1944: Flak Alone Blasts the Allies out of the Sky

[ljadw]

From October 1943 to February 1944 The Germans launched 12 attacks in the Mediterranean with Hs-117 H ( missiles air-launched from aircraft ),they fired 159 of these missiles with as result that 5 Allied vessels were lost and two damaged .
159 of these missiles were needed to sink 5 vessels and to damage two vessels .
Source : German Developments in the Field of Guided Missiles .
Missiles game changers ? I don't think so .

[T. A. Gardner]

1 Several hundred of batteries of SAMs was out of the question for the Germans . This would mean tens of thousand of SAMs, which Germany never could produce because lack of time and lack of raw materials .Where would Germany find the needed trained manpower, the needed raw materials, the needed plants to produce tens of thousand of SAMs in a few months .

Argument from ignorance on your part. Let's say they build out 400 SAM batteries. That's 1600 to 2400 launchers and 400 sets of fire controls. Over a year of production, that's 140 to 200 launchers per month. Given that these are relatively simple to construct that shouldn't represent much of a problem. They'd also have to produce about 30 fire control sets a month. This is more problematic depending on which one(s) they choose to build.

Producing thousands of SAMs--particularly if the V-2 program is cancelled, is not that big a challenge. The Germans produced over 30,000 V-1, and over 5000 of the far more complex--and more complex than a SAM--V-2 rockets. Producing say 4,000 SAMs a month is not unrealistic. If all of those were being consumed (fired), and they had a hit probability of just 2% that's 80 bombers downed a month. So, even if the results were crappy, they're still far better than guns alone could ever produce.

2 If the Germans had aircraft that could go to Moscow with nuclear weapons and return, the Soviets would have aircraft with poison gas that could attack Berlin and return .

Not true. The Red Air Force had virtually no long-range bombers available, few crews trained in long-range navigation, no navigation aids to help guide them to a distant target, nor the available weapons stockpile to use chemical weapons. They'd also face retaliation for their use with their ground army having virtually no chemical warfare equipment or training in chemical warfare. The Soviets would face mass casualties far greater than the Germans in the field if chemical weapons started being used.

Nuclear weapons would not be a game changer, not in WW2, not after WW2 .

They were and they are.

3 If the Germans had aircraft/missiles that could attack Britain with nuclear weapons, US and Britain would reply with attacks with poison gas on Germany who would kill millions of Germans .And, if Germany also would attack with poison gas, this would not help the millions of dead Germans killed by poison gas .

You are grossly overestimating the effectiveness of chemical weapons. You also have to consider what the Germans using chemical weapons on the Allies would be.

4 To hit three British cities with nuclear weapons, many more than three bombers and three nuclear bombs would be needed,as the chance in 1944 for a German bomber to fly over Britain and to destroy a specific city,was almost non-existent .

Depends on the bomb's design. If the Germans chose to build a nuclear glide bomb instead of a gravity bomb, like the US used, they could launch it from 50 + miles from the target (e.g., over the channel) and have it hit the target. The CEP need only be sufficiently small for it to detonate somewhere inside the city being targeted.

[T. A. Gardner]

From October 1943 to February 1944 The Germans launched 12 attacks in the Mediterranean with Hs-117 H ( missiles air-launched from aircraft ),they fired 159 of these missiles with as result that 5 Allied vessels were lost and two damaged .
159 of these missiles were needed to sink 5 vessels and to damage two vessels .
Source : German Developments in the Field of Guided Missiles .
Missiles game changers ? I don't think so .

That's a 3% kill probability. That's roughly triple to quadruple the success rate you could get from using torpedo planes or conventional bombs with far less loss of attacking aircraft. Oh, it's also the Hs 293 not 117 which is a SAM...

In fact, it was a game changer. For the USN and RN, the deployment and use of those weapons became the impetus for both to start considering development of a SAM to protect their ships. Both recognized that heavy AA guns were no longer viable as a defense against air attack for ships.

[ljadw]

From October 1943 to February 1944 The Germans launched 12 attacks in the Mediterranean with Hs-117 H ( missiles air-launched from aircraft ),they fired 159 of these missiles with as result that 5 Allied vessels were lost and two damaged .
159 of these missiles were needed to sink 5 vessels and to damage two vessels .
Source : German Developments in the Field of Guided Missiles .
Missiles game changers ? I don't think so .

