Would Japan have made effective use of the Fritz X?

[Admiral Beez]

The German Fritz X guided bomb was an effective ship killer, sinking the new battleship Roma and almost killing Warspite. Had the Japanese been able to design, build or acquire this weapon in sufficient numbers by Jan 1944, could they have made effective use of it against the USN? My thinking is that with USN radar giving plenty of warning, the launch aircraft has to be high and fast enough to avoid interception, while still able to guide the bomb. All tricky to do, but IMO much better than wasteful Kamikazes. What do we suggest for the launch aircraft?

 

[Tieleader]

Thinking the Ki-67 Hiryu or P1Y1 Ginga. Both had fairly reasonable speed and ceiling. Also the capability to carry more than one missile. Still would have had the same problem of breaking through the CAP and outer ring of DDs though. Sure as hell still still not outrunning a Corsair or 'Cat as well...

 

[Admiral Beez]

Thinking the Ki-67 Hiryu or P1Y1 Ginga. Both had fairly reasonable speed and ceiling.

Could they be optimized for higher ceiling, such as pressurized and different carbs, etc. Corsair has a ceiling of 41,000 feet, so we need to get high.

Of course, weather permitting, can you guide the bomb from 45,000 feet (8.5 miles, 14 km away)?

 

[Shortround6]

Of course, weather permitting, can you guide the bomb from 45,000 feet (8.5 miles, 14 km away)?

In a word "No".


Again, from wiki, other sources may differ.

"The minimum release height was 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) and a release height of 5,500 metres (18,000 ft) was preferred assuming adequate visibility. The Fritz X had to be released at least 5 kilometres (3 mi) from the target. The plane had to decelerate immediately after bomb release so the bombardier could see the bomb and guide it; this deceleration was achieved by making a steep climb and then levelling out. The bombardier could make a maximum correction of 500 metres (1,600 ft) in range and 350 metres (1,150 ft) in bearing. The bomber was vulnerable to fighter attack as well as ship-based air defense weapons while maintaining a slow, steady course so the bombardier could maintain visual contact to guide the bomb"

can you even see the flare at greater distances/attitudes than the Germans used?

The plane has to stay over the bomb, it cannot over run it (at least by much) and the higher you go the greater proportion of the bombs flight/trajectory will be vertical. If the plane attempts to circle the control of the bomb becomes very difficult as the bomb controller has to figure out how to move the two axis joystick to control the bomb at any particular angle to the bomb as in if the plane has turned 180 degrees left and right are reversed and up/down (over/under the target) are also reversed. Think simple radio controlled toy or airplane moving towards the operator instead of away from him. At 90 degrees to the bomb/target up/down may become left and right and left/right becomes over/under?

In any case by the summer of 1944 the Americans were on the 2nd generation of jammer for the radio link.

 

[cherry blossom]

Fully agree with SH6, Fritz-X wouldn't have helped Japan unless they had deployed it well before its historical use. Even the F4F could defend the USN carriers against unescorted bombers as seen in the action off Bougainville on 20th February 1942.

The Japanese Army Air Force did develop the Kawasaki I-Go-1 Otsu or Ki-148 which had similarities to Hs-293 but was never used in combat although 150 missiles were built before the factory was destroyed by B-29 raids in June 1945. As they required the carriers to approach in daylight, it seems unlikely that these missiles would have been effective.

My namesake the Kugisho Ohka was the JNAF's stand off hope but the version actually deployed required an approach to 35 km which was found to be too dangerous. A longer ranged version might have been effective but neither liquid fuelled rocket nor jet propulsion was deployed.

The Army tried to develop an infra red homing bomb to be used at night, the Rikugun Maru-Ke. This was praised by US investigators as "the most important guided missile on which the Japanese are known to have worked" according to "Secret Weapons and World War II: Japan in the Shadow of Big Science" by Walter E. Grunden. However, Grunden also reports Yagi Hidetsugu's criticism "One scientist would be asked to develop the most sensitive possible thermopile; another, the most sensitive bolometer; another, a sensitive amplifier, and so on. None of these scientists were told what was the purpose of the development, ..." The record is that of about 60 bombs dropped in tests aimed at a raft with a coal fire on Lake Hamana or Hamamatsu Bay, only 5 or 6 seem to have steered towards the target. However, the developers were confident that the problems were soluble.

The Japanese might have been better advised to have developed the Bat ASM-N-2 Bat - Wikipedia, which certainly did hit and severely damage the corvette Aguni. Japan might have had better luck than the USN with the Bat as its main weakness was homing on reefs, islands etc.

