The Allies AAA Guns of the Great War

The concept of an Anti Aircraft Artillery guns was not even in the imagination of field commanders in the early part of the Twenty Century. Aviation was a new field of battle then. A much misunderstood one also. But, as with any new human-developed field, there were countermeasure being develop almost at the same time that the first few planes took to the air. As in the case with many war-related innovations, Germany took the lead in this new area. Between 1908 and 09, Germany demonstrate it that an effective AAA system could be achieved with the available weapon systems. The first rudimentary “Balloon Guns”, as they were then referred to; were developed by either the vaunted Krupp Corporation or the Rheinmetall Group. These pieces were basically a field gun modified to fire at a higher angle mounted on a truck. At the same time, Germany began to encircle its biggest cities with field artillery pieces turned through 360 degrees. These pieces were placed on static angles mounts which enabled them to fire at a higher angle. At the time of the eruption of the Great War, there were so few airplanes available to either side that the development of AAA systems were relegated to the bottom of every nation’s military budget. On those days, weapons budgetary assignments usually went to the Army and Navy. In the case of an Army for example, those funds were use to develop advance armored vehicles, more powerful field and machine guns as well as heavy mortars mainly designed for siege operations.

In August 1914, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had only a handful of rudimentary AAA guns on towed mounts. The French were even less prepare with only two modified De Dion Bouton cars fitted with a high angled field gun. The main British AAA gun of the war was the 13th Pounder. The system was a combination of a 13th pounder light field gun mounted on Thornycroft J-type automobile which was one of the most strange-looking vehicles of the entire war. The J-types were fitted with stabilizers and screw jacks in order to prevent the guns’ recoil from overturning the vehicle. Usually, the British will deploy two of those systems accompanied by two other vehicles for the crew, range finding equipment and ammunition. The first of those 13th Pounders began to appear on the Western Front in the summer of 1915. Meanwhile, the French began to use their famous 75 mm field gun in the anti aircraft role, mostly because the gun’s high firing rate. The 75 mm AAA concept was a very simple one. One of such guns was mounted on top of a De Dion automobile fitted with several stabilizers for recoil absorption.

The French 75 mm gun was extensively use on all fronts by the Allies. In fact, when the first daylight bombings of London commenced in the summer of 1915, the British acquired some of these weapons in an effort to bolster their capital city’s air defenses.

The main problem facing AAA operators was the targeting of, although slow moving, a three dimensional object. At the beginning, the gun was fired directly at the aircraft but by the time the shell arrived at the right altitude, the target would had move on. Gunners began to mitigate this problem by mounting complex sights on all of their weapons. Unfortunately for the gunners, this only duplicated the batteries’s efforts. It was then found simple enough to fit one, centralized sight positioned in the middle of a battery of guns. Once the crew had managed the data related to the height, range and speed of an incoming object; this was passed on to individual targeting gunners who will calibrate its guns towards the target.

It is almost impossible to achieve a reliable figure of the number of downed aircraft by those rudimentary AAA system, but is fair to say the number was a very low one. However, conclusive evidence has shown that AAA-generated fire did altered German reconnaissance patters in the later stages of the war.

- Raul Colon

More information:
Air Power: The Men, Machines and Ideas that Revolutionized War; Stephen Budiansky, Penguin Group 2004
Dirty Little Secrets of World War II; James F. Dunnigan & Albert A. Nofi, HarperCollins 1996
Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France; Ernest R. May, Hill And Wang 2001
The Bomber War: The Allied Air Offensive against Nazi Germany, Robin Neillands, Overlook Press 2001
The Second World War; Edited Sir John Hammerton, Trident Press 2001

Why France Fell to the Nazis: The Air Component Before the War

After a visit to France in early January 1940, Sir Edmund Ironside, Chief of the British Imperial General Staff, summed up his impressions of the French Army like this: “I must say that I saw nothing amiss with it on the surface. The Generals are all tired men, if a bit old from our view-point. None of them showed any lack of confidence…Will the Blitzkrieg, when it comes, allow us to rectify things if they are the same? I must say I don’t know. But I say to myself that we must have confidence in the French Army. It’s the only thing in which we can have confidence…All depends on the French Army and we can do nothing about it”. Those were telling words from the top British commander before the start of the Second World War. Unfortunately for the Allies, his fears proved to be right. When Germany finally attacked the West on May 13th 1940 they did it with such a force that caught the Allies by surprise. Fifteen days after the initial attack wave, Belgium capitulated and the combine might of the French Army and British force were defeated time and time again. Between May 26th and June 4th, the bulk of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and some remaining elements of the French Army were successful evacuated from the French Channel port city of Dunkirk. On June 10th, the French government relocated its seat of power from Paris. Four days later, the Germans marched victorious into the Parisian streets. On June 22nd, the new French government caved in and signed an humiliated Armistice ending one of the most lopsided military campaigns in modern times. The immediate aftermath of the defeat saw the emerging of the “search for scapegoats” syndrome. A syndrome that is still with us today. The questions regarding the fall of France had resonated since the tragic events of May-June 1940. There are many questions as to why France was mauled so effortlessly by a numerical inferior adversary. Did the French rearmament investment came too late? Was the Army’s combat doctrine too rigid? Did the French and, to an extend, the BEF; lacked innovating and refreshing combat ideas?, and so on. In the end, the fall of France is viewed as an example of a what disastrous planning and even more poorly execution could lead.

Since the mid 1930s, France main effort to gear up for a possible German attack was rearmament. Since the mid 1920s, because of the country’s misplaced believe that its newly develop Maginot Line (a series of reinforced structures-forts- along the common German/French border) would contain the expected German columns, not much effort was put on rearming the French armed forces. All that changed with the emerging of Hitler’s Germany in the early 1930s and by the middle of the decade, French rearmament was finally given top budgetary priority. But the sad state of all three services (army, navy and the air force) made progression towards rearmament painstaking slow at best. The worse problem was experienced by the air force. The French air force began rearmament in 1934 as part of Plan I, which called for the production of 1,343 new aircrafts. Nevertheless, the assemble of such force was doomed from the beginning. In the mid 1930s, the French aircraft industry was more of an scattered complexes than a cohesion structure. One in which up to forty organizations had input in nearly all aspects of aircraft design, development and production. While at the same time competing for those precious newly designated funds. As they originally were setup, France’s aircraft industry was not structured to handle such big orders, thus the structure needed to be alter which would cause further delays in production. Those delays had an adverse effect on the air force’s rearmament effort. Because of them, most of France’s developed aircraft from the late 1930s came through a narrow technological window. One which prevented the newly developed aircraft from achieving its top technological capability thus making them almost obsolete before they even achieved operational status. The problem was compounded by the type of airplanes the French government began to order. Plan I called for the construction of multirole air platforms capable of performing as bombers, fighters and reconnaissance aircrafts. So, instead of building dedicated platforms, the French government invested on various single type planes. Such aircrafts were indeed able to carry out, rather on an pedestrian bases, each of the various type of missions they were called for, but they could not to distinguish themselves on any. The decision to develop such platforms was a painful compromise between the Army, the newly formed Air Force and the government. Many inside the air force believed, with passion, in Giulio Douhet’s strategic theory which called for the destruction of the enemy’s economic strength by destroying its infrastructure. While on the other hand, the Army’s top brass desired that the new air force serve as a supporting package rather than an independent unit.

