Highball | The Mosquito's Secret Sting
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- čas přidán 29. 02. 2024
- The bouncing bomb of the famous "Dambusters Raid" did not end with Operation Chastise over the Mohne, Sorpe and Eder dams. The revolutionary concept was refined and miniaturised to suit Mosquito fighter bombers. The idea was for these fast twin-engined aircraft to replace torpedos with the bouncing bomb in raids against the surviving capital ships of the Japanese fleet in their heavily protected anchorages. But the mission - on the brink of being launched - was cancelled in August 1945 with the deployment of the atomic bombs against Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Here, designers and engineers involved with the project describe the evolution of the bomb - and their experiences with their "inhuman" project leader - Barnes Wallis.
00:01 Mosquito B.IV DZ579/G of MAEE (Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment) flown by Sqn.Ldr .A. Jacques DFC & bar RAFVR and Flt.Lt. E.J. Savill DFC RAFVR. Bomb's splash hit the tail of Mosquito and crashed into Machir Bay, Isle of Islay on 25th Oct. 1945. Both crew killed.
thank you. I was wondering, and didn't read any comments before writing my question.
I believe there were similar fatalities using A26 invader(?) aircraft of the US airforce at stupidly low level where upon release the weapon or impact water, shot upwards removing the tail section. During or right at the end of the war, I think?
@@derek6579 the wikipedia article on Highball does mention the tests in the US but makes no mention of such incidents.
@typhoonhawker6548;
Thanks... It appears that those lads didn't have 2 seconds... Kind of helps one understand that many fine aviators and crew were killed or injured in the development of weapons and aircraft, something not often publicized.
@@derek6579 "On April 28, 1945, the Douglas A-26C-25-DT Invader, 43-22644 which was assigned to the 611 Base Unit at Wright Field broke apart in mid-air during a drop test and crashed in Choctawhatchee Bay, just three miles northeast of Fort Walton, Florida.
A Speedee (Highball) bouncing bomb was dropped low but it bounced back, hit the aircraft and tore off the tail unit. It then caused the bomber to instantly nose over and crash into the water. It had taken off from the Eglin Air Force Base. All the three occupants, including Pilot Bryce L. Anderson, were killed."
The squadron was formed with Mosquitos with special Merlins to give peak performance oat lower altitude. It was No 618 and sent to Australia to prepare. These would have been land based, but the subsequent losses of the Japanese Navy meant that the operation was deemed unnecessary. It was based for a time in my home town of Narromine NSW. There were sold off Mosquitos at war's end. I used to play in the remains of one. Sadly towards the end of the war two aircrew were killed when flying out to go home from Melbourne. They did a beat up of the town and for reasons never really found the plane banked and nosed in, luckily missing houses. It was though some stray luggage may have moved and jammed the control cables.
618 Squadron is memorialised in our local Aviation Museum and an interschool sports competition grouping called NARRAF. The trophy was donated by squadron members in thanks for the hospitality of the locals, the name meaning Narromine RAF.
The Camden Museum of Aviation has the remains of one of those Mosquitos which they have used in the restoration of a new build fuselage and fitted with a real centre section donated by Hawker De Haviland from Bankstown NSW.
I have visited that museum and if I remember rightly is situated on the old aerodrome, now airport where the Squadron were based. A Merlin engine is on display and I think Bud Tingwell was the museums patron for a number of years.
And THAT was the secret sting!
My dad did his national service in the 50s working on Meteors. He would have been enthralled by this footage.
Thanks for posting.
27 accidents and no fatalities that’s a very brave crew …!
That's a crew that should be grounded!
Enlightening comments about Wallis as a person
Portrayed in the film as a dedicated if a bit eccentric man, grandfather figure. A serviceman said Guy Gibson was known as the 'Arch Bastard', had no time or respect for anyone below his rank.
I remember reading, a _long_ time ago, that this technique was also considered for use against the tunnel entrances of Germany's underground weapons facilities.
The Tallboy was found to be more effective against tunnels and much safer for the aircrew.
Quite relaxing watching those test drops until the last one that was dropped from too low and bounced up into the Mosquito shattering it to pieces. Poor crew. Also interesting that Wallis was a very difficult to work with.
czcams.com/video/PCGpzRzY7fY/video.html
This is the A26.
