Destroyer500 wrote: ↑01 Jul 2022, 15:07
Capture.PNGRecently i found this book.In it is discussed how the US tried to make nuke AA missiles to kill bomber formations.Unfortunately i dont have the full version but theres a shorter version with only the most important parts of the book on google and the author gave a 1 hour long interview on youtube so its easy to find info about the matter(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xDBp0sJJOw&t=492s ).I didnt even know this was a thing and i was really amazed when i also found that they were to include ramjet engines to the missiles and this is in the early 50s.The program was canceled in the 60-70ss because the nukes were delivered through missiles and ICBMs more than big high flying bombers but i still find a big boom to kill an ICBM a better option than trying to nit pick every single of the multiple warheads and decoys.I also dont think that any kind of maneuver can save the missiles from the blast of the nuke AA.Its like killing fire with fire but its actually killing nukes with nukes.Capture.PNG
There was also that thing called YAL-1 Capture.PNG that i have already talked about in the past that served the purpose of killing nukes or large missiles.It was deemed ineffective due to the small range it had,but what if something a lot bigger was on the ground that doesnt have the "we cant have big enough batteries" problem ? Why are people completely disregarding lasers and EDW anyway ? Of course this doesnt have anything to do with the initial German Mega Defense but a Germany (or any country playing their cards this way) surviving to the cold war era years and being doctrinally and militarily as defensive as i mention,while having Germanys mindset of "Were gonna experiment with tech",would happily incorporate them.
During this period, the US recognized and tried to evolve an air defense system that could stop an intercontinental bomber fleet from attacking the US. ICBM's weren't available yet, so bombers were the recognized threat.
As for SAM missiles, the US had several programs going and there was a fight between the US Army and nascent USAF over who would control them. This was settled with the Army getting responsibility for tactical and SAM's of less than 200 miles range. The result of that decision led to each service's development of their SAM systems.
The system the US Army adopted was Nike. The first version, Ajax, had a range of about 35 miles and a launch site could control a single missile at a time. This would be improved in the 60's with the Hercules variant that included a nuclear option. HAWK became the tactical SAM near the end of the 50's.
The USAF dropped their competing GAPA missile in favor of developing a very-long-range SAM, BOMARC. This missile is interesting because it's really almost a pilotless aircraft. It had a range of about 300 miles give or take. Yes, it ran on ramjets, and each launch site could control 1 or 2 in flight. The intercept system was to launch the missile and guide it to the target using remote radars and the USAF SAGE fighter control system that already existed. When the missile got in the vicinity of the target, it would begin to actively search for it using an on-board radar. It too had a nuclear option for a warhead.
The DEW line and other North American early-warning systems really didn't exist during the early to mid-50's. These came into existence starting in the late 50's and really didn't get coherently organized until well into the 60's.
If the Germans were going to have an effective SAM system against mass bomber raids, I'd think their system would look more like the S-25 Berkut system that Russia developed. Berkut was a conventional warhead SAM designed into a system that allowed mass firings. Each launch station could control 6 to 8 missiles in flight and had launch stands for up to 60 missiles associated with it.
Sites would be set up in concentric rings around the target to be defended, and the various sites could (theoretically) engage a mass bomber raid shooting down dozens of aircraft as they approached and passed through the defenses. The sites were hardened against air attack with the individual missiles on their launch pads making poor targets.
The problem with Berkut was it was grotesquely expensive. The one system installed around Moscow cost somewhere around $13 billion USD in 1955-ish (about $1.5 trillion today). Most of that cost went into a massive fire control computer system. Each firing battery (regiment) had 6 or 8 duplicate computer systems placed in a massive two-story bunker along with additional electronics for the radars, communications, etc. It wasn't as massive a system per site as the USAF SAGE (a huge four-story building full of similar electronics) but there were far more systems needed.
http://www.fortwiki.com/images/thumb/d/ ... khouse.jpg
That's a SAGE installation (think Berlin flak tower)
http://ds-wordpress.haverford.edu/bitby ... Copy-2.jpg
Interior shot
The amount of maintenance on those systems was incredible given they ran almost totally on vacuum tubes...