Talk:Henschel Hs 293

Historical Accuracy

Under the variant heading this article states that the "Hs 293B was wire guided to prevent jamming; it was never put into production, because jamming was never serious enough to prevent the radio-guided version from being effective", but on the Wire-guided missile page it states that "Wire guidance was first employed by the Germans during World War II. Most of their developments used radio control, but as the British proved to be able to jam anything they used". These statements are clearly contradictory, does any one know which is accurate? Somearemoreequal 17:31, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

How did they do it

Does any one know precisely how the missiles were visually targetted and steered onto the target.

From the range I would have thought it would be impossible to judge the hieght above the see for a start, so did it drop down to a pre determined hieght above the sea?

Second, from such long distance, how on earth could the steerer be sure the missile was actually going towards the target? --86.142.2.92 18:05, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The article omits a number of details, but I'd assume that the bombardier would have had control of the bomb from a forward position in the bomber where he had a clear view of the bomb all the way to the target. If the bomb had a rocket booster, it would accelerate ahead of the bomber, then the bombardier would use the smoke from the flares or marker lights as a visual aid to steer the bomb to the target. Note that the article currently says the bomber was vulnerable after the drop, as it had to steer a straight course. This was no doubt for the benefit of the bombardier so he could visually track the bomb. If the bomb had been equipped with a television camera, this would not have been necessary: All that would have to be done is acquire the target on the television monitor, and once the bombardier had done so, he could have signaled the pilot that it was alright to peel off and leave the area while he continued to steer the bomb by television.—Quicksilver^{T @} 01:55, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Hs 293D

The article currently states that the HS 293D never was used in combat. I'm not sure this is true. I heard a story on a radio broadcast a few years ago that Germany successfully used a television guided glide bomb, perhaps the Hs 293D, in the Mediterranean and sank a fully-loaded Allied troop ship toward the end of World War II. In order to prevent damage to morale, the incident was classified top secret during the war and for many years thereafter. Sorry, I can't provide any references at the moment, but it might be worth researching.—Quicksilver^{T @} 01:05, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I have researched it and found no such evidence. You are probably referring to the loss of the HMT Rohna in November 1943. It was claimed for some time that this was kept secret. This is not true. In fact, it was discussed openly and was reported by The New York Times (identifying the ship by name and the loss of 1,015 US troops) in early 1945. Mjbollinger (talk) 17:50, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Weight, Kopfring, other problems.

I can see a number of issues with this article that will have to be addressed someday, but for the moment these things are bothering me:

It mentions this "Kopfring" at least twice in the article, once in the photo caption, and once in the text:

  "The weapon consisted of a modified standard 500 kilogram SC 500 bomb[3] with an added "Kopfring" on the nose for maritime use,[4] with a thin metal shell and a high explosive charge inside, equipped with a rocket engine under the bomb, a pair of wings, and an MCLOS guidance and control system"

What does that even mean? Is it the Kopfring that has a "thin metal shell and high explosive inside", or are those further features of the Hs 293? Why bother mentioning the "Kopfring" unless you can tell the reader what it is. I don't need to know that it had one if I had no idea what purpose it served (FYI, a kopfring is a device fitted to a bombs nose cone to minimize penetration, i.e. to keep it from burying itself deeply in dirt or plunging far below the water before the fuse detonates the warhead). As for the description of the H2 293 as "having a thin metal shell with high explosive inside", that is way too simplistic. It was separated into several sections; guidance, warhead, etc. An Hs 293 is 12 feet long; if the entire thing was full of explosive, it would be a like an 8,000lb bomb. So what's in the rest of the fuselage?

Speaking of weight of explosives, it says here that it's a "modified SC 500 bomb". As you may know, the number "500" stands for "500 kilograms", just like other German bombs (SC 50, 250, 500, 1000, etc). So if it's an SC 500, then why does it say that the warhead is "295 kilograms" in the info box? Which is it, 500 or 295? Perhaps it's referring to the actual explosive content of the warhead? I know a certain amount of a bombs weight comes from the metal casing, fuse and fins, but 200kg seems quite excessive too me (and judging by the volume occupied by explosive in the Hs 293...the entire nose section back to the wing spar), it's got to be at least 500kg.

Also, I could have sworn I brought this up at one point, but I don't see it now: it's not a guided missile. It's a glide bomb, with a short initial boost phase. A boosted glide bomb, if you like. Perhaps if the rocket motor was even integral with the fuselage, you could argue that it qualified as a missile, but as it is, it's a glide bomb with a booster strapped to it's belly. It would work just fine with or without the rocket motor, the motor simply acted as a range extender, but was not required. A missile cannot function without its motor..45Colt 01:35, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

This is all basic stuff. Why not simply add and clarify it? There is hardly anything to debate.