In September 1936, France develop a new strategic plan, Plan II. Plan II diverted from the predecessor in one major area. The new Plan called for the production of up to 1,339 dedicated bombers with a complement of 756 fighters of all types. This shifting in priority towards the bomber had its roots on new Air Minister Pierre Cot’s passion for Douhet’s strategic vision. Unfortunately for France, Plan II had the same opportunity to success as its predecessor. None. Chaos rained on nearly all French aircraft productions factories. Trying to handle such big orders The problem was accentuated by the Popular Front’s nationalization effort of the mid to late 1930s. As a result of those two factors, France’s aircraft production actually felt those years. Between the spring of 1937 and the first three months of 1938, French factories were producing an average of forty units per month. Five less than in 1936, the year the Germans overtook France in sheer number of available airframes. The fact that Germany overtook France as Europe’s top air force should had not surprise anyone. On a conference visit to London later that year, Joseph Vuillemin, France’s Chief of Air Staff, plainly put the situation of the French air force as this: “In a war, our air force would be destroyed in a matter of a few days”. That bluntly statement shocked all British commanders. They were well aware of the German advances in quantity but they held the believe that once fighting erupted, the French could hold their own with Germany in the air and that the aircrafts the Royal Air Force (RAF) had just began to deploy in northern France, would tip the balance towards the Allies. Unfortunately for British commanders, their French counterparts not only held the believe that Germany was superior in all air-related aspects, but in fact cement it early in 1938. Again, the culprit was Vuillemin. In the spring of 1938, he went to Germany to evaluate for himself the much talked about Luftwaffe. When he came back, the fate of France’s air force was sealed. Later that year, Vuillemin sent a private letter to Prime Minister Edouard Daladier stating once again that in the event of war, Germany will destroy the country’s air force in less than a week. This was the same letter Daladier carried with him to Munich.

The by product of Vuillemin’s obsession with a German air wipeout was Plan V. In March 1938, the French government decided to make the air force the main recipient of budgetary disbursements, forty two percent of the entire budget went to air rearmament. The new Plan called for doubling the country’s fighter capacity (41% of all funds were allocated to new fighter development) and somewhat relegated Plan II’s emphasize on bomber construction (34% for bombers). The shifting in position was attributed to two main elements. On one hand, the French decided to rely on the much advance and better prepare RAF’s Bomber Command to carry out its missions. Sort of outsourcing its tactical and strategic bomber capability to a second party. The other factor was the gradual change in the air force’s air doctrine. In France, Nazi Germany role in the Spanish Civil War was a topic of heated discussions, specially its air component. In Spain, elements of the Luftwaffe provided constant close air support to Franco’s ground troops, paving the way for Franco to assume control of the country. This fact was not lost on French commanders, many of whom began to move the air force from an strategic bomber force to a more robust air-ground combat arrangement. Close air support was now France main air doctrine. Although a change in doctrine was made, the air force was painfully slow to pair doctrine with hardware. A clear example of this “operational deficiency” was the fact that France never develop a top flight dive bomber aircraft, a platform that proved highly successful over the Spanish countryside.

The newly developed Plan V was twice scaled up between the painful Munich conference and the German invasion of the low countries. Nearly four billion francs were invested in the air force from January 1938 through the end of combat activities in June 1940. In charge of Plan V was a brilliant engineer named Albert Caquot. Beside having impeccable engineering credentials, Caquot had one other trait coveted by many, superb managerial skills. Skills France sorely needed at the time. Caquot immersed himself in the task at hand and by late 1938 he had the French aircraft industry cracking new airframes at a rate of 41 units per month, peaking at 298 planes per month in September 1939. What Caquot and his team did was nothing less than remarkable. Almost overnight, France had consolidated its scatter aircraft industry and developed an integrated skilled workforce. On August 23rd the French high command meet to discuss the state of the air rearmament. The ultra conservative General Maurice Gamelin, France’s top military commander, spoke eloquently about the country’s ability to match Germany step by step on all dimensions of combat. Guy La Chambre, the Air Minister, was more sober, but nevertheless, expressed high confidence in his unit. “There will be a shortness of bombers until the winter of 1940, but they could be supplemented by the RAF’s bomber force stationed in the north”. Chambre finished his presentation with one of the most memorable lines in French history: “the situation of our air force no longer needs to weight on the government’s decision as it did in 1938″. Vuillemin was more cautious, stating that France’s bomber situation has not improve much since the disgrace of Munich. But as caution as Vuillemin sounded that day, he did expressed optimism for the future. “There’s a good chance that within six months, the combine French and British air forces will match that of the Germans”. Not a ringing endorsement for war but more optimistic than some of his previous statements.

Table I. France’s Aircraft Industry Workforce

Everything seemed to be moving upwards. Plan V was to be revised two times before the declaration of war and the factories were turning up airframes at a record pace, but underneath the numbers laid a tragic picture. Mobilization had an adverse effect on rearmament, specially, the air component. Because a high percentage of the skill force was activated, the factories were deprived of their expertise as well as sheer manpower needed to keep up the rearmament pace. By the late 1939, aircraft production had actually fallen prompting Caquot’s resignation in January 1940. Also by that time, the aircraft industry was producing planes at such a high rate that spare parts manufactures just could not keep up with demands. The situation was so grave that after the disaster of Munich, Daladier send his trusted adviser Jean Monnet to the United States with a simple order to buy as many airframes as he could get “his hands on”. Monnet responded in a big way. By February 1939, the prominent French banker had placed orders for 550 aircrafts. Later that spring, Daladier made Monnet the head of the powerful Anglo-French Purchasing Committee. Vested with new powers and an even bigger cache of funds, Monnet arranged the acquisition of 4500 new airframes. Unfortunately for France, the delivery of all those newly purchased aircrafts was painfully slow. When the Germans finally attacked, only 200 of those units were actually deployed and ready for combat.

Table II. Aircraft Production Numbers From October 1939 through May 1940

French dreams of achieving parity with the Luftwaffe by February 1940 were beginning to fade by November 1939. Beside the numbers, French aircraft lacked quality in comparison to the Germans. One clear example of this was the world’s first “bomber gap”. French bombers were mostly obsolete with the newest of them just arriving at the front when war broke. On the fighter front the situation was almost the same. The best French fighter at the time, the Dewoitine D-520 was as good as any German airplane. But again, the best aircrafts, such as the D-520, were commencing to arrive in limited quantity when the hostilities started. Only eighty D-520s were deployed when Germany attacked on May 1940. More telling was the fact even adding up the 416 RAF’s aircraft deployed in France, the Germans possessed a two-to-one aircraft advantage over the Allies (1711 to 3530) at the time of the attack. Add all those factors together and is easy to see why France fell in such a dramatic way. Better combat planning and tactics could had prolonged the fight, but the French air force’s inadequacies in equipment and its poorly maintain industry base would had cracked under the stress of attrition.

- Raul Colon

More information:
Air Power: The Men, Machines and Ideas that Revolutionized War; Stephen Budiansky, Penguin Group 2004
Dirty Little Secrets of World War II; James F. Dunnigan & Albert A. Nofi, HarperCollins 1996
Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France; Ernest R. May, Hill And Wang 2001
The Bomber War: The Allied Air Offensive against Nazi Germany, Robin Neillands, Overlook Press 2001
The Second World War; Edited Sir John Hammerton, Trident Press 2001

RADAR: The German Side of the Story

Radio detection and ranging (radar) is viewed by most as one of the quintessential technological accomplishments of the Twentieth Century. Radio detection finding or RAD, as it was known in Great Britain, was perhaps the single biggest piece of technology, aside the atom bomb, that came out of the ashes of World War II. The employment of RAD made the defense of Britain more plausible to plan for. The Royal Air Force (RAF) enjoyed a major technological advantage during the Battle of Britain because most of the times they knew where was headed the bulk of the Luftwaffe force. It could be argue that without radar, the fierce battle that ranged over the skies above the British country side would had been lost. Radar also warned the Americans at Pearl Harbor of a massive airborne formation heading towards them. Unfortunately for the United States forces at Hawaii, misinterpretation of the radar data lead to the surprise of the attack. Radar was used extensively by the Americans in their Pacific and Atlantic campaigns. Today, many facts about the development of radar is widely known. What is seldom mentioned by historians and researchers alike is the fact that in the beginning, it was Nazi Germany, not Britain, which was leading the way in the field of radio detection.

