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One year later, the USAF fared an even worse against a runaway drone. It took two days to put out all of the fires caused by the rockets that missed. https://e
by labster 2y ago
One year later, the USAF fared an even worse against a runaway drone. It took two days to put out all of the fires caused by the rockets that missed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Palmdale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Palmdale
- appplication 2y agoWow, 208 rockets fired and all of them missed. That is way more than I would have thought. Also, I hope those pilots got some training, or maybe they quickly reevaluated the battle worthiness of those rockets. I imagine there are much harder targets to hit than an unmanned drone.
- yencabulator 2y ago> The Mighty Mouse was to prove a poor aerial weapon. Although it was powerful enough to destroy a bomber with a single hit, its accuracy was abysmal. The rockets dispersed widely on launch: a volley of 24 rockets would cover an area the size of a football field. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding-Fin_Aerial_Rocket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding-Fin_Aerial_Rocket
- hn_go_brrrrr 2y agoAlso they had no functional targeting computer or gun sights.
- russfink 2y agoAnd they were not skilled in the ways of the Force.
- actionfromafar 2y agoThey should have used the nuclear Genie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIR-2_Genie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIR-2_Genie
- russdill 2y agoThere's a lot of stories regarding weapons that have abysmal success but stay fielded anyway. US navy torpedos are a good example.
- RecycledEle 2y agoIf the Mk 14 Torpedo had worked for the US submariners off the Philippines in December, 1941 the Japanese would have probably failed to take those islands. IIRC, the US subs put torpedoes into more than half the Japanese ships, but did almost no damage due to defective torpedo exploders. Imagine if the US had stayed with the reasonably reliable Mk 10 Torpedo and had adopted the British Fairey Swordfish instead of the TBD Avenger. Just deploying Swordfish along the US East Coast would have saved thousands of lives lost in the Battle of the Atlantic. Instead Admiral Nimitz relegated the existing Swordfish to ferrying personnel after they chased Japanese subs away from the American West Coast. He did not believe the reports of then damaging so many Japanese subs. After the war, he learned those reports were correct. WW2 in the Pacific would have been a lot shorter.
- cpgxiii 2y agoYou are confusing the TBD Devastator with the TBF/TBM Avenger. The Avenger was a very capable aircraft, certainly the best carrier-borne torpedo bomber and antisubmarine platform of the war. The Swordfish did OK in the Atlantic solely because it never faced any meaningful fighter opposition (having been quickly relegated to "safer" roles), and the distances were low enough that its low speed was not a hindrance. It would have been utterly unsurvivable in the Pacific theater against Japanese opposition. Additionally, short-range ASW aircraft were never really the problem in the Atlantic, the problem was always how to provide long-range cover, which was only solved by the use of land-based B-24s and carrier-borne Avengers.
- RecycledEle 2y ago> You are confusing the TBD Devastator with the TBF/TBM Avenger. You are correct. I apologize. The TBD Devastator was a disaster compared to the ready-to-use Fairey Swordfish. FDR and Nimitz screwed the pooch on that one.
- EdwardDiego 2y agoThey got hits, but the rockets bounced off.
- EdwardDiego 2y agoI was wondering why they didn't use cannons instead. Turns out the D variant only had rockets, the cannons were removed. Interesting insight into the thinking around interceptor tactics immediately post-war.