Why no Wild Weasel in WW2?

[Royzee617]

Another notion came to me the other day - while watching that Nightfighters doc on DW - was why did no one use Wild Weasel as per Vietnam to snuff out the Himmelbett radars... OK they did not have ARMs, but they did have fairly sophisticated location devices... and unlike the SAMs in 'Nam, Wurzburgs were static...

Conversely, one of the anomalies of the Battle of Britain was the LW not completing its attacks on the Home Chain radars in the UK. Lucky for us they thought this not worth the effort.

Maybe a better use of 617 Sqdn would have been to go for the Himmelbett system rather than the dams... ooh controversial!

 

[mosquitoman]

The problem is that it's not the reciever that needs to be destroyed, it's the place where all the listening equipment. The towers/dish are tough and mobile vans can be used to keep it going.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

and the RADAR system during the BoB could be repaired very easily and very quickly...........

 

[Udet]

Lanc:

The impact of British radar system during the Battle of Britain was in fact not that relevant.

Do not forget those were the first stages of radar and the operators made gruseome mistakes as a standard procedure.

The majority of the times RAF fighter squadrons took off to intercept German formations during the Battle of Britain, following radar system instructions, they found empty skies.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

but just as often they found thousands of german planes..........

 

[BombTaxi]

Really, its only the existence of ARMs that has made the Wild Weasel mission possible, as the point of WW is largelt to clear out small, mobile radr sources in the immediate vicinity of a target. And in any case, there was little need for such an interdiction style mission anyway. The vast majority of ground-based radrs were either in large fixed sites (like CH) or on ships. It was more efficient to send normal strikes in against that kind of target.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

That is what I was going to say. No ARMs no Wild Weasel.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

and the whole point of wild weasel is to take out sam sites directly before a main strike, such opperations against radars in WWII would be of little use...............

 

[delcyros]

There have been some minor "wild weasels":
During late war, the KG-200 special bomber unit used passive detection units to find the position for soviet radar installations around moscow (a major Mistel attack against electrical energyindustries around Gorki and Moscow was planned but postponed in order to destroy the river Oder bridges...)
I wonder why they have not installed the Radieschen radar homing device to the Hs-293 guided bombs. this would turn the weapon into a competent ARM...

 

[DAVIDICUS]

Well, maybe they didn't use the "wild weasle" but I believe they did employ the following:

Carniverous Cow

Horrible Hamster

Poisonous Penguin

Explosive Emu

Atomic Albacore

Dreadful Donkey

In addition, the British would employ a version of the Hawker Hurricane known as the Hawker Halitosis. They would take a pilot with extremely poor dental hygeine and have him fly over German positions with the canopy open. The smell of rotting mouth would cause panic among many Germans who thought that an airborne strain of Hemorrhagic Fever had been unleashed.

 

[evangilder]

Are you forgetting the killer rabbits?

 

[cheddar cheese]

"Run Away!"

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

In addition, the British would employ a version of the Hawker Hurricane known as the Hawker Halitosis. They would take a pilot with extremely poor dental hygeine and have him fly over German positions with the canopy open. The smell of rotting mouth would cause panic among many Germans who thought that an airborne strain of Hemorrhagic Fever had been unleashed.

Thats funny.

Are you forgetting the killer rabbits?

Thats really funny!

 

[Royzee617]

Thanks for lowering the tone - you lot think it is funny that a rabbit can be dangerous... well so did we (esp after Monty Python) until we got one as a pet... we have a bunny called 'Munchie' and she lives up to her name.... bosses the cats about and chews has bitten all of us humans!

 

[Royzee617]

Thanks to everyone who has posted in response to my topic.

Interesting points.... didn't know some of these points.... not sure I am convinced by all of them.

It still seems odd to me that the Allies devoted so much time and effort to develop electronic countermeasures only to not at least try to put out the eyes/ears of the enemy by smashing the radar scanners.

Maybe they did but only incidental to the main attack.

I am not sure I agree about the ARM permitting the WW mission.... first you have to locate the baddies and that is probably down to being able to shrink the electronics into a fighter bomber.... as with a lot of things it isn't down to just one technical step.

Small VHF radios in the fighters were a key factor in the success of the Battle of Britain but seldom gets mentioned.

No, I think that if were ICO of these WW2 attacks I would have put some napalm and phosphorus down on the flak batteries and radars! Then some more.... and another few tons for luck...!

Has just occured to me.... they did have 'flak suppression' flights in the RAF, like the good old Beaufighter anti-ship missions.... not quite WW but a start.

BTW I once met a Wild Weasel Thud pilot when I was in the US. We were both surprised when the subject came up... he had met few people outside the military who had even heard of WW! I was in awe of him of course... what guts! And he seemed a fairly well-balanced individual.

 

[evangilder]

I think it's mainly the technology of the time. Today, wild weasels use detection equipment to identify the source and then use precision munitions to follow the signal to the source. Missiles of that type did not exist at the time. Rockets were the closest thing, but they did not have guidance systems.

 

[Royzee617]

There were primitive guided AGMs in WW2 but no ARMs. But some WW missions involved dissimilar aircraft with follow up strikes using 'iron bombs'. No use wasting expensive PGMs on vans etc. Cluster bombs were also used.

Not much propaganda value in knocking out a few radars though.

 

[Royzee617]

Another thought - didn't they do some anti-radar bombing leading up to D-Day? I know they did some 'window' decpetions and jamming etc. so muct have done some precision attacks on key radar and C&C.

 

[KraziKanuK]

To go OT on a slight tangent.

The Brits used AWACs in ww2. The Wellington would fly ~30 mi. off the Dutch coast looking for He 111s that would be launching V1s. When picked up on radar would direct a NF for an interception.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

As we all know the terror of Flak (which was radar directed) I think a Wild Weasel concept during WWII would of come about if the Germans started shooting minnie V-2s at bomber streams. As a fellow I once met who flew F-4s in Viet Nam said "You haven't experienced fear until this 50 foot telephone pole flying at mach 3 starts chasing you"!