On a the clear morning of September 26th 1935, a group of high German naval officers, including the overall commander of the German Fleet, Admiral Erich Raeder and various Nazi party leaders; visited the new Funkmessgerat station (radar finder device) at Pelzerhaken near Neustadt in the Bay of Lubeck. At top of the forty feet tower, the visitors, for the first time, were able to see in action Germany’s new technological marvel: the radar. The rudimentary equipment, which included sets of transmitters, receivers, turntables, monochrome screens and two electrical generators; was designed to located a ship up to a distance of five nautical miles outside the field of view, quiet an accomplishment for the day. As it was setup, the transmitter would send out a radio pulse signal to all directions which would proceed to bounce off the searched platform and return to the receiver. Then the receiver would send a signal to the monochrome display projecting a one dimensional image revealing the platform’s present. To the stunned VIP audience, the demonstration was an eye opener. But to those who knew radio technology it was but just one step towards a bigger goal. Almost a year early, American inventor Robert Morris Page had demonstrated the feasibility of a radar system with his December 1934 experiment near Washington DC. Three months later, Robert Watson Watts, known to many as the father of the radar; made his first active experiment. From there, radar was well on its way. The first German active radar experiment took place on March 1935. A rudimentary set of transmitters and receivers were able to pickup a faint signal bouncing from a German warship one mile away. Similar efforts were also taking place in France, Italy, the USSR and, on a somewhat more limited scope, in Japan.

The system demonstrated at Pelzerhaken on September 26th was the direct result of the research done by the brilliant German physicist, Rudolf Kuhnold. In the mid 1930s Kuhnold was the owner of a small new corporation named Gesellschaft fur Elektroakustische and Mechanische Apparate (GEMA) which specialized in the development of sophisticated transmitters and receivers mechanisms. GEMA had close ties with Germany’s Naval Research Institute. From the mid 1935 onward, GEMA, although not officially linked to Germany’s military industrial complex, was an integrated part of the Fatherland’s war effort. Before the war ended, the small 1935 company would had grown in size and scope. By early 1945, GEMA employed more than 6,000 skill workers, a far cry from the days of a seven staff operation. But although GEMA began the radar revolution, it had by no means a monopoly on the new technology. Within three years, Siemens, Telefunken and Lorenz would push their own radar system programs.

Beside the enormous potential the Pelzerhaken experiment showed, it also seeded a deep distrust between the Navy and the most powerful Luftwaffe. Because the experiment was first showed to the top brass of the navy, many of them resentful of the treatment they had been receiving from the Luftwaffe leadership, wanted it to keep the news of the system in the dark.

No radar story could be develop without mentioned the extraordinary efforts of one man, British physicist Robert Watson Watt. At forty two, Watson Watt, the head of Britain’s National Physicist Laboratory’s Radio Research Station, was summoned in 1934 by the Air Ministry to explore the possibility of developing a transmitting, damaging radiation platform to be employed against possible enemy air incursions, mainly from Germany. He began his research in earnest focusing on utilizing radio signals for early detection of incoming objects. On February 26th 1935, Watson Watt and his trusted fiend and colleague, AP Rowe, turned on the world’s first true radar mechanism at the British Broadcasting Company’s short wave radio station in Daventry, Northamptonshire, almost seven months ahead of the Germans. Watson Watt’s system operated at a 164′ wavelength spectrum. It employed a basic receiver set that gather signals generated from a high frequency alternating current (the number of cycles per second is known as frequency). Radio emissions or waves are electromagnetic radiation similar to light waves, but they have a longer wavelength range. When utilizing radio signals for detection of objects, a beam is emitted, the waves scatter all over the “target” to later return as an echo which the receiver picks up at the point of origin. Radio wavelength are, by definition, large, and those utilized by radio transmitters are measured in feet or meters. A smaller wavelength is require in order to make a much accurate profile of the targeting object. This was the first problem encounter by Watson Watt and the others radar pioneers of the times. The generation of wavelengths less than a feet, also known as microwaves, required massive amounts of raw energy in order to travel long distances. Any mechanism capable of generating such a force was bound to be big. Then the process would be complicated. The mechanism needed to be reduced to its smallish form in order to be fitted on an aircraft’s bay. On Watson’s experiment at Daventry, a heavy bomber flew over the BBC’s radio towers and on the second pass, radar operators saw “beats” on their monochrome displays screens for just over two minutes. They were able to track the bomber flying pattern for up to eight miles.

Although early successes on both sides of the Channel were promising, they by no means were error-free. Mistakes in developing the new technology was a common trend on both, Germany and England. In Germany, the most costly error made was ceasing research into the development of an magnetron, which German physicists tested and later on, discarded for obscure reasons. A fact attributed to the rigid Nazi political system. In February 1953, while giving a lecture on the birth of radar, Watson Watts stated that “I believe that British and American success in radar depended fundamentally on the informed academic freedom which was accorded, in peacetime radio research, to my colleagues and myself…I believe the most valuable lesson from radar history is that of the intellectual organizational environment from, and in, which it grew”. Renowned German historian, Harry von Kroge disagree “The aspect of the German effort that seems to have differed from the Allied was the degree to which corporate rivalry affected the course events. The numerous agreements that had to be made concerning licensing and post-war rights I order to smooth production will certainly seem remarkable to American and British readers”, he went on to said that “a puzzling aspect of German radar research was the delay imposed by severe secrecy in drawing on the many excellent universities and polytechnic institutes until late in the war”. His claim was that the British and, to a lesser extend, the American radar effort ran more smoothly because its was under the auspices of the military with full access to all of the academic and civilian sources of expertise.

His claim has some merit. Germany’s first radar array was sorely developed by a private company with the encouragement of a major naval research institution. This contrasted with Germany’s other top scientific programs such as missile development. Engineers assigned to rocket and propulsion development usually drew freely on the expertise of others, specially on the universities ranks, to achieve their goals. Again, there’s evidence to support the theory. Its true that the British main radar problem, the development of a workable and reduce microwave-based system was enormously enhanced by the program’s ability to recruit the best talent from any source. This, pluralistic effort will eventually find its way to a central research program and thence to full production. In Germany on the other hand, there were not enough collaborative diversity, instead, a series of modern era monopolies worked under the cover of secrecy, not for military purposes but to protect their intellectual rights. This problem was compounded by Germany’s leaders preferences for offensive weapon systems instead of purely defensive ones such as a radar array. This one set mind would have a devastating effect on the overall German war effort. But what is more puzzling about the whole program was the lack of understanding of what a radar system could achieve by the very top political and military leadership. A clear example of this was the Luftwaffe’s technology chief, General Ernst Udet, who objected from the very beginning the massive amounts of money the radar program were being allocated on the bases that if it works “flying won’t be fun anymore”.

Despite all those factors, Germany could had matched or even surpassed Britain’s radar program if its was not for Watson’s obsessive determination. The prominent scientific historian David Zimmerman put it simple, “Much of the rapid early progress in the early years was a direct result of the drive, energy and leadership of Watson Watt”, but “paradoxically, it would be Watson’s erratic, almost manic behavior and lack of administrative skills which would be a significant factor in the failure to mount effective night defenses ready in time for the Blitz”.

- Raul Colon

More information:
The Paperclip Conspiracy: The Battle for then Spoils and Secrets of Nazi Germany, Tom Bower, London 1987
What Little I Remember, Robert Frisch Otto, Cambridge 1979
Quantum Generations: A History of Physics in the Twentieth Century, Helge Kragh, Princeton 1999

The Italian Front: The Air Battle

When Italy entered the Great War on May 1915, she found herself on the ropes almost immediately. The country’s vaunted army, although poorly trained and even worse stocked, (at the time of war Italy could muster thirty five frontline divisions) were suppose to overwhelm their main opponent, Austria-Hungary which only had twenty five deployed divisions along their common border. If a battle will to take place, the Italian Alps will most likely be the battle ground, so went the Italian military thinking at the time. The largely Italian Alpine frontier was manned by four army groups deployed on the Cadore, Carnia, Isonzo and Trentino sectors. All of the sectors, it was on the Isonzo combat area were the Italian deployed the bulk of its armed forces, fourteen divisions strong plus seven more on tactical reserve. Although the Italians possessed a clear man power superiority over the Austrians, they did lagged behind their opponents in the number of field artilleries deployed. A critical aspect on those days. Meanwhile, in the air, Italy’s Aeronautica del Regio Eserciti (Royal Army Air Service) RAAS; was better prepare than its army counterpart to take on their new task. Equipped with fourteen fully maned and equipped squadriglie fitted with Nieuports, Bleriots and Murice Farmans; they could more than hold their own against a perceived undermanned and under-equipped Austrian-Hungary air force.