 

[Koopernic]

The Japanese to an extent would have done well with this weapon. The Pacific offered many cloud free days and the Japanese naval fighters had the range to escort their own bombers. The main issue is that I can't find a single Japanese bomber that could lift a Fritz-X.

The Fritz-X was an extremely accurate weapon with a very high hit rate against a fast moving warshship. When attacking a heavy naval unit the tactic was for the attack came in a wave of three and as the attacks on Warspite and Roma showed they usually got 2 hits and often got 3. It was aimed with the standard computing bombsight which corrected for ships motion and wind drift with the bomb under control of the Bombardier in the last 5 seconds or so when the bomb was in a vertical phase of fall. Bomb real ease was usually at 22500ft with an immediate pull-up to 24500ft serving to line up the bomb in its vertical phase and throwing of any AAA shells already in the air or any AAA predictor. The joystick was not proportionate control but merely a switching contact, the USAAF had also found with AZON that progressive control did not improve accuracy or ease of use.

I think some the claims of jamming are exaggerated and over rated. It took the allies 3 attempts to get it right and that relied not on signal intelligence but captured bombs (Foggia) transmitters (Portsmouth raid). The Luftwaffe knew that jamming would occur and prepared 3 backups. 1 a radical change in frequency (kits manufactured and stored but never used). 2 wire spools and 3 an FM radio based Transmitter Receiver pair. There was also infrared homing system under development and the blaupunkt MAX-P that homed on to microwave radar.

What shut down Fritz-X operations was not jamming, because had the Luftwaffe detected jamming they were prepared to alter their transmitters, but that a Dornier Do 217 couldn't operate in an allied airspace dominated by 15000 400-440mph fighters.

 

[Koopernic]

Fully agree with SH6, Fritz-X wouldn't have helped Japan unless they had deployed it well before its historical use. Even the F4F could defend the USN carriers against unescorted bombers as seen in the action off Bougainville on 20th February 1942.

The Japanese Army Air Force did develop the Kawasaki I-Go-1 Otsu or Ki-148 which had similarities to Hs-293 but was never used in combat although 150 missiles were built before the factory was destroyed by B-29 raids in June 1945. As they required the carriers to approach in daylight, it seems unlikely that these missiles would have been effective.

My namesake the Kugisho Ohka was the JNAF's stand off hope but the version actually deployed required an approach to 35 km which was found to be too dangerous. A longer ranged version might have been effective but neither liquid fuelled rocket nor jet propulsion was deployed.

The Army tried to develop an infra red homing bomb to be used at night, the Rikugun Maru-Ke. This was praised by US investigators as "the most important guided missile on which the Japanese are known to have worked" according to "Secret Weapons and World War II: Japan in the Shadow of Big Science" by Walter E. Grunden. However, Grunden also reports Yagi Hidetsugu's criticism "One scientist would be asked to develop the most sensitive possible thermopile; another, the most sensitive bolometer; another, a sensitive amplifier, and so on. None of these scientists were told what was the purpose of the development, ..." The record is that of about 60 bombs dropped in tests aimed at a raft with a coal fire on Lake Hamana or Hamamatsu Bay, only 5 or 6 seem to have steered towards the target. However, the developers were confident that the problems were soluble.

The Japanese might have been better advised to have developed the Bat ASM-N-2 Bat - Wikipedia, which certainly did hit and severely damage the corvette Aguni. Japan might have had better luck than the USN with the Bat as its main weakness was homing on reefs, islands etc.

The BAT bomb was designed to attack surfaced u-boats at night. It would have been rendered inoperable by German navy use of snorkels and mast head stealth. BAT was an extremely complex weapon with about 140 vacuum tubes, the same as a US Army SCR-584 radar or Luftwaffe Mannheim FuMG 64 radar both of which had auto track for the range gate which is the core of lateral and elevation tracking. The effort of miniaturisation was enormous so quite an expensive weapon

Defense against the BAT would need to be radar directed guns and radar detectors firing chaff rockets. The German navy had chaff rockets (never deployed) that were meant to blur a ship, create false targets and obscure shell splash that was used to ascertain miss distance. They used depth charges to create false shell splashes.

 

[cherry blossom]

The Japanese to an extent would have done well with this weapon. The Pacific offered many cloud free days and the Japanese naval fighters had the range to escort their own bombers. The main issue is that I can't find a single Japanese bomber that could lift a Fritz-X.
...snip....

