Near miss: The story of the Army Air Forces' guided bomb program in World War II.

摘要

This dissertation will focus upon the research, design, development and employment of guided air-to-ground munitions used by the Army Air Forces between 1940 and 1946. It is a story that has been largely ignored to date because, like other projects employing state-of-the-art technologies during the war---such as the Manhattan Project, Enigma and Radar---these weapons were highly classified. Unlike radar and the atomic bombs, however, the role of guided aerial munitions remained relatively unknown by the general public as the war came to a close. Moreover, when the guided aerial weapons programs were declassified in the late-1970s and early 1980s, they were largely eclipsed by the revelations of the Enigma and Ultra code-breaking projects that were declassified during the same time period. As a result of these factors, airpower enthusiasts, professional airmen and perhaps not a few military historians may be amazed to learn the number and types of guided air-to-ground munitions that were designed and developed during the war as well as how many were actually employed in combat---often with superb results.; There were four major types of guided air-to-ground munitions developed during World War II, which included: glide bombs, vertical bombs, powered bombs and jet bombs. Of these, only jet bombs did not see combat. Guided aerial weapons included a wide array of guidance packages, from the simple, pre-set gyro-stabilized bombs to the more exotic remotely controlled, television-guided bombs. The accuracies achieved by many of the remote-controlled variants approached performance levels reminiscent of the air strikes flown during Desert Storm and over Kosovo in the 1990s. Although these weapons could not consistently deliver pin-point accuracy, the degree to which they did do so strongly suggests guided air-to-ground munitions would not only be perfectly compatible with the AAF's doctrine of precision daylight bombardment, they were far better than conventional iron bombs in achieving the requisite accuracy.; If this is so, why were guided aerial munitions not more widely used during the war and why did guided air-to-ground munitions virtually disappear from Army Air Forces arsenals by 1946? To answer these questions requires a solid understanding of the means used by the United States to research, develop and employ new weapon systems during World War II. What becomes apparent as we examine the system as it pertains to "guided-missile" research and development, is that the limited use by the AAF of these weapon-systems can only be partly ascribed to the inherent difficulties in fielding state-of-the-art technologies. Indeed, by the late 1944, radio-controlled, television-guided, flying bombs, having ranges over 1,000 miles and carrying 20,000 pounds of TNT were routinely being flown and were available for combat missions. Moreover, smaller bombs were also available for use with slightly modified conventional bombers, some of which were employed with spectacular results.; This study will examine these issues and endeavor to answer the questions outlined above.