That's a 3% kill probability. That's roughly triple to quadruple the success rate you could get from using torpedo planes or conventional bombs with far less loss of attacking aircraft. Oh, it's also the Hs 293 not 117 which is a SAM...

In fact, it was a game changer. For the USN and RN, the deployment and use of those weapons became the impetus for both to start considering development of a SAM to protect their ships. Both recognized that heavy AA guns were no longer viable as a defense against air attack for ships.

A game changer is a weapon that influences/determines the outcome of a war .SAMs did not do this in WW2 .Neither did the A bomb .
159 missiles were needed to sink 5 vessels and damage 2 vessels, an average of 22 per ship . I like to see an example of torpedo planes that needed 22 torpedo to sink/damage ONE vessel .
And that the RN/USN CONSIDERED ,were thinking on the possibility of using SAMs to protect their ships, is not a proof that missiles were game changers : how many US/British MV s/war ships were protected by SAMs in WW2 ?
And:it is not so that heavy AA guns were no longer viable as a defense against air attacks for ships as most USN/RN vessels continued during the war to be protected by heavy AA guns .

[ljadw]

1 Several hundred of batteries of SAMs was out of the question for the Germans . This would mean tens of thousand of SAMs, which Germany never could produce because lack of time and lack of raw materials .Where would Germany find the needed trained manpower, the needed raw materials, the needed plants to produce tens of thousand of SAMs in a few months .

Argument from ignorance on your part. Let's say they build out 400 SAM batteries. That's 1600 to 2400 launchers and 400 sets of fire controls. Over a year of production, that's 140 to 200 launchers per month. Given that these are relatively simple to construct that shouldn't represent much of a problem. They'd also have to produce about 30 fire control sets a month. This is more problematic depending on which one(s) they choose to build.

Producing thousands of SAMs--particularly if the V-2 program is cancelled, is not that big a challenge. The Germans produced over 30,000 V-1, and over 5000 of the far more complex--and more complex than a SAM--V-2 rockets. Producing say 4,000 SAMs a month is not unrealistic. If all of those were being consumed (fired), and they had a hit probability of just 2% that's 80 bombers downed a month. So, even if the results were crappy, they're still far better than guns alone could ever produce.

2 If the Germans had aircraft that could go to Moscow with nuclear weapons and return, the Soviets would have aircraft with poison gas that could attack Berlin and return .

Not true. The Red Air Force had virtually no long-range bombers available, few crews trained in long-range navigation, no navigation aids to help guide them to a distant target, nor the available weapons stockpile to use chemical weapons. They'd also face retaliation for their use with their ground army having virtually no chemical warfare equipment or training in chemical warfare. The Soviets would face mass casualties far greater than the Germans in the field if chemical weapons started being used.

Nuclear weapons would not be a game changer, not in WW2, not after WW2 .

They were and they are.

3 If the Germans had aircraft/missiles that could attack Britain with nuclear weapons, US and Britain would reply with attacks with poison gas on Germany who would kill millions of Germans .And, if Germany also would attack with poison gas, this would not help the millions of dead Germans killed by poison gas .

You are grossly overestimating the effectiveness of chemical weapons. You also have to consider what the Germans using chemical weapons on the Allies would be.

4 To hit three British cities with nuclear weapons, many more than three bombers and three nuclear bombs would be needed,as the chance in 1944 for a German bomber to fly over Britain and to destroy a specific city,was almost non-existent .

Depends on the bomb's design. If the Germans chose to build a nuclear glide bomb instead of a gravity bomb, like the US used, they could launch it from 50 + miles from the target (e.g., over the channel) and have it hit the target. The CEP need only be sufficiently small for it to detonate somewhere inside the city being targeted.

