Did we have anything similar? I know that we had remote control airplanes like the ome that Joe Kennedy Jr. died in. I’m wondering about primative smart bombs.
The AZON (AZimuth ONly) bomb was purely a 'Left/Right" guided weapon - you still had get the range right, or you’d miss. It was largely used as an anti-infrastructure bomb, tagetted at bridges and such, where it had some success.
The Bat was only lacking an engine to be a real cruise missile - It had every other necessary aspect - Radar homing, autopilot, and flight control surfaces. Against shipping, the Bat was moderately successful, but land clutter was detrimental and would generally cause it to fail.
The Japanese solution to guidance was more primitive but more effective: put a pilot in it. The primary failing of the Ohka was that it required heavily laden G4M Betty bombers to get within 20 miles of the target. Few Bettys returned , even from successful missions which by necessity were mostly against the radar picket destroyers.
The Radar Pickets started off as accidental targets, but they were the right targets. Open a hole in the radar picket, and you can run a full-up raid of convential aircraft or kamikaze aircraft (or both, for truly frightening effectiveness) in to dangerous proximity. This happened several times (only rarely by Ohkas), and the radar pickets became deliberate targets, and dangerous duty.
There was a reason they were called “tin cans.” Not a whole lot of armor on a destroyer. There are numerous instances of US aircraft sinking/smashing/ruining Japanese destroyers with only .50 cal machine gun fire. OK, so there were 10-12 machine guns in the nose of the plane, but still…
Frome a damage-control perspective, a LOT of small holes can be much worse than one big hole. Sure, the big hole lets in water faster than an equivalent area of small holes (edge effects), but generally, it’s easier to patch, plug, fother, or isolate a single large hole. A bunch of small holes have to be hunted down each one, and many will have penetrated multiple compartments, wrecking or damaging important systems - which can’t be brought back up until ALL the little holes have been found and dealt with. Meanwhile, your tin can is sinking like a Swiss cheese canoe… Oh, and those deep-penetrating rounds might have found something flamible or explosive along the way.
Not directed at me, but I do kmow that the 332nd FGflying P-47’s did attack a German destroyer in Italy in 1944 and claimed to have sunk it with just gunfire.
Others have said that the sinking was due to an earlier bomb hit and they administered a coup de grace.
I don’t think a fighter’s guns could sink a destroyer. I do think they could damage her so much that she would be easy prey for bombers or subs or other ships.
The German glide bombs trailed greyish smoke from their tracking flares. That looks to me (~10:57) like a conventional a/c hit by AA and trailing a wide black smoke trail. The a/c seen a few seconds before seem to be Fw 190 fighter bombers, realistic for the Italian campaign though who knows if actually from when the documentary says.
However, the sequence around 10:00 shows USS Savanah CL-42 struck by a Fritz X dropped by a Do-217K-2 of III./KG 100 September 11, 1943 off Salerno which is what the documentary is talking about in that whole section, rather than Anzio. The bomb hit the 6" turret immediately forward of the bridge, penetrated all the way to the lower handling room and exploded, but flooding was so rapid the main magazines didn’t go up and destroy the ship as had happened to the Italian battleship Roma two days earlier. Savannah doesn’t even look badly damaged in the sequence, but 197 of the crew were killed and permanent repairs and overhaul were not completed till September 1944.
It was a WWI era 770 ton torpedo boat, the former Italian Giuseppe Missori renamed TA22 and it was only put out of action, not sunk.
From the “10-12 machine guns in the nose of the plane” I assume the reference is to The Battle of the Bismarck Sea; the Japanese lost 4 destroyers. Every one of them was put out of action and lost to bombing:
I am sure he believed they did ( plus many B-25 had a 75mm cannon installed and that *would * fuck up a Destroyer) . However post war analysis has shown that pilots on all sides overestimated damage and kills to the enemy especially ships. Even when they were earnestly trying to get best and accurate assessment:
That is, Dissonance, if you follow the details: Standard 8 fixed forward-firing .50cal M-2 machine guns, with up to four more dual-mounts as optional equipment. Or: Up to 16 forward-firing .50cal M-2 machine guns.
B-25s were sometimes similarly equipped. Also, some added 75mm cannon.
