The 1925 Geneva Protocol banned first use of chemical weapons and Germany signed it in 1929, the UK in 1930. It wasn’t mercy, it was that once the no-first use part was gone, the allies would have been free to use them against Germany.
Ah ok; didn’t realize Geneva was that old.
Or ahead of the air landings the night before? Let it tear up a lot of those flak batteries before they can disrupt the fleet of DC-3s.
Would it be effective at clearing passages on the beaches of mines and barbed wire?
More effective than the naval bombardment and aerial bombing that preceded the landings?
With proper ground spotting and communications, it would be quite effective at eliminating MG nests and fox holes. They’re not protected from above. And a single 105mm round delivered on target is more effective than tons of ordnance landing a mile away.
It would not be so good at clearing barbed wire. Regular explosive rounds tend to just throw the wire up and down without cutting it. Shaped explosives like bangalore torpedos were needed to effectively cut lines of wire.
This type of air support would have also been effective in the Bocage country since the AC-130 can just linger over the area, identify targets, and pick them off as needed. This would be even more effective at night due to the very good night-fighting gear and the German preference for bringing up reinforcements at night.
Your best bet is to park in a top-secret hangar somewhere and let the Allied techs have a full go at it, reverse-engineering a bunch of stuff. Surprise the Axis 3 years later with a bunch of new toys for their amazement-including the Gatling gun.
The really whiz-bang targeting and ECM stuff on the AC-130 would be just about like magic to those guys- trying to reverse engineer integrated circuits and other modern electronics would be very, very difficult.
The gatling gun however, was developed in the Civil War, and the only real changes to it were to adapt it for belt feeding and slap an electric motor on the back. The turboprops would probably be a boon for the development of the jet engine though; they’d probably avoid a lot of missteps by studying a modern one.
The airframe of the AC-130 wouldn’t be anything special really- it’s a big prop plane. I imagine most bomber or transport pilots of the era wouldn’t have much trouble flying one.
The 105 howitzer was something that they had at the time; it wouldn’t be very interesting to them, I imagine.
The real utility of an AC-130 would be as a reconnaissance platform, not as a gun platform. The Allies could fly it around at night and use the thermal and other sensors to identify enemy positions and concentrations, and relay that back to the various headquarters. Something like the Battle of the Bulge wouldn’t have been nearly such a success, if the Allies had an “eye in the sky” that revealed where their forces were.
I agree. With the high-quality artillery the US Army used, a night-vision recon plane would have been extremely valuable. Thermal imaging and infra-red detection would let you find enemy positions for bombardment and/or assault. Or spoiling German ambushes during an advance. The Wehrmact was very very good at camoflage and ambushes. A brief artillery barrage would often cause the Germans to shift out of their ambush positions when they realized that their cover was blown.
[quote=“Hypno-Toad, post:65, topic:626582”]
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It would not be so good at clearing barbed wire. Regular explosive rounds tend to just throw the wire up and down without cutting it. Shaped explosives like bangalore torpedos were needed to effectively cut lines of wire.
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A bangalore torpedo does not contain a shape charge. It’s a bunch of steel tubes filled with TNT. The whole damn box weighs a cool 128 lb. The idea is to have a few good guys creep up near a minefield/barb wire entanglement dragging the box; assemble the tubes together with connectors (also filled with TNT); have one guy push the assembly along in front of him as he belly crawls up to the target; thrust the assembly into the barbed wire/minefield getting the tube close to support stakes and hopefully not setting off a mine; prime the end connector with a firing device/blasting cap/bunch of wraps of detonating cord; then creep back to your foxhole and initiate the assembly. The blast should sever some of the wire and the supports springing an openning. The shock wave should set off the anti-personnel and anti-tank mines allowing the good guys to charge through and rout the enemy.
At some point during this mission, the enemy will attempt with snipers, machine guns, and mortars to kill our intrepid hero who is woefully exposed. Lots of guys were awarded medals posthumously in the 20th century wars while attempting to use bangalore torpedoes and demoliiton charges for clearance. And we (US Army) still train with this crap.
There are some rocket launched (tracked vehicle and human portable sized) mine clearance line charges (detonating cord and C-4 explosive blocks strung together) as options. MIne/entanglement clearance is a problem. Basically we try to drive/parachute/air assault around these areas using mobility. Frontal charges are frowned on.
The best use I’ve found for bangalore torpedoes is as donor charges during demolition work on captured or unserviceable ammo.
…“During the desperate days of 1940, when Britain was facing a German invasion, Churchill had energetically built up an arsenal of chemical weapons to greet German troops landing on England’s shores. Even after the threat of invasion faded away, the British continued heavy production of chemical weapons. …”
http://www.vectorsite.net/twgas_2.html
Not so much first use as desperate use, by the time Germany was that desperate it had largely spent its air-force.