1 To cancel the production of thousands of V-2s does not mean that one could produce in the place thousands of SAMs .
2 In August 1944 the Soviets were at the suburbs of Warsaw,much closer to Berlin than the Germans were to Moscow .
3 The use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki had NO influence at all on the war in the Pacific,as Japan was already defeated .
After 1945 nuclear weapons were not used by both sides,and if they would be used,they would not influence/determine the outcome of the war .
Neither the Soviets, nor the US used nuclear weapons in Afghanistan, one of the main reasons was the this use would not defeat the enemy .
4 "If the Germans chose to build a nuclear guide bomb instead of a gravity bomb '' "wrong start of an argument .
It must be : " If the Germans could build a nuclear guide bomb and if they could use such a bomb /decided to use such a bomb '' and as there is no proof for these IFs ,there is no proof for the claim that the Germans could build a nuclear weapon ,and that they would use it if they could build it .
The decision to build a nuclear bomb depends on the possibility to build such a weapon .
The decision to use such a bomb depends on the possibility that one can have such a bomb and that he would be operational and that he would have an effect ..
But it depends also on the need to use this weapon : if you are winning/ have won ,there is no need to use him, H + N were exceptions ,if you are losing,there is also no need to use him , unless you can transform your losing in a winning situation ..
It depends also on what the enemy could do as reply,as revenge .
Would the US have nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki if they knew that Japan also had nuclear weapons and had the capacity to nuke cities as Los Angeles and San Francisco ?
The possession of nuclear weapons does not imply the use of nuclear weapons .
US used nuclear weapons against Japan not to win the war,but to finish him faster and because Japan could not nuke US cities .

[T. A. Gardner]

1 To cancel the production of thousands of V-2s does not mean that one could produce in the place thousands of SAMs .

In this case, yes, it does. You are cancelling one missile and building a different missile. The materials are the same, most of the tooling is the same. It's like cancelling one airplane to build another airplane. Your statement applies when you cancel say building battleships and want to build more tanks or airplanes instead. A SAM is a type of missile. The V-2 is a type of missile. The Wasserfall SAM was based on the V-2.

So, yes, you can build thousands of SAM's if you increase resources for that from cancelling the V-2, another missile program.

2 In August 1944 the Soviets were at the suburbs of Warsaw,much closer to Berlin than the Germans were to Moscow .

So?

3 The use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki had NO influence at all on the war in the Pacific,as Japan was already defeated.
After 1945 nuclear weapons were not used by both sides, and if they would be used, they would not influence/determine the outcome of the war.
Neither the Soviets, nor the US used nuclear weapons in Afghanistan, one of the main reasons was the this use would not defeat the enemy.

Germany having several nuclear bombs about as powerful as the US ones were in 1945 would have a huge impact on events. Nuking Moscow, Leningrad, London, Paris, would have immediate political and strategic implications.

4 "If the Germans chose to build a nuclear guide bomb instead of a gravity bomb '' "wrong start of an argument .
It must be : " If the Germans could build a nuclear guide bomb and if they could use such a bomb /decided to use such a bomb '' and as there is no proof for these IFs ,there is no proof for the claim that the Germans could build a nuclear weapon ,and that they would use it if they could build it .
The decision to build a nuclear bomb depends on the possibility to build such a weapon .
The decision to use such a bomb depends on the possibility that one can have such a bomb and that he would be operational and that he would have an effect ..

Wrong. The discussion was IF GERMANY HAD A NUCLEAR WEAPON. That is, Germany already has a nuclear bomb. That is assumed. The discussion becomes how could they deliver the weapon to a target like a major city in Allied / Soviet territory.

If instead, the discussion is about Germany getting a nuclear weapon, then your position would be viable and discussed.

But it depends also on the need to use this weapon : if you are winning/ have won ,there is no need to use him, H + N were exceptions ,if you are losing,there is also no need to use him , unless you can transform your losing in a winning situation ..
It depends also on what the enemy could do as reply,as revenge .
Would the US have nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki if they knew that Japan also had nuclear weapons and had the capacity to nuke cities as Los Angeles and San Francisco ?

Very possibly. Or, the US might have waited until they produced many more nukes than Japan had and then use them in mass wiping out not just cities, but suspected locations the Japanese have their bombs and delivery systems at.

Of course, if Japan had a nuke or two they'd have used it immediately on the US inviting retaliation. So, the likelihood is Japan goes ahead and nukes a city or two, even in the US, and the US immediately starts nuking everything in Japan in retaliation since they'd still have many times more capacity to build more bombs than Japan would.

