Indeed, I even stated the fact myself in an above post. It is on the other hand a gunship with a big honking 105mm Howitzer. I’m not sure about the penetration of 105mm AP shells though.
There was radar, but not in the area. The ECM would be useful getting past the Kammhuber Line.
I wouldn’t be so sure about the AA fire. Hitting a weaving target in the dead of night with slow traversing guns and without proximity shells is not likely an easy job using only manual sighting and muzzle flashes from the 105mm.
Some things are off base.
The AC-130 is a surgical strike weapon. It doesn’t carry any real large area weapons. Even the 105mm is very accurate. I’ve talked to crews and seen the camera footage. Small concentrations of men (even individuals), sheds, vehicles, small buildings are typical targets. It’s a very in-demand item, hardly a hold over.
Nimitz and protecting force against WWII U-boats. Not a challenge. The anti-sub forces will pick up the subs long before they could sight the Nimitz and destroy or avoid the subs. The Nimitz and force has a 3 to 1 speed advantage (more if the old subs are underwater on batteries).
Current anti-ship weapons useless against a battleship. Current torpedos are designed to detonate beneath ships and break their backs. Modern anti-ship mines attack in the same way. Many anti-ship missiles including the latest Chinese missile DF-21 are downward diving missiles. All the above weapons take advantage of the battleships weakest points; deck armor and bottom of the hull. The torpedo belt armor and spaced compartments behind won’t help against the mines and torpedos used today.
You could also praise the art student, encourage him, back him financially, thereby only inflicting bad art on the world.
You didn’t ask, but in the Pacific theater…The AC-130 could have made a difference and saved thousands of American lives in the latter stages of the war in the Pacific when Japanese air power was depleted. Assuming ground troops could have communicated effectively the gunship, they would have wreaked havoc on Iwo Jima and probably Okinawa as well.
So, is it the case that they wouldn’t know how to make the fuel needed for an AC-130 back in the early-mid 1940s? What’s changed about aircraft fuel since then? (I imagine the lead content certainly has, but let’s focus more on alterations deliberate on the part of the people supplying the craft.)
Would any power in WWII have had ready-made runways sufficient to the task of hosting a B-52?
Finally, would WWII-era pilots (say late WWII, 1944 or so) have been able to fly any military aircraft designed after the Vietnam War without further training?
I am going to go with an Antonov An-225 loaded with approximately 110 GBU-28 laser guided bunker busters. It has the range, speed, and ceiling to stay out of danger. You can just push the bombs out of the rear cargo door (cue nitpicking that only the second, incomplete An-225 had a rear door).
But no way of aiming. Still, a B-29 zapped forward in time a few years would be untouchable due to the service ceiling…the problem would be hitting the bunker.
Instead of going for hyperbole, why don’t we try to find the minimal technical solution required to blow up Hitler instead? =)
coremelt’s January 27, 1923 (date of the first NSDAP rally) solution would seem to be a good candidate (with the slight modification of the 28th being a better day… Hitler spent the 27th giving speeches in beer halls; the 28th is when he gave a speech to supporters in a big field.)
Well, those guys are laser guided, not GPS guided, so that helps. To be honest I don’t know what kind of laser is required, but I suspect it could be handheld or nearly so.
Minimal technical solution? Tell Stauffenberg to use just a bit more explosive…
German Army CIC Von Brauschich(sp?) would likely have been titular leader,
with General Staff Chief Halder as details man. Halder at least plotted on
and off throughout his tenure as GS Chief (ca. 1937-43).
There was no shortage of candidates for any job needing to be filled. The problem
was that all candidates displayed a thoroughgoing muddled vacillation whenever it
came time to do anything, combined with an opportunism which they never admitted to:
they would plot, and then Hitler would pull off some feat such as all the bloodless
pre-war triumphs followed by the unbroken string of military triumphs 9/1/39 through
~5/31/40 during which he actually backed the right men and the best strategies.
(Google “Manstein Plan” on that note) The sainted Stauffenberg was no exception
as an opportunist, doing nothing except whine in private until the war started going sour.
And stay until the job is done! He was out to kill the greatest monster Austria created and he was not willing to die to see it through? Coward. A firing squad was too good for him.
This isn’t what the OP had in mind, but there is a way to succeed here, depending on what the AC-130 is allowed to know. Hitler traveled by train to the Wolf’s Lair, arriving late at night on June 23 or early the 24th. Attack the train.
The Spectre will be safe night flying at high altitude so it should be able to get wherever it needs to be. If they are allowed to know the train’s route, it would be best to pick a good spot to attack away from the WL. If not, they can orbit high above the WL, wait for a train, come down to low altitude and fire it up when it gets there.
Hitler’s train had a couple 20mm Flakvierling 38s with a range of 7,000 feet, but the AC-130 attacks from 5-10,000 so if they could catch it out in the middle of nowhere, they would have a good chance of success. If they have to attack near the Wolf’s Lair or near any heavy AAA, the Germans would saturate the air and their chance of success would go down a lot.
ETA: Didn’t realize this was an old thread and didn’t see that I was ninja’d by 4 months.