Early MILE Operations STONES using Smart Bombs Dr Carlo Kopp hen Saddam’s Iraq lost the (Sprengbombe Cylindrisch) thin-walled bomb ‘Mother of all Battles’ in casing fitted with an impact fuse. This warhead 1991, under a deluge of was later shown to be a major limitation, with best coalition smart bombs, the effect against small surface warships and world got its first mass media transports. introduction to the potency of In operational use, the launch aircraft would send this combat technology, steering commands via a FuG-203 Kehl III radio Dornier Do-217K-3 armed with Hs-293A presentingW the public at large with images of what transmitter, received by the FuG-230b Strassburg glidebomb. was thought to be a development of great novelty. receiver in the bomb, generating steering Alas, six decades of history show that smart bombs commands for the control actuators. The HS-293 - precision guided munitions - played a significant had the first air launched Command to Line Of Sight role in military campaigns as far back as 1943. (CLOS) guidance system ever used. A red coloured The origins of guided bomb technology fall into the flare on the tail of the weapon was used to cue the immediate pre-World War II period and the early operator when steering the weapon. Performance years of the war when US and German researchers claims include a glide range of 11 km for a 3,300 ft independently pursued their own PGM research. AGL release, and speeds between 235 and 486 This was the era of vacuum tube electronics, and KTAS. these farsighted researchers appreciated the The Hs-293 was deployed operationally with potential in a guided weapon, which uses KampfGeschwader 100 (KG 100) in the electronics to steer it to impact. Mediterranean and KampfGeschwader 40 (KG 40) Many experimental or prototype designs were built in France for anti-shipping strike operations. both in the US and Germany but of these only a The Luftwaffe’s interest in guided bomb technology handful of designs were deployed operationally, stemmed from the strategic pressures it was Heinkel He-111H performing a trial drop often with remarkable combat effect. facing, attempting to cripple Britain by maritime of the Hs-293A. These new arrivals were the Luftwaffe’s Henschel blockade. While the U-boot fleet occupied the Hs-293 rocket propelled glidebomb, the Ruhrstahl limelight in the propaganda war, the Luftwaffe PC 1400X armour piercing guided bomb, and the played an increasingly important role in providing US Army Air Corps’ VB-1 Azon radio controlled not only wide area maritime surveillance, but also bomb. armed maritime reconnaissance patrols and air strikes against detected shipping. Two Luftwaffe units gained prominence in the Henschel’s Hs-293 maritime air war. The foremost of these was KampfGeschwader 40, home based at Bordeaux- Glidebomb Merignac in France, eventually growing to five Henschel’s Hs-293 family of glidebombs were the Gruppe formations. The first, I. Gruppe, was TV guided Hs-293D. first guided bombs to be used in combat, and the equipped with four-engine FW-200C Condor first to enter advanced development. maritime patrol aircraft, supplemented by twin- Henschel’s development team started development engine He-111H bombers and later replaced with in 1939 using a glidebomb concept devised in four engine He-177 Greif bombers; the second II. 1937 by Gustav Schwarz Propellerwerke. This Gruppe, initially equipped with twin-engine He- concept evolved through the Hs-293V-1 and Hs- 111H and Do-217K bombers, later replaced by He- 293V-2/FZ21 to the Hs-293V-3, tested in mid- 177; and the third III. Gruppe, equipped similarly to 1940. The unpowered Hs-293V-3 lacked the I.Gruppe, IV. Gruppe equipped with FW-200C, He- terminal velocity to punch through the skin of a 111H and Do-217K bombers, later replaced by He- warship, which was the intended target type for 177; and finally V. Gruppe equipped with Junkers these weapons, and this led to the decision to add Ju-88C ‘Zerstorers’ - a night intruder unit. Most of a rocket booster to increase speed and range. The KG 40’s operations were flown over the Atlantic. Hs-293A-0 was the preproduction configuration KG 40’s sibling unit, KG 100, started as bomber using a Walter HWK-109-507B hydrogen peroxide formation, with heavy involvement on the Eastern rocket booster pack. front. Its four Gruppe formations, equipped with a world focus The basic warhead for this weapon was the mix of He-111H and Do-217K bombers, deployed Luftwaffe’s standard 500 kg SC-500 to the Mediterranean early in 1943 in an attempt to DefenceToday 44 cripple increasingly effective Allied naval attempt to stall the Allied advance from the operations