The kopfring was a standard fitting to the heavier SC bombs. It was frequently present as standard, even when not needed. It (usually) increases penetration, by avoiding ricochet. This is needed for bombs rather than the faster artillery shells, which gain the same effect from the crushing of their soft ballistic caps and so allowing the penetrator beneath to travel axially, thus pierce armour. Kopfring were even a notable feature of the larger US nukes, as these could survive an end-on impact but not the sideways forces of a bounce or ricochet.

An SC 500 is a moderately heavy cased weapon of 500 kg overall. The fill weight is only (from memory) something like 60% of this.

The Hs293 is a missile. It has thrust, it has guidance. It has a boost phase, then a coast phase. This is entirely usual for missiles other than anti-aircraft missiles required to manouevre to the very last. Even some of those (Fireflash, Starstreak) have a coast phase. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:52, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Just going back to the Kopfring after 3 years. The article mentions it is used to help ensure a relatively perpendicular axis of impact, but I can't find this mentioned anywhere in the source. On page 3 of the source it mentions Kopfrings are sometimes fitted to the nose of SC bombs to prevent excessive penetration against land targets and to prevent ricochet against sea targets.. This makes slightly more sense ... not sure if it means roughly the same thing though? LÒÓkingYourBest^(Talk|Edits) 16:35, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

• The two uses are totally separate. Land-attack bombs vs. anti-ship bombs had different needs. The Hs293 though was only ever used against armour (albeit sometimes thin) rather than deep earth.

Against armour, the goal is to penetrate it before exploding. This is done by arranging the impact to be perpendicular. A shallow, glancing impact will bounce clean off, but that's a targeting problem. In most cases, the impact is somewhere between glancing and perfectly perpendicular. In this case, the kopfring is used so that it that impacts before the nose does, the projectile will tend to be turned into the plate, closer to perpendicular (catching the kopfring first produces a torque aroun the centre of mass).

Against earth targets, the kopfring was used for the 1000 kg Hermans. It acted as a simple drag brake. A problem with these larger bombs was that they tended to dig themselves too deep, thus limiting their surface horizontal blast radius (the V-2 had the same problem). Although nowadays we sometimes focus on deep-penetrating 'bunker busters', those are specialised, have armour-piercing thick cases, and are used against particular targets. The SC 1000 was just a general purpose blast bomb, albeit a large one, similar to the RAF 4,000 lb 'Cookie'. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:48, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

That's a superb explanation. Thank you very much for taking time to reply. New thing every day and all that! LÒÓkingYourBest^(Talk|Edits) 11:53, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Bipropellant

Although this is a cold cycle hydrogen peroxide rocket (often considered as a monopropellant), rather than the hot cycle hydrogen peroxide cycle, where kerosene is added as a fuel, these early German engines are bipropellants. They use T-Stoff as the main propellant, but they decompose this with a mixture of permanganate Z-Stoff, rather than over a non-consumable silver or nickel catalyst. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:40, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Restore Kehl-Straßburg

The (incorrectly named) Kehl-Strasbourg radio control link and almost unsourced article was recently split (undiscussed) from here. It should be restored. The split improves nothing. The separate topic has no independent existence away from the Hs 293. Coverage of the topic was not improved by this split. Much of the split article covers the electronic countermeasures against it, which only happen in the broader context of the missile. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:20, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose (obviously...) The system was not used solely by the Hs 293, as the new page clearly says. It was also used by Fritz X. That alone justifies a new page, since it's not exclusive to Hs 293. The countermeasures work against the radio link, not the missile itself, so I don't see the complaint. As for "undiscussed", since when does moving off-topic material need your approval? TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 23:24, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose definitely! Both the Henschel rocket-boosted anti-ship ordnance, and the pioneering Fritz X gravity-propulsion armored PGM, used the Kehl-Straßurg RC system for their control. The two ordnance designs that used it did implement somewhat differing methods of aerodynamic control operated by the Kehl-Straßurg RC system on each ordnance design, already detailed in each ordnance item's article page, but that does not change the fact that the two specified ordnance designs DID use it.

The PIPE (talk) 14:12, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Guided bomb BHT-38

Hello could someone investigate on connection with the BHT-38 guided bomb guidance system?
This gliding guided bomb was conceived By Maurice Hurel and Jean Turck and build in France around 1938-1940. Later, in 1943 after his evasion from France Turck was contacted to build jamming devices in London.
Reported in "History of Rocketry and Astronautics, AAS History series Vol 28" pages 76-77 and on a few French sites. Only one picture of the bomb is available, on the same site it is mentioned that Vichy government sent the bomb design to the Germans but didn't gives any source, note that one other site mention that the SAT facilities in Paris were occupied by the Germans. —mahn94 —Preceding undated comment added 12:45, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

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