Name This...(315 Special Edation)

[Brady]

???

[von Murrin]

USS Savannah during Salerno invasion.

Edit: After invasion. She was hit by some sort of radio controlled bomb I think. That's what the hole in the turret roof is.

[stubby331]

ORIGINAL: von Murrin

USS Savannah during Salerno invasion.

Edit: After invasion. She was hit by some sort of radio controlled bomb I think. That's what the hole in the turret roof is.

Damn

The poor buggers who were in there when it hit. How far into the ship did it penetrate?

Not too far I guess cause its still there....

[von Murrin]

It went far enough to blast a hole outward through the hull. There exists a dramatic photo of the blast itself which clearly shows the hull penetration via debris.

[von Murrin]

Here's the photo of the hit:

[ChezDaJez]

Wow, that must have penetrated to the bottom of the turret well before exploding. Damn lucky the mags didn't go.
Sure didn't look that bad from the 1st photo.

Chez

[Tiornu]

The bomb penetrated not just to the bottom of the turret but to the bottom of the ship. It is generally accepted that the act of blowing out the ship's bottom actually prevented Savannah's loss as the influx of water prevented a magazine explosion. That photo has always chilled me, showing the simultaneously eruption of smoke atop the turret and blast from beneath the hull. That Fritz X was one nasty weapon.

[Tiornu]

Here, I've never uploaded a picture before, but I have a drawing of Savannah's damage. Let me see if I can do this right....

[von Murrin]

Wow. You are, as always, a wealth of information.[:)]

[ChezDaJez]

I had to look up some specs on the Fritz X because I wasn't too familiar with it. Here's what I found.

Weight: 1570kg (3454lbs)
Warhead: 320kg (704lbs)
Speed: gravity bomb approachiing speed of sound at impact
Platform: Most commonly launched from DO-217s
Guidance: originally wire guided, changed to radio guidance because of flight limitations due to the wire.

The same source states that 2 Fritz X bombs struck the Italian BB Roma and blew her in half. HMS Warspite was also hit with one and had to be towed back to port.

Savannah's very fortunate to not have ben sunk.

Chez

[tonyingesson]

Great stuff! Most interesting.

[&o]

[steveh11Matrix]

But, sadly, just about impossible to model in WitP...

[tsimmonds]

The first PGM. Look where that entry hole is: dead center.

[Twotribes]

Those life rafts have no room for people in them )

[Cap Mandrake]

Fascinating post Tiornu. I wonder if the turret crew survived. I suspect the ammo handlers down below had no chance.

USS Savannah played a big role in stopping the German attack toward the VI Corps beachead.

HMS Warspite was hit or near missed by 3 or 4 glide bombs and had to be towed.

A hospital ship was also hit...cant remember the name.

[grossmetzger]

here´s a pic of the "ruhrstahl x-1" or "fritz-x" as the bomb was called by the crew.

[Tiornu]

I am sad to say that the entire turret III and barbette crew were killed. There were a total of 197 fatalities. Among the survivors were four fellows stuck in a watertight compartment for 60 hours. Rescuers finally got to them only when Savannah had reached Valletta.
As far as I have found, the FX-1400 never encountered an armor plate in combat that it failed to penetrate. The hit on Warspite, as I recall, exploded inside the double bottom. The effects on Roma are well known. Uganda was also hit, but I don't have details on that.
This is an example of a weapon that went from fearsome status to non-factor as simple radio countermeasures were extremely successful.

[Brady]

USS Savannah, it is[:)]



............................

Cool post Tiornu[:)]

[Apollo11]

HI all,

ORIGINAL: Tiornu

As far as I have found, the FX-1400 never encountered an armor plate in combat that it failed to penetrate. The hit on Warspite, as I recall, exploded inside the double bottom. The effects on Roma are well known. Uganda was also hit, but I don't have details on that.

This is an example of a weapon that went from fearsome status to non-factor as simple radio countermeasures were extremely successful.

Great info (as always) - thanks!

The "Fritz-X" allays fascinated me as a weapon - strange enough that Allies didn't try to emulate it into primitive guided bombs of their own (the first mention of combat usage of US guided bombs, as far as I know, are against some North Vietnamese bridge in 1960's - which is 20+ years later)...


BTW, how many such weapons were launched (and how many hits where there)?

Did Germans see that Allied radio countermeasures worked and what they did to counter it (and did they try to revert to wire guidance)?


Leo "Apollo11"


P.S.
Great picture for non-picture man... [;)]

[Cap Mandrake]

The picture does inspire awe, but it is tempered by the knowledge that it is the instant of death of dozens of US sailors.

It is amazes me that anyone could hit a target with a glide bomb via radio or wire control without a nose camera or a computer allowing the operator to simply point a targeting device at the target, permiting the computer to send orders to the defelection vanes on the bomb.

If I understand this correctly, the operator simply flew this thing like a high subsonic radio control aircraft from 20,000 + feet.