1944: Flak Alone Blasts the Allies out of the Sky

[Carl Schwamberger]

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. That I remember was touched on early in the thread. There does not seem to be any technical reason a proximity fuze could be in German production circa 1943-44. That direction seemed a lot less a dead end than oversized cannon.

[Destroyer500]

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. That I remember was touched on early in the thread. There does not seem to be any technical reason a proximity fuze could be in German production circa 1943-44. That direction seemed a lot less a dead end than oversized cannon.

Missile technology made hit probability a LOT bigger and upped the game completely.As ive said in my other German Mega Defense thread though i believe and the key word here is believe,that bigger guns could be really useful against bomber formations but for anything flying faster,unless you want to use nuke AA shells or something,missiles or some advanced smaller than flak caliber projectile gun is the way to go.

[T. A. Gardner]

Missile technology made hit probability a LOT bigger and upped the game completely.As ive said in my other German Mega Defense thread though i believe and the key word here is believe,that bigger guns could be really useful against bomber formations but for anything flying faster,unless you want to use nuke AA shells or something,missiles or some advanced smaller than flak caliber projectile gun is the way to go.

Against fast, high-flying bombers SAMs are the only viable ground based air defense solution. As the target flies higher and faster, the engagement time by gunfire becomes shorter and shorter. The only solutions to that are to increase the size of the gun to get longer range, and up the rate of fire. You end up with monstrosities like that 15cm German auto-feed cannon or the British Green Mace. Even then, these weapons have limited range, are virtually static, and cost a small fortune to produce.

By going to a SAM, you now have a missile that can engage targets at ranges far beyond what any gun can achieve. Each missile has--assuming you have a good fire control / guidance system--a high probability of target destruction on the first round. That makes the SAM the obvious solution. Even the gun battery will require fire controls, radar, etc., so most of the cost of the fire control system exists either way. SAM launchers are cheap to build, leaving only the missile as a serious expense.

For WW 2 bombers, a high-subsonic or low supersonic missile would be viable. You could make up for accuracy with a larger warhead--far larger than any shell could manage. The only real difficulty in getting something into service is the guidance system.

[Destroyer500]

Against fast, high-flying bombers SAMs are the only viable ground based air defense solution. As the target flies higher and faster, the engagement time by gunfire becomes shorter and shorter. The only solutions to that are to increase the size of the gun to get longer range, and up the rate of fire. You end up with monstrosities like that 15cm German auto-feed cannon or the British Green Mace. Even then, these weapons have limited range, are virtually static, and cost a small fortune to produce.

By going to a SAM, you now have a missile that can engage targets at ranges far beyond what any gun can achieve. Each missile has--assuming you have a good fire control / guidance system--a high probability of target destruction on the first round. That makes the SAM the obvious solution. Even the gun battery will require fire controls, radar, etc., so most of the cost of the fire control system exists either way. SAM launchers are cheap to build, leaving only the missile as a serious expense.

For WW 2 bombers, a high-subsonic or low supersonic missile would be viable. You could make up for accuracy with a larger warhead--far larger than any shell could manage. The only real difficulty in getting something into service is the guidance system.

Missiles have ways of being defeated too but i agree that they have a far higher hit probability than just a flak of any size.Bringing bigger guns for large bomber formations was far easier for Germany of the time that was running out of time than building complex missiles systems that could never be built in adequate numbers unless you make a nuke warhead and choose to detonate it near bombers Missiles are in no way getting obsolete but they too can be countered effectively if the pilot is experienced and has some of the more advanced craft.

[T. A. Gardner]

While the thread is a year old, I've been doing quite a bit of research on German SAM's in the interim. So, some relevant stuff on German SAM development really adds to this discussion.

Of the missiles the Germans had, this is the general state they were at:

Wasserfall. Wasn't going to work. It was really probably the least likely to have potential to develop into a viable SAM.

Feuerlile F55. Wasn't even a serious attempt to build a SAM. The LFA was using that as an excuse to continue to conduct control and sounding rocket development.

Hs 117 Schmetterling. Close to production but would have proven to have a very low Pk per round using the optical control systems that were available for it. Being small and subsonic with limited range, it was simply not enough missile to get the job done.