When the Italians finally marched on toward war, it was their reconnaissance squadrons that paved the way for their initial success on the field. As the fight began to settled in, most of it on the eastern flank of the Isonzo River, the RAAS not only provided the army with much needed information on enemy troop and equipment movements, but it also commenced to assert itself on the air. At this time of the battle, the Italians meet little, if any at all, organized resistance from the Austrians. They controlled the air from day one. After achieving air dominance, Italian planes began to bomb and harass their enemy on the ground at regular bases. Its not coincident that it was in this sector of the front that the Italians made their biggest gains during the first months of fighting. Unfortunately for the them, the series of major defeats suffered by the embattle Russian army at Galicia, left the door open for the Austrian to redistribute their forces towards the Isonzo thus commencing the what is viewed as the second battle for that important river bank. This time around, the Austrian air force was augmented by newly received German Rumplers and Aviatik C-1s planes, which provided their field artillery batteries with excellent spotting and targeting information. Meanwhile, the Italian air force had been reorganized to, not only provide valuable reconnaissance data, but to interdict more directly on the ground with concentrating bombing and strafing missions. For this types of missions, the Italians depended heavily on their inventory of Macchis, Caudrons and Farmans. By the spring of 1916, the Italians had reduce the strength of their scout or fighting squadrons and concentrated their efforts on developing dedicated bombing units. In the accordance with the important of the Isonzo front, only two squadriglie of Nieuport 11s were deployed to defend the Santa Caterina and Aquileia sectors, while the rest were assigned to the Isonzo theater of operations. It was on this, the beginning of the second Isonzo Battle, that the Italians first encountered real Austrian opposition in the air. The Austrians, embolden by the arrival of a few number of Fokker E-I monoplanes and a growing number of Lohner and Lloyds reconnaissance platforms, began to challenge Italian air dominance. Those planes were supplemented by an infusion of Fokker B-II, D-I and D-II. The D-I, known simply as the “Star-Strutter” by its pilots, would become the symbol of the whole Austrian air effort over the Isonzo. Their main squadron, Fliegerkompanie Number 12, lead by the charismatic Austrian ace Godwin Brumowski; was assigned the task of preparing the Austrians to engage the Italians on an even base for the first time. A task he took with pride. In just a few months, Brumowski had develop the tactics that would serve the Austrians and some Germans pilots, for the rest of the war on the Italian theater. His Italian strategic counterpart, Francesco Baracca, also had develop a series of formations and tactics that enable him to lead all Italian pilots with thirty four confirm air victories. His efforts paved the way for Italy’s bombing campaign along the river bank. He died while flying a mission on June 18th 1918. For his brilliant exploits the RAAS employed his combat emblem after his death. In fact, the Cavallino Rampante, Baracca’s pride symbol, is still in use by the Italian air force today. A testament to Baracca’s contribution, not only to the war effort, but to Italy’s overall air force structure.

During the winter of 1916-17, the morale of the Italian ground troops plumed to an all time low. That particular winter brought with it one of the most unforgiven and coldest seasons ever experienced in Italy. Hundreds of troops died of frost bites, pneumonia and other weather-related illnesses. Adding to this misery was the sad state of the Italian army. Troops were exhausted, supplies were running short and the much needed equipment was constantly beaking up. In sum, the Italians were on the brink of collapsing. The Austrians were not fearing that well either. Their major operation at Bainsizza took a heavy toll on their now overextended army. The end result of the battle for the strategic Plateau not only decimated the ranks of the Austrian army but prompted the introduction of German combat troops into the Italian sector. As a direct result, a massive German buildup all along the Isonzo front caused the defeat of the Italian army at Caporetto on October 1917. The defeat at Caporetto brought the entire Italian-held front to the brink of collapsing. The situation was so critical that the situation forced the Allies to sent precious resources, both human and materials, to bolster the front. Eleven British and French first line divisions were rushed to Italy. Their air assets combined four British Royal Air Force squadrons with three French escadrilles. They arrived just in time. Their combine might, added to the extraordinary bravery of the Italian troops, help the Allies to fend off the Germans and Austrians at Piave. Meanwhile on the, air the fighting turned from tough to brutal. By this time the Italians had again reorganized its forces around the scout squadriglie. Eight Hanriot HD-1, four SPAD S.VII and three Nieuports not fully manned squadrons were forced into the battle. The Italians also deployed fourteen squadriglie fitted with Caproni bombers. In January 1918, what was probably Italy’s best light bomber platform of the war, the much anticipated Ansaldo bomber; began to arrive to the front in large numbers. Italian pilots, most noticeable, Baracca, made a career taking up their Austrians counterparts above the Isonzo during the later stages of 1917. On the other side of the front, Brumowski had changed his Fliegerkompanie’s aircraft from D-I to the more robust and better armed Albatross D-III. He and fellow Austrian ace, Julius Arigi, who would rack up thirty two kills before the war ended; were also engaging the numerical superior Italians with somewhat of a lesser success ratio. All of them scored the majority of their victories during the Caporetto offensive.

After Caporetto, the Italians, now embolden by an ever increasing number of Allied troops and aircraft; began a series of major offensive attacks that finally broke the back of the Austrian army at Isonzo. It took eleven major battles to decide the outcome of Isonzo, but in the end, the Italians and their Allies proved their worth. After August 1917, no Austrian major attempt was ever orchestrated against Italy’s Isonzo flank, freezing up Italian troops to be re-deployed to other war fronts. The end of Caporetto also marked the end of the bulk of the air battles over Isonzo. Several minor actions did take place, but they paled in comparison to other previous encounters. The battle toll for the Italians was enormous. Nearly 40,000 were killed, 108,000 wounded and 18,000 more taken prisoners. The Austrians lost 10,000 killed, 45,000 wounded and 30,000 were taken prisoners. A high toll for both side, but a bigger number for the already stretched thin Austrians.

- Raul Colon

More information:
Battles of World War I, Martin Marix Evans, The Crowood Press 2004
The Encyclopedia of 20th Century Air Warfare, Editor Chris Bishop, Amber Books 2001
World War I, Ian Westwell, Hermes House 2005

Soviet Composite Bomber Projects: The Early Tsybin Concepts

The idea of combining “two-aircraft”, a mother-ship and a deployable extended plane; has been around since the late 1920s. In fact, it was the Russian whom developed the world’s first true operational composite project, the Vakhmistrov Zveno bomber. As promising as strange, the Zveno concept did performed several successful detachments proving the concept’s capability. But promising as the Vakhmistrov aircraft was, the Russian halted further in-depth researcher into the concept by the end of WW II until the early years of the 1950s when the advent of the powerful United States’ Air Force B-58 Hustler Bomber gave rise to the Soviet Union’s first true modern composite programs. The idea behind the new Soviet concept was simple enough. A heavy lifting strike airplane would carry a fully loaded bomber to a point within its operational range. The bomber will then be deployed and proceed to its assigned target area by its own power. By the early part of the 1950s, all of the Soviet Union’s Experimental Design Bureaux (OKB) were well entrenched among the USSR’s state-run aircraft industry. They were extremely well funded, by Soviet standards, and well connected politically. This was probably one of the better examples of the USSR’s industrial monopoly. The OKB’s divided the design and development aspects among each other, thus preventing a new member to move in on what they believed was their territory.

