Posted on 12/10/2017 10:39:26 PM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
When most people think of the military using drones, they think of the remote controlled “pilot-less” terrors from the skies that are currently wreaking havoc on ISIS. However, the U.S. military drone attacks can trace their genesis all the way back to World War II.
World War II created a lot of unconventional weapons used by both sides of the conflict. So, when the U.S. commissioned the Interstate Aircraft company to create a remote-controlled bomber that could carry a 1,000-pound bomb, the company was more than happy to oblige.
The TDR-1 was the result of this commission.
This aircraft, by today’s standards, would be considered an “optionally manned” aircraft, as the cockpit was removable so it could be flown by a human pilot if needed.
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Two other big-name companies at the time also had a hand in creating this state-of-the-art piece of machinery. According to Popular Mechanics, “The aircraft was made with pressed wood from Wurlitzer, the music organ company, and the body was made with metal tubes supplied by Schwinn, the bicycle company. Although that sounds unusual, it was par for the course in a time when companies that made parking meters switched to rifles and car manufacturers built tanks.”
Pretty amazing. How did the drone work?
Unlike today’s drones, where the pilot would be on the ground while flying the craft, the pilot flying the TDR-1 was actually up in the skies with the drone. Air and Space Magazine describes it further:
“[The TDR-1] was designed to be flown via radio-control by a pilot in a TBM Avenger torpedo bomber accompanying the drone.”
In order for this to happen, a camera was installed in the nose of the drone and “transmitted images back to a five-inch screen mounted in the Avenger’s rear cockpit.” Did the TDR-1 see action?
The TDR-1 made its debut in 1944 for a test run, and it impressed the top brass so much that they immediately ordered it for combat.
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On Sept. 27, 1944, the TDR-1 took off to the island of Bougainville with a Japanese gun installation in its sights. Four TDR-1 drones left carrying 2,000 pound bombs, and were fully expected to wreak havoc on the Japanese.
However, only one of the four drones ended up making it to the target, but fulfilled its mission by “crashing directly into the gun position and exploding.”
The TDR-1 continued to fly over the next month, but was eventually grounded despite having multiple successes.
Today, you can see the only available TDR-1 left hanging in the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida.
The drone might have been ahead of its time, but the TDR-1 most certainly left a lasting impact on our military — and now, our men and women in the military are continuing to carry on its legacy in the skies.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RQcUtzAe98
If we had constructed a next-generation version of this in 1960, and sent waves of them against Hanoi (controlled by men in B-52s well behind and out of reach of SAMs) we could have brought the North to their knees, and not have so many of our men at the Hanoi Hilton
The Germans already had these. And used in combat sinking a few troop US transports in the Mediterranean with great effect.
Our leaders never really wanted to win that war. How we got roped into trying to protect french assets thee I will never quite understand. Probably drugs or stupid crap like that.
Most Americans have never heard of the HMT Rohna and what happened on that fateful day of November 26, 1943.
On November 25, 1943 at Oran, Algeria, Howard boarded the Rohna headed for the China-Burma-India theater. Destination was Port Said, Egypt. There was a crew of 195, along with 1,981 American troops and 7 Red Cross personnel. The Rohna sailed along with four other ships and joined a convoy that same day; she was the second ship in the port column, for a total of 24 ships. The following day the USS Pioneer joined the convoy. According to 2nd Officer Wills of the Rohna, there were no warnings of enemy aircraft received.
Before dawn on November 27th a German HS293 glider bomb was dropped by a Henkel 177 bomber which hit the Rohna. The device blew open a huge hole near the after end of the engine room and the No. 6 troop’s deck. Hundreds died upon impact. After the explosion that destroyed the Engine Room, the ship was engulfed in flames and started to sink. It was impossible to lower the lifeboats on the portside due to the side plates forced outwards by the explosion. Many of the lifeboats on the starboard side were lowered but were soon capsized because of the hundreds of troops that were already in the water and trying to climb into them. Others perished from cold and exhaustion while darkness and rough seas hampered rescue efforts. A total of 1,015 American troops, 3 Red Cross personnel, and 120 crewmen perished.
Stories were told of desertion of the Indian crew, equipment failures, and the deplorable condition of the lifeboats and rafts. Then there were the cold waters of the Mediterranean Sea, the darkness and the heavy seas, which made the rescue operations difficult. The United States, British, and French rescue ships worked courageously to save the passengers and crew who made it off the Rohna. One U.S. ship, the USS Pioneer, picked up 606 survivors.
The HMT Rohna was the first transport ship carrying U.S. troops to be sunk during World War II. Also, two important but unknown historical events occurred at that time. It was the first successful “hit” of a merchant vessel at-sea carrying US troops by a German remote-controlled, rocket-boosted bomb, and it resulted in the greatest loss of troops at sea in U.S. history.
It was so devastating that the U.S. Government placed a veil of secrecy upon it. The events which followed, were so shameful that the secrecy continued for decades until recently, when documents were released under pressure of the Freedom of Information Act.
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wijuneau/OlsonHowardRohna.htm
How we got the A Bomb before the Germans did is beyond me. Divine intervention or there really are aliens at Area 51 are my first two guesses. Glider bombs (Smart munitions) and R/C mini-tanks (Battlefield drones). I mean really, I had no idea. Just WOW.