Rheintocter. Viable as a design but let down by lack of a suitable solid fuel alternative to diglycol (double base smokeless powder). The available solid fuels for Germany were completely outdated and had too low an energy density. The result was a missile with insufficient speed and ceiling.

Enzian. Messerschmitt's entry. Was completely let down by lack of a suitable engine. Had one materialized, it had potential to be a viable weapon against WW 2 bombers.

The big problem for the Germans was the state of their electronics industry. Conceptually, they got the concept right but what they lacked was the actual equipment to make one work.

The optical only systems using something like the flakfolgegërat (a rotating chair thing with binoculars and a Keil-type joystick) was really a joke. It wasn't going to work.

The radar control systems proposed were very similar to ones that were adopted and used in early postwar SAMs. The problems for the Germans were:

- Their available radars were decametric sets like Würtzburg and Mannheim operating at 50 cm when they need 10 and 3cm sets. The sets they had were not accurate enough to really guide a missile to an intercept reliably.
- They had no automatic tracking system like the US SCR 584 used where you could lock onto a target and the set would automatically track it. Manual tracking was too coarse and potentially jittery to feed data to a fire control computer for good course resolution.
- They had no existing fire control computer that could do the calculations. Yes, they were working on several sets but none had been produced or tested before the war ended.
- The use of a manual control system using a PPI display and the expected fire control computers would have been marginally viable for taking on a B-17 or Lancaster, but barely adequate for something like a B-29 (higher and faster).

One thing they could have gotten around is the lack of a proximity fuze. They could have substituted command detonation for one and simply upped the size of the warhead on the missile to ensure the target was destroyed. The Enzian design already foresaw that eventuality using a 500 kg warhead.

As for continued use of guns alone, the Allies were well aware of the limitations on that:

[youtube]https://youtu.be/-4Vbv-sGwrc[/youtube]

The big stumbling block was the slow rate of calculation of electro-mechanical computers of that era. What adopting a SAM does is eliminate most of the error from an unguided shell, along with allow for changes in course as the missile flies to the target. Higher missile speed--with supersonic missiles being as fast or faster than a shell--means less time between launch and intercept.

An alternative that was viable in 1944 for the Germans was something like the Ba 349 Natter. This was in essence a piloted SAM that used the pilot as a substitute to a computer guidance system.

[PunctuationHorror]

Interesting.

Why not just use their A4 rocket with a fragmentation/shrapnel/sub-munition warhead, and maybe downsize the fuel tanks to increase the warhead?
To reach the flight level of the bombers less fuel would be needed. The saved weight could be used as payload. The missile used about 20000lb of its total weight of 27000lb for fuel and LOX. So, at least 10000lb of that could go into the warhead. That would give a warhead of 2200lb + 10000lb = 12000lb.

With a big enough blast volume, even the optical control systems would suffice to hit a combat box and down or/and damage a few aircraft. Trajectories can be calculated in advance. Just need a radio controlled detonation button for the guy in the binocular chair. Maybe even a time fuze would suffice.

[ljadw]

Hm : you are arguing about what would be better but not about what was needed and what was possible .
Why would it be needed to reach the flight level of the bombers using missiles ?
Edward B.Westerman said the following in ''Flak '' P 251
''Another factor that was almost as important as the number of downed aircraft was the flak's success in preventing the bombers from successfully striking their intended targets .''
And, continuing on what he said, I would ask the following :
What was better ?
A to destroy 10 bombers using 50 fighters, 20 missiles and 10 flak batteries
B to force 20 bombers to fly on a very high altitude,using 10 missiles and 20 flak batteries
The higher the bombers were flying (forced to fly ) ,the less precise the air attacks would be .
And I doubt very much that Germany had the means to produce and use more SAMs or other missiles


''

[T. A. Gardner]

Hm : you are arguing about what would be better but not about what was needed and what was possible .
Why would it be needed to reach the flight level of the bombers using missiles ?
Edward B.Westerman said the following in ''Flak '' P 251
''Another factor that was almost as important as the number of downed aircraft was the flak's success in preventing the bombers from successfully striking their intended targets .''
And, continuing on what he said, I would ask the following :
What was better ?
A to destroy 10 bombers using 50 fighters, 20 missiles and 10 flak batteries
B to force 20 bombers to fly on a very high altitude,using 10 missiles and 20 flak batteries
The higher the bombers were flying (forced to fly ) ,the less precise the air attacks would be .
And I doubt very much that Germany had the means to produce and use more SAMs or other missiles
''

The problem with option B was systems on bombers to accurately bomb from higher altitudes was improving too. In Germany, daylight bombing was done about 60 - 70% of the time through clouds or overcast making it less accurate until highly accurate radar bombing aids became available starting about mid 1943. By 1945, such aids could pick out individual buildings in a city making it possible for radar to rival precision optical bombsights like the Norden and British STABS.