Two OKBs were able to break the Experimentals’ hold on design and development. One was the famous Myasishchev Bureau. The other, more obscure one, was the OKB headed by Pavel Tsybin. Tsybin was a major glider designer as well as designer and pilot of several rocket-propelled research aircrafts. Since the early 1950s, Tsybin had worked on nuclear weapons delivery platforms which were to be deployed from a larger, “mother-ship”-type of aircraft. Later his research of this unusual field earned him the establishment of his own Bureau, OKB Number 256. No small feat on such tense times. But his OKB’s independence was short lived and in October 1959, the Myasishchev Bureau absorbed Tsybin’s small venture. Before Tsybin’s beloved 256 was register, let alone acquired by the powerful Myasishchev OKB, he was in charge of the development of a supersonic heavy bomber capable of deploying the new thermonuclear weapons just arriving to operational status. On March 4th 1954, Pavel sent his design for such a platform to top aerospace officials inside the Kremlin. His design for called for a Reaktivnyi Samolyot or RS platform. One that could be capable of achieving speeds up to 1865 mph with an operational range of 8701 nautical miles. Top ceiling was assessed at 98425′. It would had an operational maximum takeoff weight of 36376 pound. In order to achieve this impressive profile, the RS design called for extremely thin wing structures fitted with two powerful engines on each wing tip. To reach the necessary thrust-to-weight ratio for the called profile, Tsybin’s design team streamlined the fuselage. They also added two forward canard foreplane. The new aircraft design would be able to deploy the new Soviet winged bomb based on the 244-N thermonuclear weapon. The top brass at the Kremlin took Tsybin’s proposal very seriously despite warnings from various quarters, mainly others OKBs, that the available technology to develop such an aircraft was not yet sufficiently tested. Nevertheless, work proceeded on the RS design and on May 5th 1955, Tsybin’s team presented the concept to leaders of the Communist Party. Tsybin’s presentation was a resounding success and on May 23rd, a Soviet Ministry (SovMin) resolution allowed the overachiever Tsybin to establish his own Bureau. The resolution also asked for a flying prototype to be delivered no later than February 1st 1957 followed by another unit by April 15th.

The establishment of an independently-run Bureau was a complex task. Hiring of a highly trained staff was a top priority, but with fierce competition among the other Bureaus, the new OKB 256 were unable to grab the “lion share” of the managers, designers, engineers, mechanics and other skilled workers needed for such a radical project. Beside those immense problems, Tsybin was also pinned against a powerful dateline. Notwithstanding, he and his small team pushed ahead and by the winter of 1955, the OKB’s design team modified the original RS’s profile. Operational range was now established at 4661 miles. Also, work on a newly designed RD-013 ram jet engine had commenced in earnest. With the change of range profile came the idea of joining or “pegging” the new platform to a Tupolev’s Tu-95. It was determinate that a Tu-95 could “carry” the RS up to 2485 miles before deploying the platform for its own flight engagement. By January 1956, the RS program had develop its first mock-up, vaguely similar to the British Avro 730 supersonic bomber. The new RS incarnation had a long and narrow airframe with a small trapezoidal wing structure supporting one engine on each wing tip. The team reformed the two canards foreplanes, now each would measure 10′-2″ instead of the original 12′-0″. Plans called for the RS to be loaded into the belly of a Tu-95-N (N) for the carrier version of the aircraft. Once the Tu-95 reached the pre-arrange altitude of 29530′, it would deploy the RS which would then proceed to its assigned target at speeds of up to 1865 mph. On its first solo stage, the RS would be powered by two assisting rocket engines which would be jettison soon after they spent themselves. Then, the two wing tipped ram engines would ignite powering the craft to its destination. The engines, capable of powering the RS at speeds near Mach 2.8, were configured on a fixed geometry, multi shock inlets with convergent divergent nozzles. The RS’ fuel tanks were able to carry 23083 lb of aviation fuel. The bomber’s nuclear weapon, weight in at 2425 lb, would had been carried on a tailless delta platform fitted on the rear end of the fuselage.

As promising as the RS project seemed to be shaping, it was destined to fail. At the same time Tsybin and his team was developing the outlines and designs of the RS, the Korolyov OKB was hard at work on an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) system code-named R7. In early 1957, the new ICBM made its maiden flight and later that year, it achieve production status. The development of the R7 was a sever blow to the RS concept. Immediately after the successful test flight of the R7, all worked related to the RS was terminated. Although work on the RS was canceled, Tsybin still manage to work of an offspring project called 2RS Reconnaissance Aircraft. The 2RS concept was first conceived in January 1956 and was also designed to use the Tu-95N as its springboard plane. But, unlike the RS, the 2RS was not designed as a nuclear delivery bomber, thus the designers replaced the canard foreplanes with a slab tailplane configuration. The fuselage specifications, beside the replacement of the canards structures, were the same of the original concept. The only difference was a reduction in frame length to 89′-11″. Maximum takeoff weight (loaded with camera systems) was now 46186 lb. The 2RS would had been able, accordingly to its specs, to reach a top speed of Mach 2.54. Ceiling was estimated at 88583′ with an operational range of 4351 miles. But by the time the 2RS was ready for mock-up design, passion for this particular reconnaissance platform has dramatically receded among Kremlin leaders. From August 1956 onward, OKB 256 shifted its design effort from the 2RS to the newly constituted RSR aircraft. The RSR project, which called for an all jet, instead of ram engine configuration, was born on August 31st 1956. Most of the preliminary work on the concept was completed by June of the following year. The new platform was designed to takeoff and land on its own power. To accomplish this new task, the RSR was fitted with a reenforced bicycle undercarriage with a double wheeled main and nose gears. Powering the RSR were two Solovyov Low Ratio D-21 Turbofan engines. The new concept airframe, instead of being develop out of titanium and steel alloys, was made out of lighter materials. This is due to the expected less stress being applied to the fuselage by the turbofan engines. The aircraft’s profile called for outside temperatures of around 200 degrees C.

The new project was one of the first Soviet aircrafts fitted with a rudimentary feature of stealth. The advent of ever more powerful Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAM) forced this seldom mentioned development. The RSR’s lower fuselage section and wing structure were coated with a porous material designed to absorb the electronic energy emanating from an enemy’s radar arrays. Beside the coating, the plane’ fuselage was re-stressed to allow the pilot to make a barrel role to an altitude of 137795′ or to perform a climb and turn at the same time with a rapid chance in altitude. Both maneuvers were designed to exceed the estimated 2.5G force needed to escape an incoming Western-built SAM. Two massive storage tanks were able to carried up to 26455 lb of fuel. Two additional external fuel tanks, housed underneath the wing structure, were capable of supplying another 4850 lb of fuel thus extending the aircraft’s range. The RSR proposed range was now a more realistic 2339 miles radius. Accordingly to the SovMin resolution of 1957, the first RSR prototype would be rolled out of the production line no later than the spring of 1958. As the same time Tsybin’s team was working on the RSR project, another concept, the 3RS began to take shape. The 3RS was intended to be a dual use platform. It would be able to takeoff on its own or it can be deployed the same way the RS and 2RS were designed to do. The whole idea behind the 3RS was range. Soviet military leaders were still searching for the ultimate bomber. One capable of reaching America from Soviet-held land bases. Another step towards the realization of Tsybin’s dream became true when on March 20th 1958, the SovMin authorized full development of the Tu-95N platform. The Tupolev Bureau was not please with the resolution. Andrei Tupolev himself though of the whole concept as a complete waste of, not only valuable technical resources, but more importantly; time. Utilizing his enormous influence, Tupolev was able to shift the development of the ‘mother-ship” or main aircraft to the Myasishchev Bureau freeing himself to develop more heavy bomber concepts.