The possession of nuclear weapons does not imply the use of nuclear weapons .
US used nuclear weapons against Japan not to win the war,but to finish him faster and because Japan could not nuke US cities .

In 1945, that isn't the thinking. In 1944 -45 the thinking is the extant nuclear bombs are simply a better way to smash a city than sending several hundred or even a thousand bombers to do it with conventional munitions. While radiation was known, and some of the effects known, there was nowhere near the level of concern about that aspect of a nuke in 1945. Nukes were simply bigger, better, bombs.

[T. A. Gardner]

A game changer is a weapon that influences/determines the outcome of a war .SAMs did not do this in WW2 .Neither did the A bomb .

The atomic bomb did have an effect on Japan's willingness to surrender. It did influence the outcome of the war. SAMs would have had an impact on the air war forcing changes in tactics, equipment, and overall strategy.

159 missiles were needed to sink 5 vessels and damage 2 vessels, an average of 22 per ship . I like to see an example of torpedo planes that needed 22 torpedo to sink/damage ONE vessel .

At Midway, the USN launched a total of 44 torpedo planes against the Kido Butai (the IJN's carrier force). They scored ZERO hits. That's DOUBLE your demand for an example of torpedo planes scoring a hit to sink or damage a vessel. If you toss in the USAAF using torpedo carrying B-26, it rises to over 50 planes and no hits.

And that the RN/USN CONSIDERED ,were thinking on the possibility of using SAMs to protect their ships, is not a proof that missiles were game changers

The USN and RN weren't considering / thinking on the possibility of using SAMs, they were actively moving to do it.

In July 1944, the Chief of BuOrd Admiral G. F. Hussey put out a request for an initial analysis of what sort of weapon might be needed to counter the threat of bombers using standoff guided missiles and bombs to Section T of the Applied Science Lab (APL) at Johns Hopkins University, Silver Springs, Maryland. That was the USN's start. Two months later, the USN started a development program that would become the Lark SAM, the first SAM to shootdown an aerial target.
By December 1944, the USN had authorized development of a longer-range SAM that would be more capable, starting Project Bumblebee.

In Britain, they set up the GAP (Guided Antiaircraft Projectile) committee early in 1944. The committee met for the first time on 16 March 1944, as German raids reached a new intensity (the mini-Blitz) The initial outcome set requirements on 27 April 1944 after their second meeting at developing a missile that could engage a flying target at up to 40,000 feet flying at 500 mph with a high probability of destruction.

The British began development of SAMs with two programs, the Army's Brakemine, and the Navy's Stooge. The eventual, desired, missile was to be something derived from the LOPGAP (Liquid Oxygen Alcohol Guided Antiaircraft Projectile) program. These programs were given a high priority at the time.

And that the RN/USN CONSIDERED ,were thinking on the possibility of using SAMs to protect their ships, is not a proof that missiles were game: how many US/British MV s/war ships were protected by SAMs in WW2 ?

If you count unguided rockets, quite a few. If you are only counting guided weapons, then you are attempting an appeal to the stone argument where you attempt to make a case that since no ships were protected by SAMs they were irrelevant rather than accepting that the USN and RN saw the value of them over guns and were consciously moving to develop and deploy them on ships as early as 1944.

As I demonstrated, the RN / USN weren't just considering / thinking about the possibility of a SAM, they were making concrete decisions about what kind of SAM they wanted and moving to develop and deploy that missile.

And:it is not so that heavy AA guns were no longer viable as a defense against air attacks for ships as most USN/RN vessels continued during the war to be protected by heavy AA guns .

It is so. Modern warships no longer use heavy guns as their air defense system except as possibly a backup for missiles. Ships today rely on missiles for air defense. During WW 2, and in the immediate years after the war, ships continued to use heavy AA guns simply because missiles had yet to be fully developed and deployed. Once they were, you saw missiles put on ships and heavy guns increasingly removed. New construction ships were built with few, if any, heavy guns aboard.

