Hs293, Hs294 and the IJN

[BletchleyGeek]

Hi,

I was reading about the failed attempts at "technology transfers" from Nazi Germany to IJ, and the following "what-if" tickled my mind: what if the Third Reich had sent an U-234-like (http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 10&t=48994) mission in late 1942 or early 1943 and it had successfully arrived at the Home Islands? How effective would have been, say, a couple of modified G4M2 air-groups, trained and equipped with Japanese versions of the Hs 293 in a late war battle like the Marianas/First Philippine Sea?

Looking at the editor, I've been looking at the Ohka Database entry - the Japanese solution to the problem of guided missiles is, let's say, rather crude - and before creating my own version of the Marianas scenario I would like to ask the community over here if someone has thought of it before/done it before, either for AE or WITP. Or how interesting would that be - from a historical simulation studies I think it's rather interesting.

Disclaimer: This is not about how to mod the game to get a comic-book-esque "Nippon on steroids" but to explore a plausible alternate course of history.

[chesmart]

Cid used them in RHS, Nemo used them as well both for WITP but in AE they work better.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: che200
Cid used them in RHS, Nemo used them as well both for WITP but in AE they work better.

"Nemo" as in "Nemo121"? I will do some searches on the forums.

Thank you!

[chesmart]

Yes Nemo121 if you search in WITP forums and search for "empires ablaze" you will find Nemos Mod.

Then there EL CID he did a series of scenarios which were called RHS.

[chesmart]

I am doing a Mod as well, with German Aircraft , Ships , Subs and Tanks. I will be using them with He-111 as launching platforms. I am still collecting Info for now but when Patch 3 is finalised and Juan upgrades his mod I will be starting it. ETA 2 weeks after Patch 3

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: che200
I am doing a Mod as well, with German Aircraft , Ships , Subs and Tanks. I will be using them with He-111 as launching platforms. I am still collecting Info for now but when Patch 3 is finalised and Juan upgrades his mod I will be starting it. ETA 2 weeks after Patch 3

Thanks a lot for the pointers che, I just found about Empires Ablaze mod after struggling a bit with the Forum's search engine interface. I wonder whether WITP scenarios can be read from the AE editor - I guess I will find out in the next few minutes

Your mod's idea sounds to me interesting but perhaps a bit too whacky for PBEM - sounds a bit like "Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe in the Pacific". Limiting oneself to introduce the Q1W1 twin-motor bomber mentioned by Nemo looks to me less outlandish...

My idea is to work on JuanG Enhanced CV scen as well - that's a very fine and plausible alternate history mod for AE. And since the Allies also had their own plane guided missile program - Gargoyle, Azon, etc. - that opens up a very exciting late war scenario, with both sides handpicking elite pilots to form up these "Special Weapons" squadrons.

[chesmart]

My Mod will be Vs AI thats why I am putting all these ships , You have to help him as much as you can.

[trojan58]

Hi,

I would suggest that if you are planning to include the Hs293 and similar guided weapons that the logical choice as a carrier would be the Do217 E-5 or Do 217 K. These aircraft were designed to carry the Hs293 and FritzX guided bombs. They are both somewhat faster and better armed than the He111H and this increases the survivability of the A/C.

I would be interested in seeing the stats for the weapons and Aircraft


Ta

[Dili]

Hs293 were usually launched from Fw200,He177 and like trojan says Do217E/K. For FritzX anti armored ship guided bomb only Do-217K.

[chesmart]

Thanks will use the correct aircraft

[Nemo121]

Bletchley,

I wouldn't use the Q1W1... An utter failure in Japan's service and underpowered to boot.

I wouldn't go for the 217 either as, compared to what Japan was looking for, the 217 has an utterly insufficient range.


No, if Japan were going to have some very rare Hs-293s or Fritz-Xs then I think you are looking at modified Bettys for the low-armour piercing version and something very different for the armour-piercing ( anti-BB in Japanese thinking ) version.

