, which enabled more accurate readings to be taken. The Balkon was standard on the Type XXI and was also fitted to several Type VIIs.

Torpedowarn (TAG)

Designed as an early warning system for incoming torpedoes, the TAG was installed on the Type XXI and intended for future generation U-boats. It was connected to a loudspeaker inside the pressure hull which would give audible warnings on an approaching torpedo. It functioned by listening in to certain pre-programmed sounds, which would trigger the alert status.

Sondergerat Fur Aktive Schallortung (S-Gerat)

The S-Gerat (Special Apparatus for Active Sound Location) was essentially sonar. It transmitted sound pulses and timed the returning echo to detect underwater objects. Because it emitted sound pulses which also broadcasted the U-boat's location, this device was not very popular. It could detect objects up to 4,000 meters away. it was also out classed even by the early allied ASDIC in terms of effective range, and because it was an active system was not often used

Sonderapparat (SU-Apparat) – Nibelung

This device was one of the latest sensors being installed on the Type XXI, which coupled with the acoustic torpedo, would enable the boat to launch its torpedoes blind from up to a depth of 50 meters.
The SU-Apparat (Special Apparatus for U-boats) or also known as Nibelung functioned as an active/passive sensor. It consisted of two basic elements – a hydrophone and a sonar device. Once the hydrophone picked up the bearing of a surface vessel, the sonar would ping in that direction to determine range. Up to three short pulses may be needed, which when plotted together, enabled the operator to determine the target's speed, range and direction. An acoustic torpedo could then be programmed and fired at the target. The maximum range was 4,000 meters, and also depended on sea conditions.

Similarly, Whitley's book on German Destroyers notes on page 85 that Riedel was fitted by August 1940 and Ihn was running trials with her new set in February 1941. Whitley conjectured from the comment that two months later Ihn was stationed ahead of the raider Thor and two other destroyers, Heinemann and Steinbrinck, to "use her S-Gerät" that the other destroyers had not yet been fitted.

From April through to the end of November, DKMs destroyer fleet consisted of just 4 Destroyers. 3 were added at the end of the year, and a further 2 in the first half of 1941.

Torpedo boats were down to 9 effective units by the end of the Norwegian campaign. A further 9 or so Type 1935 TBs were added 1939-40. The type 1940 began to enter service in 1941. TBs did not have radar in 1939.

S-J boats (literally subchasers) were mostly ex-trawler conversions. They were fitted with sonar, but not usually radar. They constituted the overwhelming majority of the german ASW fleet until 1942. Because they lacked radar, British subs were able to recharge on the surface at night with relative impunity .

There were about 40 Raum-Boats in 1940, also usually fitted with some form of ASW detection gear, but not radar until later. These boats were also the major element of the DKM ASW Fleet.

German sonar was available, but based on its operational results, it was unremarkable.