For night bombing, the RAF's usual target was the city chosen. If the plane's bombs landed somewhere in that city, then they were on target.

Also, the intent should be to shoot down sufficient bombers that over time, the enemy cannot sustain their aerial attack campaign. That crossover point in WW 2 for the Allies was around 6 to 8% losses. If every mission had higher casualties, bombing becomes unsustainable.

Then there's the issue, by 1944, of guided munitions starting to appear along with standoff munitions. Now flak guns never get to shoot at the bombers at all because they release their munitions from outside the range of the guns. Tack onto that, that aircraft flying above about 30,000 feet are nearly beyond the range of any but the most massive flak guns like the German 15cm, and SAMs become the only alternative there is.

Fighters are great if you can build and man them. For the Germans in 1944 - 45, the problem was they weren't able to put into production aircraft that could operate at 30,000 + feet all the time. They were having issues with pressurization and turbo / superchargers and getting these to work efficiently in their aircraft.
Jets were an alternative, but they had issues with reliability and consumed far more fuel than piston engine planes did.

SAM's also can cover a lot more ground than guns because of their greater range, meaning fewer batteries can protect a target in many cases. There is also an advantage in SAM batteries needing fewer men than heavy flak batteries in particular.

[ljadw]

The problem with SAM batteries is that Germany had not the possibility to produce and use the needed amount of SAMS that could change the outcome of the air war in Europe .
It was the same for fighters and Germany could also not afford to lose the number of fighters that would be lost if committed in air battles above 30000 feet .
The big problem is that the LW history has been written ,on German side, by the fighter lobby (Galland, etc ) and that the successes of he Flak were hushed .
From Westermann P 287
Ninth and Twelfth Air Forces lost 2415 aircraft by the Flak
In Eight Air Force 54,539 aircraft were damaged by Flak between December 1942 and April 1945 .
I don't think that SAMs would have done as ''good'' or better .
And, on P 301
''The events of 1939-1945 clearly demonstrated that the air war could not be won with ground-based defenses ,but the events make it equally apparent that without these defenses, German cities and factories quickly would have been bombed into ruins , and general Arnold observed after the war :We never conquered the German flak artillery .
My conclusions :
Till the summer of 1942 SAM missiles were not needed and would be a wast of resources.
After the summer of 1942 SAM missiles could not be produced in sufficient quantities and,if they could, they would not change the outcome of the air war and they could only be produced at the cost of the classic flak and the situation would be worse .

[T. A. Gardner]

The problem with SAM batteries is that Germany had not the possibility to produce and use the needed amount of SAMS that could change the outcome of the air war in Europe .
It was the same for fighters and Germany could also not afford to lose the number of fighters that would be lost if committed in air battles above 30000 feet .
The big problem is that the LW history has been written ,on German side, by the fighter lobby (Galland, etc ) and that the successes of he Flak were hushed .
From Westermann P 287
Ninth and Twelfth Air Forces lost 2415 aircraft by the Flak
In Eight Air Force 54,539 aircraft were damaged by Flak between December 1942 and April 1945 .
I don't think that SAMs would have done as ''good'' or better .
And, on P 301
''The events of 1939-1945 clearly demonstrated that the air war could not be won with ground-based defenses ,but the events make it equally apparent that without these defenses, German cities and factories quickly would have been bombed into ruins , and general Arnold observed after the war :We never conquered the German flak artillery .
My conclusions :
Till the summer of 1942 SAM missiles were not needed and would be a wast of resources.
After the summer of 1942 SAM missiles could not be produced in sufficient quantities and,if they could, they would not change the outcome of the air war and they could only be produced at the cost of the classic flak and the situation would be worse .