I ended up going with a variant of the Me-264 for my "Combined Hs-293/Fritz-X" carrier and I think it worked out well. If you were looking for a Fritz X carrier then I think you could go for a slightly scaled down Me-264... an Me- 198 (3/4 scale ) or so.

In my mod I made the 264/G9M series of bombers expensive by reuquiring each to have 6 engines. I think that in AE you would need to mod an Me-198 to have a service rating of about 4 and 6 engines to account for the difficulty in producing them and the difficulty keeping them in service.

With that said if you could launch 27 Ki-198s each carrying 2 Fritz-Xs out to long range you would be able to hit Allied shipping with 54 bombs, each of which relies on the naval attack skill of the bomber pilot ( so possibility of very high hit % if you cherry-pick pilots for this group ), each of which would be capable of seriously damaging a BB with a single hit, sending out of the battle with 2 and possibly sinking it with 3. That's a pretty potent punch.

Take the torps out of H8K2s mid-43 or early 44 and replace them with an H8K2 variant with HS-293s and suddenly the IJN patrol groups are potent ship-killers on naval search also.

The key is to test this with 1000s of in-game attacks as you WILL need to tweak accuracy to get anything resembling historical rates. Pilot experience on its own won't give you historical hit rates at all.

[Dili]

Hs 293 missile weren't armor piercing they had a warhead like a GP bomb, Fritz X were armor piercing guided bomb and should be launched at 20000ft to have all penetrating power, they were also much heavier than Hs 293 and because of that they were employed by the 217-K which had a better engine.

[chesmart]

Edited mistaken post

[mikemike]

Both the Hs293 and the Fritz-X used radio-command guidance, which was somewhat prone to jamming, so the Luftwaffe had wire-guidance kits developed for both weapons (with 30 km of wire for the Hs293 and 8 km for the Fritz-X). They attained operational capability, but were never used as the Luftwaffe decommissioned the weapons in the autumn of 1944 due to the vulnerability of the launch planes in the face of allied air superiority. A TV guidance kit for the Hs293 demonstrated that the missile could be controlled at distances of up to 150 km from the guidance plane, but came too late for operational use.

[BletchleyGeek]

Hey, thank you Nemo This was quite an answer

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

Bletchley,

I wouldn't use the Q1W1... An utter failure in Japan's service and underpowered to boot.

I wouldn't go for the 217 either as, compared to what Japan was looking for, the 217 has an utterly insufficient range.

No, if Japan were going to have some very rare Hs-293s or Fritz-Xs then I think you are looking at modified Bettys for the low-armour piercing version and something very different for the armour-piercing ( anti-BB in Japanese thinking ) version.

I ended up going with a variant of the Me-264 for my "Combined Hs-293/Fritz-X" carrier and I think it worked out well. If you were looking for a Fritz X carrier then I think you could go for a slightly scaled down Me-264... an Me- 198 (3/4 scale ) or so.

In my mod I made the 264/G9M series of bombers expensive by reuquiring each to have 6 engines. I think that in AE you would need to mod an Me-198 to have a service rating of about 4 and 6 engines to account for the difficulty in producing them and the difficulty keeping them in service.

With that said if you could launch 27 Ki-198s each carrying 2 Fritz-Xs out to long range you would be able to hit Allied shipping with 54 bombs, each of which relies on the naval attack skill of the bomber pilot ( so possibility of very high hit % if you cherry-pick pilots for this group ), each of which would be capable of seriously damaging a BB with a single hit, sending out of the battle with 2 and possibly sinking it with 3. That's a pretty potent punch.

Take the torps out of H8K2s mid-43 or early 44 and replace them with an H8K2 variant with HS-293s and suddenly the IJN patrol groups are potent ship-killers on naval search also.

The key is to test this with 1000s of in-game attacks as you WILL need to tweak accuracy to get anything resembling historical rates. Pilot experience on its own won't give you historical hit rates at all.