in that theatre. KG 100 was later re- bridgehead. equipped with the He-177. Other claimed casualties for the Hs-293 include the The statistics of this effort are sobering. KG 40 Royal Navy frigate HMS Jervis, damaged in Condors sank 90,000 tonnes of shipping between January, 1944; the destroyer HMS Intrepid sunk in August and September of 1940, and a month later the Aegean, September, 1943; the destroyer HMS crippled the 44,000 tonne transport Empress of Inglefield sunk in February, 1944; the destroyer Britain. They are credited with 363,000 tons of HMS Boadicea sunk in June, 1944; and the Greek shipping destroyed by January 1941. Luftwaffe destroyer RHS Vasillisa Olga, sunk in September, totals between March and May 1941 sit at 179 1943. The weapon is credited with a total of ships sunk for a total tonnage of 545,000. It is little 400,000 tonnes of sunk shipping, including the PC-1400-Cutaway known that the Luftwaffe mostly outperformed the Liberty ship Elihu Hale sunk and LCT-35. UK U-boats in interdicting Murmansk convoys, sources claim that 2,300 Hs-293s were launched accounting for up 37 per cent of losses. One oft in combat operations. cited example is an attack in February 1941 when The novelty and complexity of the Hs-293 were five KG 40 Condors sank five ships in a sixteen reflected in frequent hardware failures and vessel convoy, in minutes. manufacturing faults, resulting in what German As the Allies suffered increasing losses, sources claim was a dud rate of 28 per cent per increasingly desperate measures were adopted, launch for KG 40 and 25 per cent for KG 100, including ‘expendable’ catapult launched Hurricane against a successful hit rate of 31 per cent for KG fighters. Anti-aircraft artillery defences were 40 and 55 per cent for KG 100. The Fw-200 Condor, introduced on merchant ships and escorts. He-177 Greif, He-111H and Do-217K carried the The Luftwaffe saw its new rocket propelled Hs-293 Hs-293. as a weapon that allowed attacks on shipping from The Hs-293A series was compromised when Allied well outside the defensive envelope of shipboard forces captured, intact, crated Fritz-X and Hs-293 artillery defences, with the precision to ensure a hit hardware at Foggia airfield, and were able to devise on a moving and manoeuvring surface target. a radio command link jammer, rapidly built and The first known combat use of the Hs-293 was on deployed to fleet units. August 25, 1943 when KG 40 Do-217 bombers The late model Hs-293D was an important attacked a Royal Navy U-boat patrol in the Bay of milestone since it introduced a nose mounted Biscay. This attack damaged the HMS Landguard television camera and radio uplink to the launch and HMS Bideford. Two days later a strike by 18 KG aircraft, the aim being for the bomber to attack 40 Do-217s sank the corvette HMS Egret, killing through overcast weather conditions. German 194 sailors, making this the first known sinking of sources claim 255 were built, and at least one Trial drop of an SD-1400X Fritz-X glidebomb. a ship by a guided bomb. The HMCS Athabaskan source claims a Royal Navy warship was hit by a was damaged in this attack. Hs-293D. The Hs-293 proved to be a very useful In 1944, after the D-Day landings, Do-217 aircraft weapon, and it is unfortunate that its major used the Hs-293 to attack bridges at River See and operational contribution to World War II is so River Selume on the Cherbourg Peninsula in an frequently overlooked. put it out of action until the Normandy landings. Ruhrstahl’s SD-1400X The 42,000-ton Italian Vittorio Veneto class `Fritz-X’ Heavyweight battleship Roma commissioned in 1940 was much less fortunate than the Warspite and Savannah, and Development of the SD-1400X started in 1939, led represents the highest value kill achieved by KG 100 by Dr. Max Kramer of the DVL (German Aviation using the Fritz-X. The Roma sank on the 9 September Research Institute / Deutsche Versuchsansalt fuer 1943 after fires caused by two Fritz-X hits ignited her Luftfahrt). While the PC 1400X shared the FuG-203 magazines, killing over 1600 sailors, including the Kehl III / FuG-230b Strassburg guidance package Regia Marina Commander in Chief Admiral Carlo with the Hs-293, it was an entirely different weapon, Bergamini. based on the PC 1400 `Fritz’, a 3,000 lb class armour The Roma has the dubious distinction of being the and concrete piercing bomb, which carried 320 kg of first capital ship to be sunk by a guided bomb. Other Amatol explosive. casualties included the Brooklyn class light cruiser The new SD-1400X used a cruciform wing, angled at USS Philadelphia, which lost several crew to a Fritz- 28 degrees, and a segmented annular tail, with X attack.