ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by Grumblegrunt

not sure what a german bouncing bomb could have done to blighty as I am blissfully unaware of any major hydro electric projects they might hit or industries so reliant on water power. they probably just rebuilt it and made it better because they were like that. 9playing skittles with battersea power station towers might have been fun)

mind you it didnt allways go so well, the army asked for a t34 clone and ended up with the panther

also regards guns - the army wanted more to use for defense purposes so they could consolidate the eastern front but grofaz liked tanks which cost much more and used the steel needed for a dozen guns. guderian asked for more panzer 4's as they were cheap fast and reliable with skoda turning out thousands of them instead they got tigers and projects like the ferdinand which just wasted time and money and ended up becoming SPs

A smaller version was designed to be used against shipping but never deployed by us. Presumable the Germans would have used it against our shipping.

And tested by us as a precision attack weapon on land, but never used

Maenclochog Railway Tunnel — Experience Pembrokeshire

Originally Posted by Markintime

A smaller version was designed to be used against shipping but never deployed by us. Presumable the Germans would have used it against our shipping.

Highball, as I said, see:

Bouncing bomb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Note that Highball was developed in parallel with Upkeep:

While early prototypes dropped at Chesil Beach in December 1942 were forerunners for both versions of the bomb, those dropped at Chesil Beach in January and February 1943 and at Reculver in April 1943 included prototypes specifically for Highball.[28]

They might have been available to the RAF in the time frame I described in my earlier post (had there been the demand). Op Chastise needed to take place in May when the dams were fullest with the right moon, and 1944 would have been unacceptable, so it was not until ...

the end of May 1944, problems with releasing Highball had been resolved, as had problems with aiming, which required a different method to that for Upkeep, and were resolved by Wallis's design of a ring aperture sight fixed to a flying helmet.[40]

Lowered water levels would provide less hydraulic damping and directional detonation impact of the bomb so the result would most likely have been negligible to the structure but would have made a big splash . Now a couple of 4,000lb HC's might have made their eyes water.

As the original point of the thread was that Wallis wanted to disrupt rebuilding of the dams, not reflood the Ruhr valley, any follow-up op only needed to convince the Germans that we could destroy any dam we wanted, whenever we wanted, with any aeroplane of our choice. It did not need a full repeat of Chastise.

I believe that Highball was still 'Secret' and primarily intended as anti shipping weapon, Tirpitz being the juiciest potential target. A follow up raid by Mosquito and Highball would have let the cat out of bag as to Mosquito capability. I am not denying the impact of Mossie and 4k lb Cookies.

Navy wanted Chastise delayed until they could simultaneously use Highballs on Tirpitz. Good job that one got laughed out of court. Having demonstrated the principle used in Chastise, using Highball in a follow-up raid is hardly likely to come as much of a shock. Only using Highballs against German capital ships is going to tell the Germans that we could, but we didn't.

One point no-one's yet raised is target selection. 617 attacked 5 dams in total. The Monhe and Eder were breached. The Sorpe had damage done to its crest, but not enough to breech it. The Ennepe and Bever were not touched.

If a few more bombs were aimed at the Sorpe and that had been breached, the consequences for steel making would have been severe. There has always been a suspicion that some dams were attacked because they were vulnerable - not because they were of major importance to the German war effort.

From that point of view the most important dams to breech were the Mohne and Sorpe.

Wordsmith

Originally Posted by Wordsmith

The other German solution was tank destroyers - like the Jagdpanther.

Jagdpanther - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They were cheaper to build than tanks because they didn't have a revolving turret, generally mounted a bigger gun and were often more heavily armoured. My memory creaks a bit on this, but I think the Germans really cranked them out towards the end of the war because they were quicker to produce than tanks, and nearly as effective.

Wordsmith

They could turn out 3 Stugs based in a Pz3/4 chassis as compared to 2 normal tanks. But the selection they had would have been a nightmare
Hertzer/Marder 3 based on the Pz 38 which as a cezch design,
stugs/Brumbears based on Pz 3/4
Jadpathers
Jadtigers/Sturmtigers based on the King tiger chassis
Plus other designs that were either on paper or trials prototypes
Plus your other A/T platforms on tracks

As a side note as the war went on the Pz4's performance as a tank got worse due to supply issues as they were no longer fitted with electric motors to turn the turret and had to be cranked round by hand. I'm sure there were other things that were removed for getting them into action faster.

Originally Posted by Wordsmith

One point no-one's yet raised is target selection. 617 attacked 5 dams in total. The Monhe and Eder were breached. The Sorpe had damage done to its crest, but not enough to breech it. The Ennepe and Bever were not touched.

If a few more bombs were aimed at the Sorpe and that had been breached, the consequences for steel making would have been severe. There has always been a suspicion that some dams were attacked because they were vulnerable - not because they were of major importance to the German war effort.


From that point of view the most important dams to breech were the Mohne and Sorpe.

Wordsmith

9 Sqn went back to the Sorpe in 1944 with Tallboy and got a good number of hits, net result they moved a lot of soil around. The concrete wall was very well protected by the earth dam slopes, I don't think we could have touched it no matter how many Upkeep we threw at it.

Originally Posted by SUU23

9 Sqn went back to the Sorpe in 1944 with Tallboy and got a good number of hits, net result they moved a lot of soil around. The concrete wall was very well protected by the earth dam slopes, I don't think we could have touched it no matter how many Upkeep we threw at it.

Those para Engineers get everywhere!

Originally Posted by SUU23

9 Sqn went back to the Sorpe in 1944 with Tallboy and got a good number of hits, net result they moved a lot of soil around. The concrete wall was very well protected by the earth dam slopes, I don't think we could have touched it no matter how many Upkeep we threw at it.

Maybe so but Speer was worried that had the breach had gone 10 feet lower, the rush of water would have gradually widened the breach and caused the dam to fail. (I presume any Upkeep that blew a deeper hole would have cracked the concrete core, making it vulnerable to water pressure once the surrounding earth was washed away).

But my carping aside, breaching the Mohne and Sorpe still remains an astounding feat.

Wordsmith