I will need to process further this post for a while, let me wrap up:

* Hs293 and its hypothetical sibling the Hs294: launched from suitably modified Betties and H8K2s. I like this concept a lot, your suggestion to mod the H8K2 has a "P3 Orion"-like flavor I find very interesting. I need to check the service ratings for the original versions, but I feel that the relatively high-tech equipment involving the Henschel missiles would require the service ratings to be upped a bit. IJ players using them should be careful to deploy these air-groups in well-supplied and supported bases - which adds some micro-management but keeps things sensible.

* A hypothetical Ki-198 (derived from the Me-264), a 6E naval bomber able to carry two Fritzes. It also makes a lot of sense.

I had been considering myself two different classes, each armed with one single Fritz, inspired by the He177 and He274:
-> A short-range (6-8 hexes) 2E armored hypothetical bomber, night-attack capable. This would be quite a departure from the IJN doctrine I think, and I am not sure that AE engine allows air night-attacks on ships (I mean by this that I have yet to see such an attack in-game).
-> A longer range (14-16 hexes) 4E bomber.

They definitely would pack less of a punch, but their chances of surviving long enough to launch their stuff should be far greater.

Tweaking accuracy will indeed take some simulations, I had thought to start working on an Acc of 60 or so for the Hs293/4 and 80 for the Fritz - I am sure I will have to tone down that but I want to have some fun doing those simulations

Where I haven't got a clear idea about what to do is regarding Penetration. I saw the Ohka having a 1500mm penetration power which I assume to be "0 degrees penetration" - which sort of fits well some of the narratives describing its effects. What about the Fritz? One of those little things obliterated an awesome Battleship such as the Roma and almost break in two Warspite at Salerno. And the Hs293? I think I will start with 1500mm for the Fritz and 300mm for the Hs293...

Again, many thanks Nemo for your insightful advice!

[Odin]

Tweaking accuracy will indeed take some simulations, I had thought to start working on an Acc of 60 or so for the Hs293/4 and 80 for the Fritz - I am sure I will have to tone down that but I want to have some fun doing those simulations

Did that really work?

Some years ago i tried to create this weapons for a fun screnario, but even using 100 Acc hadn´t worked, as i remember..

[Odin]

Wanna watch?[:D]
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyHZw92TbNU

[Dili]

One of those little things obliterated an awesome Battleship such as the Roma

Two hit Roma another hit former Littorio(at time renamed Italia since fascist Government had fallen).

For my suspended Mediterranean Mod : 269mm penetration 2657 effect 1km range for FritzX and 86mm 768 effect 4km range for Hs293. 25 dud rate accuracy 76

This doesn't take in account how WITP works so it was just a baseline to be further changed.

[chesmart]

Hi Dilli ,

         I would like to use some artwork and data from your Mod is it ok?

[Nemo121]

Bletchley,

As re: Ki-198 ( 198 is 3/4 of 264 --- just a little amusement on my part )... I don't think it should be represented as having six engines in art etc... 6 engines would just be a data-driven measure designed to increase the cost of production to 12 x 18 = 216 HI PER plane. So, if you made 60 per month you would actually use an entire day's HI for the entire country of Japan to produce just these 60 planes.

Remember that the game doesn't care what number is beside the device type designating engine type. That exists only to calculate production cost. This was why I was able to mod the Ki-115 into a single slot with no engines ( thus halving its production cost from 36 to 18 HI ) and also enable to be both land and carrier-based and also float-based. You have to divorce the reality of the plane from the data you enter. A slavish concordance between data and reality will block off interesting avenues of tactical/technical characteristic modelling.

Fritz X wouldn't have been anywhere near 1500mm. That's a massively excessive penetration. The Ohka was functionally extremely different to a glide bomb in terms of terminal KE and armour-piercing design. If you want and you give me 1 day or two I can get you some reasonable performance characteristics for the Fritz X and Hs293.


For now though Dili's data is pretty close based on what I remember from memory.


Interestingly though might Japan not just be much better to go for a Ki-198 and put 2 Ohkas on it... It is much easier to train a pilot to fly a plane into a target than create all of the necessary radio optics etc etc. Optics can be jammed, a pilot's eyes can't be. The main problem with the Ohka was that so few planes survived to actually launch. If you had a much more survivable mother craft then the Ohka might be much more effective.