Had Germany seriously started SAM development in 1941 -42, and been able to field a viable guidance set for it--the missile wasn't the issue, guidance was--by say late 1943 or early 1944, they could have put a serious hurt on the Allied bomber campaign.
Let's say the missile used has a Pk of .2 to .3. That is,1 in 5 to 1 in 3 missiles takes a bomber down. This means a single SAM battery with a range of say 15 miles and a high subsonic to low supersonic missile in use being singly fired will shoot down 1 or 2 planes, possibly as many as 4, during an engagement. That is far, far, better than any single heavy gun flak battery could produce for results. One for one, SAM batteries crush guns for cost effectiveness.
In those terms, you have 6 launchers (way cheaper to make than a heavy gun) and a fire control system (about equal in cost either way) versus 6 guns and a fire control system. The guns have to fire 300 to 600 rounds, possibly more, to bring a plane down. At a Pk of .3 with a SAM system you need on average just 3 missiles to take a plane down. The missiles are more expensive than a single shell, but far less expensive than 300 to 600 rounds and easier to manufacture.
The flak gun battery also needs something like 100 men to operate it whereas a SAM battery would use about 50 to 75 men, so you save on manpower too.

WW 2 piston engine bombers going at 200 to 250 mph at 20,000 to 30,000 feet in a mass formation are sitting ducks to such a system. They're too slow to get through the firing area of a battery, maneuvering won't help them, and electronic warfare is somewhat problematic when you have large numbers of aircraft as targets.

These would not replace guns, but rather supplement them at first. The problem for the Germans was one of lack of a focused development in this area. Instead, they let various, mostly, aircraft manufacturers build the missiles without a lot of concern for the guidance system which was being developed separately. They really needed a concerted effort where the two key elements were working hand in glove to build a system.
If anything, what kept them from putting a SAM in place wasn't lack of a viable missile, but rather lack of a viable guidance system that their available electronics industry couldn't produce in a timely fashion.

[ljadw]

That a SAM could destroy more enemy bombers than a heavy flak battery does not prove that the SAM was better, as the task of a heavy flak battery was not to destroy enemy bombers.
For the rest : I am not convinced : before 1942 there was no need for the Germans to develop,produce and use SAM s ,and I am convinced that before 1942 they were better off without SAMs.
They could not have at the same time and enough SAMs and enough flak batteries .
After 1942 , they had not the time left to develop and produce SAMs and, I am convinced that even after 1942 they were better off without SAMs .
As Michael Neufeld ( curator of the National Air and Space Museum ) said :the German wonder weapons did not come too late ,but too early .
He said also the following :
'' The net result of all these weapons, deployed or otherwise,was that the Reich wasted a lot of money and technical expertise ( and killed a lot of forced and slave laborers )in developing and producing exotic devices that yielded little or no technical and strategic advantage .''
People ( especially in the US ) were and are still giving too much importance to quality and not enough to quantity .
Germany had a lot of wonder weapons programs, which had no positive results .
Examples
The F 55 program was never operationally employed.
The H117 trial started in May 1944,there were 59 launchings,34 of them were failures .
The V1 and V2 were not worth the investments of money,technology and raw materials .
Some people claim that the wonder weapons could have better protected the factories of synthetic oil , but even if this was true, it would not help Germany ,as synthetic oil in a factory in Lower Saxony did not help the front : it had to be transported to the front and the SAMs could not protect the trains that transported oil and more oil did not result in more pilots,crew,technicians .
About the lack of a viable guidance system:even if there was one,it had to be produced and people had to be trained and all this took time and time was Germany's worst enemy .

[T. A. Gardner]

That a SAM could destroy more enemy bombers than a heavy flak battery does not prove that the SAM was better, as the task of a heavy flak battery was not to destroy enemy bombers.
For the rest : I am not convinced : before 1942 there was no need for the Germans to develop,produce and use SAM s ,and I am convinced that before 1942 they were better off without SAMs.
They could not have at the same time and enough SAMs and enough flak batteries .
After 1942 , they had not the time left to develop and produce SAMs and, I am convinced that even after 1942 they were better off without SAMs .
As Michael Neufeld ( curator of the National Air and Space Museum ) said :the German wonder weapons did not come too late ,but too early .
He said also the following :
'' The net result of all these weapons, deployed or otherwise,was that the Reich wasted a lot of money and technical expertise ( and killed a lot of forced and slave laborers )in developing and producing exotic devices that yielded little or no technical and strategic advantage .''
People ( especially in the US ) were and are still giving too much importance to quality and not enough to quantity .
Germany had a lot of wonder weapons programs, which had no positive results .

