rockets fired from flying boats?

robinbird

robinbird

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MAEE RAF Helensburgh in 1943 tested firing rockets from Catalina FP159 which damaged the Catalina's fuselage. Subsequent trials firing rockets from under the wings of a Short Sunderland were more successful. Does anyone know if flying boats armed with rockets were used operationally?
 
I wonder if this is the retro bomb codename Mousetrap. This was a rocket powered Hedhehog which fired aft to negate the forward motion of the aircraft - allowed for an instantaneous reaction to a MAD "hit" on a submerged submarine. Early operational use was from PBYs. More here at: https://www.navalhistory.org/2019/10/08/the-retro-bomb
 
thank you both for the feedback and cross ref to Halifax. Retro bomb trials were separate from MAEE's rocket trials which were carried in four under each wing. It would seem that rockets fired from the Halifax also caused damage to the aircraft. Incidentally I have much on MAD as dad was the photographer in the aircraft used for MAD trials, Catalina FP258/G Guard at all times. Mad was fitted by cone to the tail, or towed in a container through the water.
 
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Does that Russian 'Ekranoplan' design with its inclined rows of 'ship-killer' launchers qualify ??
 
Mark Nankivil said:
I wonder if this is the retro bomb codename Mousetrap. This was a rocket powered Hedhehog which fired aft to negate the forward motion of the aircraft - allowed for an instantaneous reaction to a MAD "hit" on a submerged submarine. Early operational use was from PBYs. More here at: https://www.navalhistory.org/2019/10/08/the-retro-bomb
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Thanks for citing my article. Mousetrap was a different weapon from the Retrobomb. It used a different rocket motor entirely. Mousetrap was fitted in four round launchers to surface ships and craft as a lighweight alternative to Hedgehog.

1640726851651.png

That's the Mousetrap launcher. It was largely abandoned after some testing on destroyers with the Atlantic Fleet but retained in use on some subchasers and PT boats.

Hedgehog bombs were also improvised for aerial release from OS2U Kingfisher aircraft of some Inshore Patrol Squadrons as shown here:

1640727000819.png

Those are not Mousetrap but rather Hedgehog bombs, 5 weighing about the same as the 325 lbs. depth charge bomb on the other wing. If they were Mousetrap, they'd require an ignition circuit that isn't shown on close ups of this arrangement.
 
Frances McLaren, now sadly deceased, took part in rocket trials conducted by the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment. She was a young scientific officer and sat in the co-pilot's seat of the Sunderland to observe. Later she said the Sunderland wings had stress marks underneath near the firing points. So it looks like rocket trials both with a Catalina and a Sunderland, on reflection, were not successful.
 
Interesting especially as the MBR-2 was obsolete by 1941. Maybe we were testing more powerful rockets
 
Although I can't find any photos of it, PBY Catalina flying out of Cape May NJ were used to carry Gorgon missiles for testing from time to time, including one that launched a Gorgon IIA AAM at a target drone on May 8, 1945, in the first live test of an air-to-air missile against a flying target anywhere in the world.

It also pretty much proved you couldn't use CLOS control of an AAM to hit a target. (I toss that in as another proof the often trotted out X-4 Ruhrstal AAM was something that wouldn't have worked)
 
This was a single air to air missile rather than the anti-submarine rockets fired in batches at Helensburgh. Thanks for the feedback.
 
A thick flying boat's wing...could that be a missile clip...emerging from wingtips...?
 
robinbird said:
Looks like, wonder if Soviets were successful in comparison to us
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Not exactly. MBR-2 was obsolete design, used mostly because it was available in sufficient numbers. The main idea of putting rockets on them was to give them at least some firepower - and as far as I know, it wasn't a centralized efforts, more like field modifications.
 
I suspect the reason the US didn't bother with rockets on flying boats was they were impractical for the mission these aircraft were generally carrying out. You have to get close to your target to use rockets and flying boats were rarely being used as attack aircraft. Sure, radar equipped Catalina sometimes did nighttime torpedo attacks, but this is more practical. You don't need to visually see your target to aim a torpedo at something the size of a ship in darkness while you are pretty well protected from return AA fire that can't be accurately aimed in the dark.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
I suspect the reason the US didn't bother with rockets on flying boats was they were impractical for the mission these aircraft were generally carrying out. You have to get close to your target to use rockets and flying boats were rarely being used as attack aircraft. Sure, radar equipped Catalina sometimes did nighttime torpedo attacks, but this is more practical. You don't need to visually see your target to aim a torpedo at something the size of a ship in darkness while you are pretty well protected from return AA fire that can't be accurately aimed in the dark.
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The main target of British RP-3 equipped Coastal Command aircraft were surfaced submarines... it was safer than trying to overfly them to drop bombs (at least until they submerged - at which point one could depth-charge them safely).