Ha! My Father was very involved with this project. He was the one who suggested the tv cameras, At that time, he was working with Edgerton on supersonics at the NACA, now NASA,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1740299/
You guys need to watch this show. Its based on the premise the Axis won and what present day would be like. (I think it underestimates the Nazis. Today we would be mining asteroids with slave labor.)
>How we got the A Bomb before the Germans did is beyond me. Divine intervention or there really are aliens at Area 51 are my first two guesses. Glider bombs (Smart munitions) and R/C mini-tanks (Battlefield drones). I mean really, I had no idea. Just WOW.
Germany couldn’t afford the costs of the A-Bomb project. Having 10 times the brainpower helped too.
“we could have brought the North to their knees”
We did! We won each and ever major battle in Vietnam. We lost over 50,000 men and won the war and gave it away due to politics in Washington DC and the media that lied about the war day after day.
There is not a corner of hell hot enough for the souls of LBJ and Robert S McNamara to rest in eternity and may the hells of fire become even hotter for them.
Circa 1968 I last saw my friend Charles McMann outside his dorm room on the balcony. A year later he was dead in Vietnam. His army won the battles but his lose of life was but for naught as we gave it all away in Washington DC.
If one must go to war the objective must be defined. All hell must be released on your enemy. Many civilians will be killed and they are not innocent as they are part of the war machine you are fighting. They are not innocent with the exception of the the young. They are the real tragedy of war. All else is a legitimate target of war to destroy the enemy. I pray for the young that are killed. They were the innocent and no others were.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were actions of terror and it worked. Japan surrendered. If we were to take Japan by conventional warfare our causalities would have been in the hundreds of thousands. Japans casualities would have been in the millions, we owned he air, we had the aircraft, we had the bombers and they had few.
The atomic bomb saved Japan as a functioning society. They surrendered. If not for the atomic bomb we would have symptomatically destroyed them from the air and later with troops on the ground. Our losses would have been grave, our revenge for these losses would have been horrific beyond belief, just think Okinawa, we defeated them and when they retreated into the caves we burned them out with flame throwers. They had killed many of us, we killed many times more of them. If we had needed to invade Japan in an convention manner it would have mad Atilla the Hun look like a boy scout.
War is an ugly vile disease. If one must go to war it should be only be done if ones nation is at stake. If such is so it should be prosecuted with extreme violence and death. If one has this war philosophy and your enemy knows this, war is often avoided.
War is ugly, ugly,ugly and it supposed to be ugly. If it is not ugly and deadly it is naught but politics that sacrifice the blood of our country.
We must always make war ugly violent and deadly so as such we do not need to go to war. Our enemies must fear us. If our enemies do not fear us, they will attack us.
German anti-Semitism had something to do with it.
Here is a 1939 letter to FDR from one Jewish immigrant refugee:
Mark
Here it was in 2006, at the Berlin Air Show:
JFK's older brother Joe, Jr. was killed in Operation Aphrodite. From the Wikipedia:
Old Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers were stripped of all normal combat armament and all other non-essential gear (armor, guns, bomb racks, transceiver, seats, etc.), relieving about 12,000 lb (5,400 kg) of weight. To allow easier exit when the pilot and co-pilot were to parachute out, the canopy was removed. Azon[9] radio remote-control equipment was added, with two television cameras fitted in the cockpit to allow a view of both the ground and the main instrumentation panel to be transmitted back to an accompanying CQ-17 'mothership'.
The drone was loaded with explosives weighing more than twice that of a B-17's normal bomb payload. The British Torpex used for the purpose was itself 50% more powerful than TNT.
A relatively remote location in Norfolk, RAF Fersfield, was the launch site. Initially, RAF Woodbridge had been selected for its long runway, but the possibility of a damaged aircraft that diverted to Woodbridge for landings colliding with a loaded drone caused concerns. The remote control system was insufficient for safe takeoff, so each drone was taken aloft by a volunteer pilot and a volunteer flight engineer to an altitude of 2,000 ft (600 m) for transfer of control to the CQ-17 operators. After successful turnover of control of the drone, the two-man crew would arm the payload and parachute out of the cockpit. The 'mothership' would then direct the missile to the target.
When the training program was complete, the 562nd Squadron had ten drones and four "motherships".
Joe Kennedy was piloting one of those missions when something went wrong, and his drone exploded before he and his flight engineer LT Wilford J Willy could bail out of it. Read about it here.
Frankly, there is no reason to continue the production of piloted aircraft.
The British were developing pilotless aircraft like the Larynx and the Fairey Queen shortly after WWI. I have noticed that in both world wars the Allies were often taken by surprise after encountering German technology which was actually based on earlier developments (radio/remote control, interruptor gear, oblique gun mountings, etc), often originating in those allied nations.
Well, for a start, our industrial base was massively larger than Germany's, we had more money straight out than they did, we had more and diverse universities, and oh yeah, they robbed from, persecuted, drove out, assaulted, and eventually terrified and murdered people and the families of people who might have been able to actually help them make a working bomb.
Besides THAT, I wonder too!
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