Meanwhile, Tsybin team was laying the ground work for the creation of a scale model known as NM-1 (Naturnaya Model). On November 1956, the Kremlin made available the necessary funds for the whole program. Another major accomplishment for such small enterprise as the 256 was. The experimental NM-1 was fitted with two Mikulin AM5 engines mounted on simple nacelles, which meant that the aircraft could only achieve subsonic speeds due to the nacelles’ low power rating. A retractable skid arrangement was placed under the engines’ nacelles. For takeoff operations, a two-wheeled trolley was installed under the skids. This mechanism would be jettison once the aircraft was aloft. A small tail wheel was also installed for taxing control. Beside a shorter nose cone section, the NM-1 fuselage and materials were almost identical to that of the original RSR concept. On April 7th 1959, after several aborted attempts, the NM-1 took to the air for the first time. Overall, 32 test flights took place between the spring of 1959 and autumn 1960. Results from the tests were timid at best. Data collected demonstrated that the aircraft was not able to maintain a regular flight pattern. Plus, its takeoff profiles made it easy to roll over. Those deficiencies meant that the developmental phase of the concept needed to be pushed farther than the OKB wanted. Not the news Tsybin was looking for. He understood that delaying the rollout of the first true prototype could very well lead to the termination of its beloved OKB. He was determinate not to had his OKB terminated. Tsybin feverously lobbied the Soviet Politburo and the VVS Command for extensions. Both institutions saw the creation of such a radical platform as a necessity paving the way for Tsybin was gain its extension on the aircraft’s delivery date. The new dateline was now pushed to December 1960.

With his extension on hand, Tsybin re-doubled his effort on the RSR concept. He redesigned some of the aircraft’s features and tested its profiles on several mock-ups. Everything seemed to be ready for development, everything except the D-21 engines. The Tupolev Bureau pressured the Factory 19, the main manufacture center for aircraft engines in the USSR, to built more of the D-20 engines for its popular Tu-124 airliner jet, thus placing strains in the Factory’s ability to delivery new and revolutionizer engines systems on time. When all was set and done, Tsybin did not received a single D-21 from the Factory. He replaced the highly anticipated D-21 with two Tumansky R-11F jet engine with reheat capability. Unfortunately for Tsybin, the new engine required further fuselage modifications. To accommodated the new engines, he and his team slimmer and enlarger the engines’ nacelles. They also installed a central shock cone on each intake similar to that used on the vaunted Mig-21F. The new engines also gave the plane a change of code names to RSR R-020. Engineers began to strip down the new RSR version in an effort to reduce its weight. The volume of internal ribbing in the wing structure was increased. Thinner areas were applied throughout and welding replaced many of the fuselage’s riveted joints. The titanium and steels alloys were replaced by Dural as the airframe primary structural material. All those modifications had the effect of reducing significantly the fuselage’s fatigue life to just about 200 flying hours or three to six flights. The resulting airframe was one extremely light compare to other similar structures. New external self-sealing fuel tanks, capable of storing 2866 lb of fuel, were added to the plane. Total fuel load capacity was now 10700 lb. The wings were also re-fitted. More taper was applied to their trailing edges and tailplane sections. Also the fin area was reduced. The RSR-020 sported a new undercarriage arrangement. Gone was the two large wheels, replaced by four smaller sets. The modified version would had a serviceable ceiling of 73819′ with an operational range of 2486 miles.

Five RSR R-020 units were ordered in early 1959, but again, the development of the ICBM as a formidable weapon platform trumped Tsybin’s dream aircraft and on October 1st, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered the termination of OKB 256. The cancelation of Tsybin’s OKB contract did not meant that the RSR program was death. Design and development of the RSR aircraft passed on to the Myasishchev OKB. At the time of the transfer, Myasishchev was immerse on its own bomber concept which gave Tsybin almost a free hand in developing the RSR concept. Development of the RSR was relocated to the Myasishchev OKB’s Zhukovsky facility on September 29th 1960. Work was again halted the next month. On October 1960, Vladimir Myasishchev was appointed head of the Tsentrahl’nyy Aero-I Ghdrodinameecheskiy Institoot (TsAGI) or Central State Aerodynamic and Hydrodynamic Institute. For a brief time, the Chelomey OKB took control of the project, but it was short lived. By now, most of the Soviet’s OKBs were either performing work on ballistic missile systems or on the country’s nascent space program. As the new head of the powerful TsAGI, Myasishchev officially ended all work related to the RSR platform. He transferred Tsybin and most of his original engineering team to his OKB’s space division which at the time was developing the Soyuz space capsule. With his transfer and the cancelation of all RS-programs, all of the RS-related data was sealed or destroyed.

Today what remains of the original RSR concept are but a few documents and drawings which clearly indicated that the aircraft was in its initial construction stage when the program was axed. Some documents suggested that up to three units were completed but there’s no evidence to support this claim. What is well documented was that soon after the RSR program was canceled, Myasishchev wrote a letter to Tsybin that contained a TsAGI drawing for a supersonic reconnaissance platform very similar, if not almost identically, to the RSR. A fact that did not sat well with Pavel Tsybin or his team. For years, Tsybin suspected that Myasishchev had a hand in the cancelation of, not only his RS platform, but his beloved OKB. With the termination of the RSR and the British Avro 730 programs, only the United States developed a RSR-type platform that actually flew. It was the spectacular Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.

- Raul Colon

More information:
Soviet X-Planes, Yefim Gordon and Bill Gunston, Midland Publishing 2000
Aircraft of the OKB Tupolev, Vladimir Rigmant, Moscow Russavia 2001
Russian X-Planes, Alan Dawes, Key Publishing 2001
Concept Aircraft: Prototypes, X-Planes and Experimental Aircrafts, Editor Jim Winchester, Thunder Bay Press 2005

The Next Generation Bomber:
A Brief Look at the B-2′s Program Early Life

In the middle of President Ronald Reagan’s massive military buildup of the 1980s, there wew a few very interesting concepts being discussed. One of the most exotic was the hypersonic aircraft. In the mid 1980s, the new Republican Administration began exploring the option of developing such a fantastic air platform. Reagan and his team of scientific advisers was pushing hard the idea of an airplane capable of achieving speeds of Mach 12. The President himself promoted the idea in a televised news conference. They way he described the concept, the new aircraft, a renewed symbol of America’s technological prowess, would have taken off from a regular designed runway, climb above the stratosphere, much like any ICBM does, then it would proceed to move into sub-orbit, before commencing its gradual descend like a any conventional airliner. The administration even got a name for this highly futuristic plane, “The Orient Express”. The name was in reference to the aircraft’s expected ability to reach Tokyo in just two hours. The whole concept was doomed to failure from the very beginning. The dynamics to make such an aircraft fly at that speed were not available at that time. Lockheed’s vaunted SR-71 Blackbird, for example, was able to flight at “only” at Mach 3.2 and that was achieved only after expending enormous amounts of effort and funds. At Mach 12, the Express’ surface would have come apart from heat friction interaction no matter what the skin composition would have been. A titanium airframe, which was the strongest material known at the time, could receive up to 2,500 degrees of heat, after which it would began to tear up. In the SR-71, the pilot wore a special space suit that protected him from the excruciating heat. If the cabin’s air conditioner system failed, he would most likely die from extreme heat exposure. Incredible, ridiculous, not even feasible, were some of the words used by many at Lockheed’s secret Skunk Works facility in California to describe the whole idea. But the dream of building such radical aircraft did not die then. In fact, the idea still passes around in Congress. The “Express” would had been a join effort between NASA and the Pentagon. But long before any funds were made available for the feasibility study, the Administration began to realize that the Orient Express, instead of being one sole unit, was in reality two separate platforms, a rocket and an aircraft, joined together mush like NASA’s space shuttle and that the science to make it a reality was not there yet. What was available was the technology to make America’s next generation bomber.