In this case, development of a SAM instead of the V-2 would have made a lot of sense. Instead of a nearly worthless ballistic missile, a SAM that could take down bombers--and it would complement flak guns while not interfering with their numbers particularly--would have been a net positive as a program. SAMs would have increased the danger zones for bombers immensely. No flak gun in existence could engage a bomber at say, 10 miles and 30,000 feet, but a SAM could. Even the existence of relatively small numbers of operational SAM's would have greatly complicated the problems faced by Allied bombers. This is particularly true of the RAF coming at night where they were flying lower than US bombers by day. A SAM that could accurately target a bomber at those ranges would have made things very dangerous and expensive for the RAF.

Examples
The F 55 program was never operationally employed.

As I pointed out earlier, the Feuerlile program was a ruse, a lie, concocted by researchers at the LFA to continue research into guided missiles in general, supersonic flight, and sounding rockets. The F55 was only given a fig leaf of being a SAM because otherwise the LFA's scientists and engineers would have gotten no funding.

The H117 trial started in May 1944,there were 59 launchings,34 of them were failures .

The Hs 117 Schmetterling had issues with the design of the boosters (frequent asymmetric thrust) that caused most of the failures. Otherwise, it was really too short ranged to be truly useful. As a SAM used against lower flying medium bombers, it might have had some applicability. The big holdback, as I've already noted, was a crappy guidance system.

[ljadw]

There is no proof ( and I doubt that it would be possible ) that the LW could use simultaneously AND the existing flak guns AND the SAMs .
About your claim that no flak gun could engage a bomber at a height of 30000 feet (=10000 m ) :the 12,8 cm flak gun 40 could fire till a height of 14,8 km, the 15,5 cm 50/55 til 15, 2 km. ( the 15,5 cm gun remained a prototype )
Besides : the tak of the flak guns was not to destroy enemy bombers , but to force them to fly higher where they would be less accurate .
What would be better for Germany ?
a to destroy 5 enemy bombers at a height of 3000 m
b to damage 10 enemy bombers at a height of 6000 m
c to force 20 enemy bombers to go to a height of 12000 m where they would be imprecise
The Germans produced in the first quarter of 1944 10,500 flak guns, in the second quarter 14000, in the third 20000, in the last one 18000 .
How many SAMs could they produce at the same time ?
And, the more SAMs were produced, the less flak guns could be produced and if only a few SAMs were produced, this would not help the German anti air defense .
In 1944 some 18 % of the German ammunition production was flak ammunition .If a big number of SAMs were produced, the conventional flak would get much less ammunition .
At the fall of 1944 the LW had consumed more than 3,5 million rounds of heavy flak ammunition and more than 12,5 million rounds of light flak ammunition PER MONTH .
The few SAMs could never replace the successes of the conventional flak , their use would result in much lesser victories of the conventional flak .
Germany needed a very ,very big number of flak guns ,let's call their number 10 X, if 1 X of SAMs were used, the result would be a decrease of the number of flak guns from 10 X to 5 X ,and the general situation of the armament industry would be very bad .
In the summer of 1944 almost all German trains and a lot of Belgian trains were attacked by the USAAF/RAF ,the same for the railway stations . The use of SAMs would have as result that the railway stations and trains could no longer be protected .

[T. A. Gardner]

There is no proof ( and I doubt that it would be possible ) that the LW could use simultaneously AND the existing flak guns AND the SAMs .

Plenty of other nations since WW 2 have used both.

About your claim that no flak gun could engage a bomber at a height of 30000 feet (=10000 m ) :the 12,8 cm flak gun 40 could fire till a height of 14,8 km, the 15,5 cm 50/55 til 15, 2 km. ( the 15,5 cm gun remained a prototype )

At 10 NM--10 miles, 20,000 yards. No flak gun can do that. Increase that range to 15 NM and it becomes an absurdity to even speculate what sort of gun might be needed to loft a shell to 30,000 feet at that range.

Besides : the tak of the flak guns was not to destroy enemy bombers , but to force them to fly higher where they would be less accurate .
What would be better for Germany ?
a to destroy 5 enemy bombers at a height of 3000 m
b to damage 10 enemy bombers at a height of 6000 m
c to force 20 enemy bombers to go to a height of 12000 m where they would be imprecise

Given most larger German cities looked like this in 1945...