[ljadw]

You still continue to mix two totally different eras who are 80 years away from each other .
That today SAMs outperform guns by exponential amounts is totally irrelevant for the question what SAMs could have done 80 years ago .Besides you can't compare the SAMs of today with their potential forefathers from 80 years ago .

Prototypes of SAM's were outperforming guns by the end of 1945. Project Bumblebee, the program that became the USN's Talos missile (along with Terrier and Tartar) had prototype ramjet missiles flying at Mach 1.75 out to 12 miles and 35,000 feet by then as but one example.

And : it is absolutely not so that if in 1944 flak guns performed '' better'' than SAMs, the flak guns would be still in use today 80 years later .
What happens today can not be used as a proof for what could have happen 80 years ago .And,what happened 80 years ago can not be used as a proof for what could happen today ,80 years later .

If flak guns performed better than SAMs in 1944, the US, Britain, and Germany wouldn't have been developing SAMs. Again, to use Project Bumblebee, the US Navy was specifically committed to developing a SAM that could shootdown an aircraft far beyond gun range.
The recognition even in 1944, that jet bombers flying at much higher altitudes than current piston engine planes could, would be beyond the range of AA guns was a near universal with major militaries.
The British with their LOPGAP missile program in 1944 -45 saw the same thing. Both the US and Britain also were looking into developing an ABM to take down something like the V-2, a weapon no gun system could successfully engage.

About the argument that there were more Flak guns than fighters and that thus the fact that the Flak guns killed more allied aircraft is thus not a proof of the superiority of the Flak guns :this is a wrong argument, because only a small part of the Flak guns were involved in the air war in January 1945 .

So, now what you claim is that most flak guns sat unused and useless while even those that did shoot down a plane were still expending thousands of rounds to do it. Fighters, far fewer in number, were more efficient and successful than flak guns even in your modified set of conditions.
For example, on 25 October 1944, the USAAF attacked Hamburg Germany with 720 bombers. There were 44 heavy AA batteries defending the city, a total of 264 guns. They fired--through overcast the USAAF bombed off radar--a total of 24,416 rounds of 8.8, 10.5, and 12.8 cm shells or an average of 92 rounds per gun.
For that expenditure, they shot down exactly one (1) bomber. The USAAF plastered the city, so all that fire had little or no deterrent effect on the bombing.

The LW committed in January 591 fighters and those killed 51 allied bombers and 22 fighters, a total of 73. This means that only 13 % of the used German fighters were successful in January 1945.
There are no figures available for the numbers of Flak guns who destroyed 127 allied aircraft in January 1945, but the reality is that most German cities were attacked only sporadically that month and others were not attacked , but almost all German cities had to be protected by Flak guns ,also those who were not attacked by the allied air forces and a lot of Flak guns were used only in ground fighting ,we can assume that the majority of the Flak was not/seldom committed in the air war in January 1945.

Again, fighters did a better job than guns. The numbers above work out to one plane shot down per 8 sorties. If you have a major German city defended by flak, like Hamburg was, there'd be hundreds of heavy AA guns defending it. They'd fire tens of thousands of shells to destroy a single plane in many cases. I could easily something like a quarter million rounds fired during the month to get that 127 kills. That would work out to about 2000 rounds per shootdown. German industry couldn't keep up with that sort of massive use of artillery, and at the same time it would have deprived the other branches of the military ammunition they desperately needed.

Dresden was not attacked in January 1945, Nürnberg only one time, Frankfurt only twice .
Other point : the aim of the Flak was not to shoot down allied aircraft but to prevent them ,not from attacking cities and plants, but from destroying, damaging cities and plants ,thus to protect these cities and plants .

Well, by those standards, German flak utterly and completely failed to do their mission...

The prototype missiles from project Bumblebee became operational in 1955 only .
Thus,what happened in 1955 can not be used as a proof that this could also happen before the end of WW2 .

[ljadw]

From October 1943 to February 1944 The Germans launched 12 attacks in the Mediterranean with Hs-117 H ( missiles air-launched from aircraft ),they fired 159 of these missiles with as result that 5 Allied vessels were lost and two damaged .
159 of these missiles were needed to sink 5 vessels and to damage two vessels .
Source : German Developments in the Field of Guided Missiles .
Missiles game changers ? I don't think so .