In the spring of 1978, a group of engineers, lead by the charismatic Ben Rich, head of Lockheed’s secret Skunk Works complex; made a pitch at the Pentagon for a new heavy bomber aircraft. Boosting Lockheed’s recently developed F-117 stealth fighter as its introduction card, Rich forceful promoted his idea for America’s next generation bomber. The meeting was presided over by Gene Fubini, director of the Defense Science Board and Under Secretary for Defense and one of the early proponents of stealth technology, William Perry. Both Perry and Fubini were distraught over the current state of Rockwell’s B-1 program. The B-1 was conceived as a replacement for the AF B-52 plane, but massive cost overruns and poor testing put Rockwell’s bomber program in serious peril. Nevertheless, the Pentagon and Strategic Air Command (SAC) were in dire need of a replacement for their vaunted, but aging, B-52 bomber. The poor results showed by the B-1 prompted SAC to look at another option. There were discussions inside the Air Force of upgrading General Dynamics’ F-111 swing wing tactical fighter/bomber. The idea had the partial endorsement of SAC’s top commander, AF General Richard Ellis who favored quantity over size. He believed that a more numerous fleet of bombers would have cost less than a somewhat smaller fleet of much larger planes. “Airplanes by the pound”, as the motto went on those days. It was not a perfect solution, but, AF generals were afraid of being stuck behind an aging fleet of B-52s and a new, problem-prone force of B-1s. This gave Rich and his team the opening they craved for, “if you guys are eager for a small bomber fleet, look no further than our basic design for the stealth fighter. All we got to do is make it larger and we have an airplane that could carry the payload of the F-111, but with a radar cross section at least ten orders of the magnitude better”. Those words resonated on both Perry and Fubini who were well informed of the F-117′s technological prowess. Perry, who had just signed a feasibility study for the possible development of a naval stealth vessel, was more receptive to the idea than the sometimes more rigid Fubini. Nevertheless, Perry was not ready to grant one company the sole monopoly on stealth.

But the Air Force had to deal with the problematic B-1 project before it could mount another huge and costly bomber program. Canceling such a vast program as the B-1, was and still is a potential political mess. The cancellation of the B-1, which was designed to penetrate a heavily saturated Soviet air defense system and proceed to deliver its nuclear payload flying near or on the deck; was bound to cost millions of dollars and thousands of jobs. But there was a powerful argument to be made for canceling the whole program: survivability. A year before, the AF had conducted an study looking into the B-1′s chances of surviving a deep penetration mission against heavily defended Soviet airspace, what the study revealed shocked most of the AF’s top brass. Sixty percent of the attacking B-1 force would be shot down before it could reach its operational target. That loss rate was unacceptable. Rich and his team argued that in an study performed that same year by an independent defense think tank, a bomber utilizing the latest in stealth technology would acquire a survivability ratio of almost eighty percent. A dramatic improvement. A few days after the Washington meeting, Rich received a call on Lockheed’s secure line. It was Major General William Campbell, head of Future Planning for SAC who said “(General) Ellis would be very receptive to a stealth bomber. I want to send out to the Skunk Works a couple of our most senior bomber pilots to sit down with you and your people and work up for Ellis’ approval the requirements for a deep penetration stealth attack bomber” The seeds of the “Spirits” were laid, although not in the direction Rich would want it.

Rich and his team, which now consisted of several SAC bomber pilots and colonels, worked diligently for almost three months developing the outlines of their program. “Peggy”, as the Skunks Works’ early stealth bomber research program was referred to (Peggy was the name of General Ellis’ wife), called for a medium sized bomber capable of having an operational range of 3600 nautical miles unrefuelled with a 10000 pound payload capacity. The proposal was quickly approved and Lockheed received a two year, fully funded, grant for research experimentation. Lockheed appeared to had been well on its way to acquiring the military’s biggest one program contract since the Manhattan Project. They had good reason to believe so. William Perry was convinced that only a stealth platform could give the United States the ability to penetrate and suppress any installation deep inside the USSR. It would take the Soviets decades to achieve the necessary technological breakthroughs to counter the US stealth technology, Perry thought. But the US presidential election changed it all. On November 1980, Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in a landslide victory. The problem Rich and Lockheed now faced was the expected resignations of most the current mid to top level civilian managerial pool at the Defense Department. It also meant that Perry, a lifelong Democrat and one of stealth’s most passionate supporters, would step down from his powerful post. Perry was the true force behind the stealth revolution. Pushing forward stealth programs even at the expenses of other, more conventional ones. Stealth and its early development was, and still is, his legacy.

Lockheed’s closest competitor for the new bomber was the Northrop Corporation. In the early 1970s, Northrop had lost a close competition with Lockheed to develop the US’s first stealth platform and were primed for a rematch. Behind Northrop’s effort was the brilliant, albeit unconventional, John Cashen who wanted nothing less than to “beat” Rich and his team for the new AF contract. In the 1970s, the US air and space industry was basically a monopoly of just four big companies and a vast network of subcontractors. The most powerful company at the time was McDonnell-Douglas which build thousand of F-15 fighters for the AF, plus the newest Navy fighter bomber, the F-18. McDonnell was followed by the massive General Dynamics Corporation which made everything from the F-16, to tanks, missile systems and even submarines. Lockheed was third with a solid experience of developing cargo and spy planes as well as the mainstay of the US ICBM force at the time, the Polaris Ballistic Missile. Northrop and Rockwell, which developed the B-1, followed.

Northrop was Lockheed’s main competition for the bomber program. There were several factors that pointed to Lockheed winning the coveted contract. First, Northrop had not developed the type of advanced research facility that Lockheed had with its Skunk Works. Second, the company have expended valuable resources developing the F-20 light weight fighter. After a cost overrun of more than $ 100 million, the F-20 fighter, which was a non-provocative air platform, meaning the the plane was advanced enough to be sold to Americas’ Allies but it was vulnerable (designed as) to the most sophisticated US anti aircraft measures. The idea behind the non-provocative concept was that US aerospace companies could sell off the shelf technologies to US Allies without compromising America’s ability to respond if they turn hostile. Northrop began to court the government of Taiwan which was desperately trying to upgrade their air defense assets. But strong Chinese opposition to the sale managed to kill the entire program, placing the company in a compromising financial position. This was perhaps the most important thing going for Northrop in the bidding process. If the company could not land the new bomber contract, it would join Rockwell, which was already struggling with the cancellation of the B-1; on the fringe of the US aerospace industry. Meanwhile, Lockheed’s team began planning for the expected order. They moved ahead with plans to enlarge their secret facility at Burbank and even had a tentative agreement with Rockwell to utilize their huge facility at Palmdale, plus, many of Rockwell’s skilled workers would be participating on the final assembly. At the other side, Northrop entered into a limited partnership with Boeing. The stage was set.

Everything seemed to be on track for Lockheed’s entrant to win out, everything, that is, except politics. After William Perry left DOD, the whole stealth bomber program was relocated from the Pentagon to Wright Field AF Base. Wright was under the command of General Al Slay, head of the AF System Command. As with Perry, Slay was a true believer in stealth, but, unlike Perry, the influential General wanted big, heavy bombers instead of the medium size type Lockheed had been pitching. Immediately, Slay authorized funds from one of the AF’s black accounts. The new bomber’s fund was assigned the name of Aurora by Colonel Buz Carpenter, a young and upcoming officer. Somehow the name of the fund was leaked to the press, prompting one of the world’s most enduring myths. Thus the competition began at earnest. Both conglomerates centered their efforts around Jack Northrop’s 1930s flying wing design. Both engineering team succeed in making the flying wing concept more feasible than was the case almost forty years early, the wing’s boomerang plan-form afforded the lowest radar return echo, plus it gave the platform an unusually favorable lift to drag ratio paving the way for reduced fuel consumption and a longer operational range. As each company began to develop a three quarter scale mock up, it was increasingly obvious which direction each one would take. Lockheed’s design was more along the lines of a medium-sized platform, while Northrop’s was more of a true heavy-bomber type. Here is where another significant factor was staked against Lockheed’s entry. Because the company’s design was relative small, the wing needed to be fitted with a small tail structure in order to add stability to the bombing platform. Northrop’s concept on the other hard was large enough to be able to operate with just its own surface control systems. This small difference gave Northrop’s design a better lift/drag ratio compared with Lockheed’s entry.