I'd say the Germans were on a fool's errand pretending that upsetting bomber accuracy was more important than shooting them down.

During the Battle of Britain, the RAF and British AA fire managed to produce sufficient loses on the Luftwaffe that they were running out of aircraft and crews and would be reduced to impotence in the long run if they continued their bombing campaign. Seems to me if you can inflict enough losses and end or diminish greatly the number of bombing raids as a result, that's way better than the bombers getting through every time but having to expend say triple the bombs to finish a target...

The Germans produced in the first quarter of 1944 10,500 flak guns, in the second quarter 14000, in the third 20000, in the last one 18000 .
How many SAMs could they produce at the same time ?

Potentially, thousands. Two different industries were involved in that. Gun production had nothing to do with SAM production. Enzian and Rheintocter, to mention two German SAMs, were mostly made of wood with some aluminum parts and a little bit of steel. Neither required being assembled by a company manufacturing guns.

And, the more SAMs were produced, the less flak guns could be produced and if only a few SAMs were produced, this would not help the German anti air defense .

This is your baseless assumption.

In 1944 some 18 % of the German ammunition production was flak ammunition .If a big number of SAMs were produced, the conventional flak would get much less ammunition .

If 1000 SAMs a month were produced, they would consume--depending on which one(s)--something on the order of 1500 to 2000 rounds equivalent in explosives and propellant. Given that a single raid on a larger city could result in flak guns firing 10 to 30,000 rounds, the loss of a couple thousand rounds of flak ammunition for something like the loss of an additional say, going with a very low Pk, 100 enemy bombers when that 10,000 to 30,000 rounds might shoot down 5, seems like a huge win to me.

At the fall of 1944 the LW had consumed more than 3,5 million rounds of heavy flak ammunition and more than 12,5 million rounds of light flak ammunition PER MONTH .

Exactly! That's my point! For the loss of a few thousand rounds a month, SAMs in addition to flak would have increased Allied bomber losses by something on the order of ten times what they were historically, and that's even with 9 out 10 missiles not taking down a target!

The few SAMs could never replace the successes of the conventional flak , their use would result in much lesser victories of the conventional flak .

You have it backwards. Flak cannot replicate the success of SAMs and their continued use would result in far fewer victories against attacking bombers. The proof of that is NOBODY today uses heavy flak guns to try and stop air raids, EVERYBODY uses SAM's.

Germany needed a very ,very big number of flak guns ,let's call their number 10 X, if 1 X of SAMs were used, the result would be a decrease of the number of flak guns from 10 X to 5 X ,and the general situation of the armament industry would be very bad .

Because of the greater range and engagement time of SAMs, one battery of SAMs can replace several batteries of guns and produce more losses in the process. Producing 1000 SAMs a month, and say 60 launchers (10 batteries) with 10 fire control sets to use those missiles (~ 15 missiles per launcher) and causing 100 losses to Allied bombers in that month is staggeringly better than can be produced by 60 heavy flak guns firing 150 rounds, 300 rounds, 600 rounds, 1000 rounds each a month.

In the summer of 1944 almost all German trains and a lot of Belgian trains were attacked by the USAAF/RAF ,the same for the railway stations . The use of SAMs would have as result that the railway stations and trains could no longer be protected .

A fallacy fallacy. Let's say the train station is protected by 2 SAM batteries (8 launchers) using shorter range models like Hs 117 and these have a 10% kill probability per missile. That means they shoot down 1 attacking plane and cause others to try and dodge the incoming missiles that the pilots can see coming. The missiles, even when they miss cause the attacking pilots to dodge and still would produce a burst / explosion.

If medium bombers at altitudes above small flak guns came instead (say, 10,000 feet +) the SAMs would still be a viable defense while the light flak guns sat and watched the fireworks helplessly.

Put that up against 8 2cm or 3.7cm AA guns. The SAMs win again. That's why small AA guns aren't very prevalent today either. They aren't as viable a weapon system as a small guided missile is.

[ljadw]

There is no proof ( and I doubt that it would be possible ) that the LW could use simultaneously AND the existing flak guns AND the SAMs .