The also used the RP-3 against ships (25lb solid AP warheads would arc under the water to produce below-waterline hits that could sink a lot of smaller or civilian ships)... but I believe that was a relatively minor use compared to anti-submarine work.
 
robinbird said:
Interesting especially as the MBR-2 was obsolete by 1941. Maybe we were testing more powerful rockets
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They were removed from production in 1941 - however they remained in service until the end of the war (some were even supplied to the DPRK!).

The rockets were apparently RS-82 - so a 1930s design originally intended for air-to-air use (but also the first Katyusha artillery rockets). These rockets ended up on everything (including attempts to use them as a defensive rocket on the Pe-2, and equipped to the Li-2 - a DC-3 derivative - presumably for flak suppression).
 
Avimimus said:
T. A. Gardner said:
I suspect the reason the US didn't bother with rockets on flying boats was they were impractical for the mission these aircraft were generally carrying out. You have to get close to your target to use rockets and flying boats were rarely being used as attack aircraft. Sure, radar equipped Catalina sometimes did nighttime torpedo attacks, but this is more practical. You don't need to visually see your target to aim a torpedo at something the size of a ship in darkness while you are pretty well protected from return AA fire that can't be accurately aimed in the dark.
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The main target of British RP-3 equipped Coastal Command aircraft were surfaced submarines... it was safer than trying to overfly them to drop bombs (at least until they submerged - at which point one could depth-charge them safely).

The also used the RP-3 against ships (25lb solid AP warheads would arc under the water to produce below-waterline hits that could sink a lot of smaller or civilian ships)... but I believe that was a relatively minor use compared to anti-submarine work.
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That could be a difference between British and US doctrine.
 
Martin P5M Marlin:

SP-5B_VP-31_firing_HVAR_rockets.jpg
 
"The main target of British RP-3 equipped Coastal Command aircraft were surfaced submarines..."
Given the volume of fire some U-boots could put up, encouraging them to dive and be depth-charged made a lot of sense. Also, really, really spoils their 'breather'...

IIRC, one of my uncles ran RADAR on a sub-hunter out of Liverpool. He did not care to talk about the war...
 
Nik said:
Given the volume of fire some U-boots could put up, encouraging them to dive and be depth-charged made a lot of sense. Also, really, really spoils their 'breather'...
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Actually no. The idea was to force submarine to stay on surface, by damaging her pressure hull. Submarine on surface could be easily finished off by destroyers.

Depth charge attack from air weren't exactly reliable. Before 1943-1944, planes have little to no ability to track submarine underwater. So they could only very approximately guess where and on what depth it is, and drop bombs, hoping for a lucky hit. Only the appearance of sonar buoys and homing FIDO torpedoes in 1943 changed the situation.
 
Damaging pressure hull is certainly win/win, mission-kill plus fair chance of sub actually sinking, far, far from land...

But how do you tackle some-thing that can put up as much fire as a corvette ??

IIRC, air-borne RADAR managed it by turning down the power after initial tag, so sub crew reckoned they'd been missed. Having triangulated target, plane could then circle, pounce from least visible direction...
 
Nik said:
But how do you tackle some-thing that can put up as much fire as a corvette ??
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Operate at night . . . as the radar and rocket armed Fairey Swordfish did . . .

cheers,
Robin.
 
Sunderlands were equipped with 4 extra .303 machineguns, fixed in the nose. Their primary function was to clear AAA crews from the deck guns of surfaced U-boats. Rockets performed a similar function, but also had a chance of puncturing the hull. Almost as bad would be puncturing ballast tanks, making it difficult to trim the U-boat while submerged.
For many years after WW2, RCN Trackers carried rockets under the wings for attacking Soviet submarines on the surface.
 
Sunderlands, AKA 'Flying Porcupines', equally dreaded over Biscay by Luftwaffe and U-boot crews...

Which reminds me...
en.wikipedia.org

Leigh Light - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Mentions floats which, after delay to allow aircraft to circle wide, launches flares to back-light sub for the sinkin'...
 

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