That's a 3% kill probability. That's roughly triple to quadruple the success rate you could get from using torpedo planes or conventional bombs with far less loss of attacking aircraft. Oh, it's also the Hs 293 not 117 which is a SAM...

In fact, it was a game changer. For the USN and RN, the deployment and use of those weapons became the impetus for both to start considering development of a SAM to protect their ships. Both recognized that heavy AA guns were no longer viable as a defense against air attack for ships.

NO :it was not a game changer .That this was an impetus to start CONSIDERING the development of a SAM to protect ships , which happened ten years after the war ,is not a game changer :the German SAM s would be a game changer IF they decided /influenced the outcome of WW2 ,which they did not .
There is also no proof that the use of SAM s in post WW2 wars decided/influenced the outcome of these wars .
Game changers do not exist ,they are an invention from the media .
Wars are not decided by monocausal reasons .
The use of the Stinger missile did not decide,influence the outcome of the first Afghan war .The use of SAM s is not deciding the outcome of the war in Ukraine, etc,etc ..

[ljadw]

A game changer is a weapon that influences/determines the outcome of a war .SAMs did not do this in WW2 .Neither did the A bomb .

The atomic bomb did have an effect on Japan's willingness to surrender. It did influence the outcome of the war. SAMs would have had an impact on the air war forcing changes in tactics, equipment, and overall strategy.



The USN and RN weren't considering / thinking on the possibility of using SAMs, they were actively moving to do it.

In July 1944, the Chief of BuOrd Admiral G. F. Hussey put out a request for an initial analysis of what sort of weapon might be needed to counter the threat of bombers using standoff guided missiles and bombs to Section T of the Applied Science Lab (APL) at Johns Hopkins University, Silver Springs, Maryland

The British began development of SAMs with two programs, the Army's Brakemine, and the Navy's Stooge. The eventual, desired, missile was to be something derived from the LOPGAP (Liquid Oxygen Alcohol Guided Antiaircraft Projectile) program. These programs were given a high priority at the time.



If you count unguided rockets, quite a few. If you are only counting guided weapons, then you are attempting an appeal to the stone argument where you attempt to make a case that since no ships were protected by SAMs they were irrelevant rather than accepting that the USN and RN saw the value of them over guns and were consciously moving to develop and deploy them on ships as early as 1944.

1 First you said : The atomic bomb did not influence/determine the outcome of WW2 , immediately after this ,you say : the atomic bomb did influence the outcome of the war .
Which of your claims is now correct ,following you ?
2 A request for an initial (ha ! ) analysis of what sort of weapon may be needed to counter the threat of bombers using stand off missiles and bombers ,which had as result that 11 years later the US SAM s became operational, is not a proof that the US was actively moving to use SAM s .
Besides :if it took the US 11 years to have their SAM s operational , why would the Germans be able to have their SAM s operational in a few months ? The US had no SAMs in WW2 ,thus why should the Germans the the possibility to do it in a few months ?
3 If the US did not protect their ships with SAMs in WW2 ,this means that SAM s were irrelevant for the US in WW2 ,and there is no proof that US war ships that used AA guns as defense,but still were lost,would not be lost,if they could have used SAMs as defense .
4 To say that one can not say that the existence of a weapon in WW2 that did not exist/could not in WW2 was relevant and a game changer is not a stone argument .
There were no drones in WW2 ,to say that if they existed and were used in WW2, would be game changers,is a stone argument .
Drones could not exist in WW2 ,thus it is a wast of time to say : let's imagine that they existed and were used by the Germans ,would they not change the outcome of the war ?
Imagination is the enemy of reality .

[ljadw]

What this thread suggests is cannon as a AA weapon had reached a point of marginal returns.
Better killing power would come from different technology, specifically rocket & electronic technology.

1 Maybe, possible ,but not relevant if ''better killing power '' would not/could not come before May 8 1945 .
2 There is no proof that better killing power was possible before May 8 1945 . And everything indicates that this was not possible .
3 Conclusion : the best solution for Germany was to continue to use cannon gun as a AA weapon and to accept reality .
The problem is not the limits of the cannon gun if used as a AA weapon,but the fact that there was nothing else that could replace the cannon gun as a better AA weapon .
The title "Flak alone blasts the Allies out of the Sky "" is impossible and if possible, it would not change the outcome of the war .