On May 1st 1981, the designs of both, Northrop and Lockheed were pitted against one another in an AF radar detection range. Data relating to the test is still classified, but rumor has it that Lockheed’s design beat Northrop’s entry on nearly all frequency tests, nevertheless, the following October, Ben Rich received a formal notification from the AF awarding the advance heavy bomber contract to Northrop on technical merit. Rich did not take the news well. Neither did his superior, Lockheed’s CEO Roy Anderson. Both men went to visit the newly appointed AF Secretary, Verne Orr, to protest the matter. A visibly angry Orr told both men that “not only was Northrop better than you, they were much better than you”, prompting Anderson to say “Well Mr. Secretary, time will tell”. It was later revealed to Anderson that the selection of Northrop’s design was attributed to size. A much bigger aircraft with a larger payload capacity provided a better bargain for the AF. Although the Northrop’s design registered a “bigger” radar signature than its counterpart, it would require fewer attack sorties because it carry a larger payload. Less sorties counterbalanced the real stealth advantages enjoyed by Lockheed’s design.

- Raul Colon

More information:
Air Power: The Men, Machines, and Ideas that Revolutionized War, From Kitty Hawk to Gulf War II, Stephen Budiansky, Penguin Group 2004
Concept Aircraft: Prototypes, X-Planes, and Experimental Aircraft, Editor Jim Winchester, Thunder Bay Press 2005
The Encyclopedia of 20th Century Air Warfare, Editor Chris Bishop, Amber Books 2001
Jane’s Aircraft Recognition Guide, Gunter Endres and Mike Gething, HarperCollins, 2002

The Unproven Flight

More than sixty years have passed since Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies. In that time, witnesses, historians and researchers alike have painted a clear picture Germany’s activities during those bloody years. Much is known about the great land battles on the Eastern Front, the brave stand of a beleaguered Great Britain and the allied landings at Normandy to mention some events. As the years have passed on, numerous new facts have emerged, documents have been found, data has been de-classified paving the way to recreate obscure events that took place more than six decades ago. One of those events had to do with one of the unsolved mysteries of World War II, the flight of a German four engined aircraft from its base in northern France to within sight of the United States’ East Coast in 1944.

The story of the mysterious flight had its origins in the spring of 1942 when the then all-powerful Luftwaffe requested German aircraft manufacturers to design plans for a long range, heavy bomber capable of reaching the US mainland from Fortress Europe. The Junkers Corporation, with its track record of well designed aircraft such as the infamous Ju 87 Stuka Dive Bomber and the Ju 88 Level-Dive Bomber platform; was the most forceful participant in the competition. The company’s Design and Development team, used the experience gained on the Ju 290 project, the so called “America Bomber”, to design a completely new bomber platform. The whole 290 program was based on the concept made famous by an obscure German Air Force General, Walther Wever. In the summer of 1934, General Wever called for the immediate development of a massive four-engined, long range bomber; not to use against the US but against the Soviet Union’s industrial base located beyond the Ural Mountains. The Ju 290, known as the Ural Bomber to Luftwaffe officials, became Germany’s first true long range attack platform. The 290′s production run lasted only a few short years. In all, just a limited number of the 290 were ever produced by Junkers. The 290 never did made it as a true heavy bomber, but it did find a role as a long range maritime reconnaissance airplane.

During the life of the Ju 290 program, Junkers’ engineers performed several modifications to the original 290 airframe and onboard systems. The airframe was lengthened, wingspan was added and two additional engines were installed to increase the aircraft’s overall horsepower output. The end result of all those modification was a nearly new airplane. This modified version was renamed the 390. The 390 was designed to carry a maximum crew load of ten men over an operational range of 6000 nautical miles (unrefueled) at speeds just above 300 mph. Two units were actually built. Both were developed as troop and equipment transport planes. Another unit, the heavy bomber version (estimated to carry a payload of 3968 pounds), was schedule to be completed by the winter of 1944-45. But by that time, nearly all of the Luftwaffe’s airframes were used as fighter platforms in an effort to beat back the vast allied air armada which was bombing the Third Reich 24/7. Nevertheless, the 390′s design was impressive enough that the Empire of Japan purchased a Junker’s license to develop its own version. It is known that one of the built samples, unit V-2, was modified directly for maritime reconnaissance missions. Once it became operational, the V-2 unit was assigned to the Kampfgeschwader Number 200, an special wing of the Luftwaffe. The 200 mission profile called for the dispatch of Abwehr infiltration agents deep behind enemy lines. Beside the V-2, the 200 operated captured US B-17 and DC-3 aircraft, plus a complement of five Ju 290 units.

It has been speculated that in mid 1944, a round trip was made by a Ju 390 aircraft from a Kampfgeschwader operational base at Mont de Marsan, France to only fifteen nautical miles from New York City. Could such a flight had been made? Certainly, the 390, if re-modified to achieve its maximum range capability, was capable of it. Are there official records of such endeavor? No. But the fact that there’s no official German records on the subject does not mean the flight did not took place. In fact, there’s some supporting evidence that points towards it. During the last days of the war, as the allies moved from their beachheads in northern France and the Soviets were rapidly advancing from the East, Luftwaffe officials, sensing imminent defeat; commenced the ritual of burning priority documents at all of its facilities. Could some of those burned documents be related to or contain information on this uncommon flight?

The first real clue regarding this alleged flight was revealed to the public in November 11th 1955 in an article by historian-researcher Dr. Kenneth Werrell in Royal Air Force Flying Review. In the article, which was based on another subject, Dr. Werrell mentioned that he possessed “information” regarding the flight of two modified Ju 390 aircraft. The following year, the Review, on its March issue; published a letter from a British reader stating that instead of two 390s, the round trip was performed by a sole unit, thus lending credence to Dr. Werrell’s piece. In the before mentioned article, Dr. Werrell states its case on a little known story that supposedly emanated from the British intelligence services. He made references to reports of captured Luftwaffe intelligence officials interrogated in August 1944. Out of those interrogations, the captured officials allegedly told their handlers about the “flight”. The mentioned reports, known as the General Report on Aircraft Engines and Aircraft Equipment, suggested that the two 390s did made the flight and even took pictures of Long Island. The article also made detailed references to the 390′s specifications. After carefully examining the aircraft’s profile window, Werrell was able to determinate that a round trip from northern France to Newfoundland was more than feasible. But after departing Newfoundland, the 390 would had needed to travel an additional 2380 nm, which would made an unrefueled flight extremely difficult at best.

After Dr. Werrell’s article, there were a few other mentioning of this allegedly Trans Atlantic trip. The respected author William Green mentioned the incident on his 1968 book, Warplanes of the Second World War as well as in the follow up effort, Warplanes of the Third Reich published in 1970. In September 1969, the Daily Telegraph of London published an article entitled The Lone Bomber Raid on New York Planned by Hitler. The article centered its claim around the testimony of retired Junker’s test flight pilot, Hans Pancherz. Pancherz stated that in early 1944, he flew one of the modified Ju 390 on a trial flight from Germany to Cape Town in preparations for a bombing run into the United States. The test flight went smoothly but the operation was soon canceled due to lack of resources, said Pancherz. As with other claims of the mysterious flight, no factual data could be obtained.

There’s no reliable data connecting the 390 or any other version of it to a flight into American territorial waters. In fact, no data of any kind of a German aircraft invading US air space exists. It is entirely possible, even likely, that the before mentioned event never took place. Nevertheless, the absent of tangible data does not mean that there’s no data out there. As researchers and historians begin to examine classified Soviet-era documents, it is possible that evidence of this flight could be uncovered.

- Raul Colon

More information:
Great Untold Stories of World War II, Phil Hirsch, Pyramid Books 1968
The German Air Force General Staff, Andreas Nielsen, Arno Press 1959
Luftwaffe: Birth, Life and Death of an Air Force, Alfred Price, Ballantine Books 1969