Plenty of other nations since WW2 have used both


I'd say the Germans were on a fool's errand pretending that upsetting bomber accuracy was more important than shooting them down.

The Germans produced in the first quarter of 1944 10,500 flak guns, in the second quarter 14000, in the third 20000, in the last one 18000 .
How many SAMs could they produce at the same time ?

Potentially, thousands. Two different industries were involved in that. Gun production had nothing to do with SAM production. Enzian and Rheintocter, to mention two German SAMs, were mostly made of wood with some aluminum parts and a little bit of steel. Neither required being assembled by a company manufacturing guns.

And, the more SAMs were produced, the less flak guns could be produced and if only a few SAMs were produced, this would not help the German anti air defense .

If 1000 SAMs a month were produced, they would consume--depending on which one(s)--something on the order of 1500 to 2000 rounds equivalent in explosives and propellant. Given that a single raid on a larger city could result in flak guns firing 10 to 30,000 rounds, the loss of a couple thousand rounds of flak ammunition for something like the loss of an additional say, going with a very low Pk, 100 enemy bombers when that 10,000 to 30,000 rounds might shoot down 5, seems like a huge win to me.

At the fall of 1944 the LW had consumed more than 3,5 million rounds of heavy flak ammunition and more than 12,5 million rounds of light flak ammunition PER MONTH .

You have it backwards. Flak cannot replicate the success of SAMs and their continued use would result in far fewer victories against attacking bombers. The proof of that is NOBODY today uses heavy flak guns to try and stop air raids, EVERYBODY uses SAM's.

In the summer of 1944 almost all German trains and a lot of Belgian trains were attacked by the USAAF/RAF ,the same for the railway stations . The use of SAMs would have as result that the railway stations and trains could no longer be protected .

A fallacy fallacy. Let's say the train station is protected by 2 SAM batteries (8 launchers) using shorter range models like Hs 117 and these have a 10% kill probability per missile. That means they shoot down 1 attacking plane and cause others to try and dodge the incoming missiles that the pilots can see coming. The missiles, even when they miss cause the attacking pilots to dodge and still would produce a burst / explosion.

If medium bombers at altitudes above small flak guns came instead (say, 10,000 feet +) the SAMs would still be a viable defense while the light flak guns sat and watched the fireworks helplessly.

Put that up against 8 2cm or 3.7cm AA guns. The SAMs win again. That's why small AA guns aren't very prevalent today either. They aren't as viable a weapon system as a small guided missile is.

1 What happened AFTER WW2 is irrelevant : we discuss the possibility for the Germans to produce and use sufficient SAMs to change the outcome of the air war .
2 To produce 5000 Wasserfall SAMs per month (only 5000 ) 14000 workers would be needed and more than 1 million hours to teach them how to produce these missiles . And 5000 would be totally insufficient : it would mean that only 170 missiles could be fired every day .And given that these missiles had to defend AND the German cities AND the plants of the synthetic oil industry AND the other armament plants (tanks, artillery, ...) AND the air fields of the LW AND the railway stations AND the trains (every day there were thousands of trains driving through Germany ) it is obvious that the use of the SAMs would change nothing, unless Germany could produce every day not 5000 SAMs, but 500000 ,what it could not do .
3 The fact that TODAY (80 years after the air attacks ) no one is still using flak guns against aircraft,does not mean that the use of SAMs would 80 years ago be successful .
4 You know how many train stations had to be defended against allied air attacks ?
5 In January 1945 there were 56000 Allied flights above Germany :the LW committed 591 aircraft who shot 73 allied aircraft,127 were shot by the Flak,the LW lost 152 aircraft .
How big should be the allied losses to hurt them/to stop the air attacks ?
Let's take 10 % ,or 5600 aircraft .How many SAMs would be needed to do this .
6 Not only would the training of the workers take a lot of time, which the Germans did not have, but the men who would fire the SAMs would also need a lot of time .
7 Conclusion :
the production/ use of SAMs would need a lot of time which Germany did not have
this production/ use would demand additional raw materials and man power which Germany could not afford
there is no proof that this use would make the situation better for the Germans .
as Michael Neufield said :the wonder weapons did not come too late, but too early .
It would take Germany an additional 20 years to be able to do what US and the USSR could do and did in less than 10 years .
The only wonder weapon was the A Bomb. And only the US had the possibility to produce it, and to use it .