Chad Irby wrote:

In article ,
Charles Gray wrote:


The U.S. had a radar guided missile called BAT deployed towards the
end of WWII. The source material I've read claim that it sank a
Japanese DD, as well as hitting a bridge and it had a ragne of about
20 MI.
Forgive me for being suspicious, but that seems like *incredible*
performance for a radar guided weapon in WWII, given that I doubt many
homing radar missiles of the 1960's coudl be used both on bridges and
ships, to say nothing of a 1945 missile.
Does anyone have any more information about it, and more
importantly, why if it existed, did the Russians beat us to the punch
with the Styx?


The Bat was really an unpowered glide bomb, but did have about a 20 mile
max range, and was radar-guided. If you're talking about hitting a
single ship in the middle of the ocean, or a large bridge, it's pretty
easy to manage.

http://www.nasm.edu/nasm/dsh/artifacts/RM-bat.htm

The SS-N-2 Styx came much, much later (almost 20 years). A lot of other
folks had build glide bombs of different types, as well as rockets.

"Beat to the punch?" Nope, although the SS-N-2 was a pretty good
missile for the time, and somewhat of a surprise.

What was the bomb used in the CBI to take out bridges (the River Kwei
bridge amongst them)?

It was originally developed with a TV camera in its nose but that
made for a bomb without enough explosive power to do much damage
(because the TV took up too much space and weight).

It had radio control fins on it, and a flare that allowed the bombardier
to see and steer the bomb to its target.

Quite effective. Why weren't they used in ETO? Too late?


SMH