[ljadw]

It has been claimed in Post 269 that after 1945 all countries have abandoned heavy AA artillery for SAM s .
This is not true :
in 1968 Rheinmetall started the production of heavy Flak artillery for the Bundeswehr =the Flak 20 mm Zwilling,of which 1000 pieces were build and which served from 1972 to after 1989 .
Thus : more than 40 years after WW2 the Bundeswehr ( strongest army of NATO ) had still cannon guns for AA defense .

[T. A. Gardner]

The prototype missiles from project Bumblebee became operational in 1955 only .
Thus,what happened in 1955 can not be used as a proof that this could also happen before the end of WW2 .

That was because the program slowed down once the war ended. Also the first missile to come out of Bumblebee wasn't Talos, but Terrier, derived from the STV 3 test missile used to develop flight controls. It went into service in 1956. Talos followed a couple of years later, then Tartar.

During WW 2, the Bumblebee program got as far or further than any German program. At Top Sail Island N. Carolina they were firing test missiles to Mach 1.5 +, out to 12 to 15 miles range, and as high as 35,000 feet using the Cobra 6" and BTV 12 to 18" ramjet missiles. Tests with CTV subsonic missiles were also going on.

Then there was Lark. Same thing. This high subsonic missile was again, at least as far along as any German SAM was, and had three guidance systems, one semi-active homing with an option for command guidance, and the Convair version using beam riding with active radar terminal homing. The guidance systems were better than anything the Germans were trying by the end of the war.

Lark was cancelled as a SAM in the early 50's but continued on as a test vehicle because the design was well thought out. Both the USN and USAF used them for guidance and control development well into the 50's. Oh, Lark was used successfully in January 1950 to shoot down a target drone. The missile was fired off the USS Norton Sound.

[T. A. Gardner]

It has been claimed in Post 269 that after 1945 all countries have abandoned heavy AA artillery for SAM s .
This is not true :
in 1968 Rheinmetall started the production of heavy Flak artillery for the Bundeswehr =the Flak 20 mm Zwilling,of which 1000 pieces were build and which served from 1972 to after 1989 .
Thus : more than 40 years after WW2 the Bundeswehr ( strongest army of NATO ) had still cannon guns for AA defense .

A 20mm AA gun is not a "heavy" AA gun. Heavy AA guns start at about 75mm (3") and go up. And, after 1945 all nations increasingly did abandon such guns in favor of guided missiles. Heavy AA guns lingered on into the 70's being sort of a legacy thing but were no longer considered first line weapons but rather alternates that were at best obsolescent.

[ljadw]

The prototype missiles from project Bumblebee became operational in 1955 only .
Thus,what happened in 1955 can not be used as a proof that this could also happen before the end of WW2 .

That was because the program slowed down once the war ended. Also the first missile to come out of Bumblebee wasn't Talos, but Terrier, derived from the STV 3 test missile used to develop flight controls. It went into service in 1956. Talos followed a couple of years later, then Tartar.

During WW 2, the Bumblebee program got as far or further than any German program. At Top Sail Island N. Carolina they were firing test missiles to Mach 1.5 +, out to 12 to 15 miles range, and as high as 35,000 feet using the Cobra 6" and BTV 12 to 18" ramjet missiles. Tests with CTV subsonic missiles were also going on.

Then there was Lark. Same thing. This high subsonic missile was again, at least as far along as any German SAM was, and had three guidance systems, one semi-active homing with an option for command guidance, and the Convair version using beam riding with active radar terminal homing. The guidance systems were better than anything the Germans were trying by the end of the war.

Lark was cancelled as a SAM in the early 50's but continued on as a test vehicle because the design was well thought out. Both the USN and USAF used them for guidance and control development well into the 50's. Oh, Lark was used successfully in January 1950 to shoot down a target drone. The missile was fired off the USS Norton Sound.

Test missiles and operational use are two different things .
It took the US 11 years to have their first SAMs operational , thus one can not demand /expect that the Germans should have their SAMs operational in 11 months .