The G4M2 could certainly carry the Ohka 11, which at 2,140 kg (4,718 lb) was heavier than a Fritz-X. Release up to 8,000 m was planned, which required the Ohka pilot to enter wearing oxygen equipment. However, we know that G4Ms could not carry the Ohka successfully to within 35 km of the US fleet, so they wouldn't have a hope of flying directly over their targets.

The Fritz-X successes at Salerno including hits on Savannah, Uganda and Warspite may have been aided by near simultaneous attacks by Fw 190 fighter bombers at low level which pulled the Allied fighters down before the Do 217s arrived. In September 1943, the fighter controllers probably believed that low level attacks were more dangerous especially as the attack on Uganda seems to have been made by a single Do 217.

 

[Koopernic]

The G4M2 could certainly carry the Ohka 11, which at 2,140 kg (4,718 lb) was heavier than a Fritz-X. Release up to 8,000 m was planned, which required the Ohka pilot to enter wearing oxygen equipment. However, we know that G4Ms could not carry the Ohka successfully to within 35 km of the US fleet, so they wouldn't have a hope of flying directly over their targets.

The Fritz-X successes at Salerno including hits on Savannah, Uganda and Warspite may have been aided by near simultaneous attacks by Fw 190 fighter bombers at low level which pulled the Allied fighters down before the Do 217s arrived. In September 1943, the fighter controllers probably believed that low level attacks were more dangerous especially as the attack on Uganda seems to have been made by a single Do 217.

i suspect that the bomb loads listed under Wikipedia for Japanese 2 bombers have no relation to reality. Declaring that all Japanese 2 engined bombers have a 2000lb load out seems to be some kind of standard.

There were plans to fit the Fritz-X to the Arado 234C.

The Tonne-Seedorf TV guidance system for missiles was an attempt to allow the bomber to immediately escape.

 

[xylstra]

The German Fritz X guided bomb was an effective ship killer, sinking the new battleship Roma and almost killing Warspite. Had the Japanese been able to design, build or acquire this weapon in sufficient numbers by Jan 1944, could they have made effective use of it against the USN? My thinking is that with USN radar giving plenty of warning, the launch aircraft has to be high and fast enough to avoid interception, while still able to guide the bomb. All tricky to do, but IMO much better than wasteful Kamikazes. What do we suggest for the launch aircraft?

Why are you fixated on the Fritz X? Don't you know that Japan already had an active and diverse range of indiginous guided weapons in development including thermal seeker heads for bombs. They didn't need to call on the Germans. In fact, the Germans might have learnt a thing or two from them. See: Japanese Special Attack Aircraft and Flying Bombs by Ryusuke Ishiguro - ISBN: 9788389450128 (Mushroom Model Publications)

 

[Shortround6]

Why are you fixated on the Fritz X? Don't you know that Japan already had an active and diverse range of indiginous guided weapons in development including thermal seeker heads for bombs.

Japanese weapons don't have black crosses and so are inherently inferior

 

[Admiral Beez]

Why are you fixated on the Fritz X?

How do you define fixation? I've never before mentioned it.

Imagine a friend asking you to recommend a good Japanese restaurant. Would you in reply ask them why they are fixated on Japanese restaurants? They'd probably give you the don't be a dick look and walk away.

 

[Just Schmidt]

[QUOTE="The main issue is that I can't find a single Japanese bomber that could lift a Fritz-X.[/QUOTE]

While not a bomber, I'd expect the H8K perfectly able to lift one or even two.

That said, they'd face many of the same problems as the Germans did, and as noted by others the chances would be no better in 44 than 43.

 

[JAG88]

It would have made more sense for the Japanese to use this:

Cheaper than any aircraft, hard to intercept, long range so launcher can survive... much better than the Ohka.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

Here is what the Japanese should have developed
Pigeon-guided missiles

 

[xylstra]

Here is what the Japanese should have developed
Pigeon-guided missiles

Read the book I've recommended above and you will see that they were already on the right track, no need to go 'left-field'!

 

[xylstra]

How do you define fixation? I've never before mentioned it.

Imagine a friend asking you to recommend a good Japanese restaurant. Would you in reply ask them why they are fixated on Japanese restaurants? They'd probably give you the don't be a dick look and walk away.

I never said you did mention it but you also mentioned no other equally effective German guided weapons so why just choose the Fritz-X? Moreover, it's stretching it to call it effective. It had such a limited deployment - not to mention the duds, and the vulnerability of the launch aircraft - that only a large-scale analysis could determine its true effectiveness. Lacking, I'm afraid even with a couple of lucky strikes.

 

[Shinpachi]

Interesting topic but here is the fate of the Japanese flying bomb.

Source: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=MONSFUS5iwI