(an earlier 'A-26' comment has been deleted) It looks like a Mosquito, the final failure was the port wing breaking outboard of the engine. There is footage of American trials where an A-26 has its horizontal stabiliser destroyed by splash from a low drop and it dived straight in.
Clearly Wallis could be a right sod. Not the kind of Bloke he was often described on film.
Like 317’s Gibson and legless Bader, both horrible but not in the movies.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 Growing up I got to meet Douglas and his wife several times never found him to be "horrible". And he didn't have that reputation locally
He didn't suffer fools which was why he was a good leader.@@Evilroco
@@EvilrocoUtter rubbish Douglas was an arogant nasty Bar steward I used to fly gliders with him and my cousen served with him and thought the same.
He had a reputation of claiming others kills.
@@lordeden2732 I grew up on the Marlston RD about 500 yds from their house , I can only speak of my personnel experience and that of my family .
How come no one local has this view of him?
You claim to have flown gliders with him and that your brother served with him.
Sorry the language you use doesn't ring true for someone the age you claim to be .Douglas died in 82 ,how old were you when you used to go gliding with him?
Fantastic `What If`!
The backspin was a secret for decades.
The Highball project is fascinating and I heard some surprising stories about what Barnes Wallis was really like. The weapon concept was very good. I only found but a single flaw. One of the developers declared that this bomb was needed because “the Yanks” had been unsuccessful sinking Japan’s navy. On behalf of both the Yanks and Brits who served in the Pacific, this was an insult. This series started out as the Armoured Carriers (of the RN). They and the American (unarmored) carriers - together with both RN and USN submarines - sank almost every remaining Japanese capital ship by the time of Japan’s surrender in September of 1945. Specifically, there was but one battleship of theirs still afloat; the Nagato of 1920s vintage. However, she was in horrible condition; her foremast cut away, her machinery barely functional, paint peeling, and much important glass missing. Such was the report of the American prize crew that sailed her a year later to the Bikini tests. Some carriers still existed - without aircraft, aircrews or most equipment. The last functioning carriers (with few aircraft) were all sunk during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944 during the Cape Engano engagement. They were in such bad shape and so poorly manned that they were deployed (successfully) as decoys to keep Halsey’s aircraft away from the real combatants. Please don’t let nationalism get in the way of the truth. I can tell you all about that from this side of the Atlantic.
I think he was talking about the "18 months" after Midway, when the Japanese was attempting to avoid engagement.
Wow, great upload, thanks.
Thanks again. Unmissable.
I can understand the Mosquito swerving on takeoff, both props turn same direction instead of counter rotating like the P-38 Lightning. So if you weren't ready to give some quick rudder action the combined torque of both engines at full power would pull you in one direction sideways while you are accelerating down the runway.
That seems odd. Maybe no counter-rotating Merlins available?
Getting Mosquito's into production was the priority. The complication of a different Merlin assembly line wasn't considered worthwhile.
But they did give Hornets contra-rotation. It was kind of a necessity by that point.
@ArmouredCarriers;
I spoke with my cousin's wife's father, who had flown Mosquitos in the war, and they did have a tricky takeoff, but, if an engine failed in any way just after takeoff, you were done for... that said, as I had heard 2nd hand, he absolutely loved the airplane, more than any other that he flew.
Non pilots add 1 plus 1 and get ten.
@@ArmouredCarriers
Must be a difficult design change for petrol engines, when they converted the Merlin to tank use, they had to add an extra cog to the gearbox as the engine was running the wrong way to go forward.
Similarly, BMC made millions of minis with an extra gear, rather than change the direction of the engine.
Great video.
They dropped these down a tunnel in the fictional film, Mosquito Squadron! I think Star Wars used it at the end too.
Barnes-Wallace's "inhumanness" would easily be recognised these days as typical of those on the austism/aspergers spectrum. People that were not neurotypical were treated very badly in the 20th century.
Surprised to hear Barnes Wallace described as "inhumane".
From everything I've read and seen, he was absolutely shocked at the number of airmen lost in the Dambuster raids.
Quite a few people commenting he showed traits of autism. That's not inhumanity. It's mostly the inability to understand human interactions and their implications.
But it's also often paired with an ability to "think outside the square" in technical and systemic terms.
He says "inhuman," not _inhumane..._ they're not the same thing.
The Americans had also managed to prefect skip bombing with the B-25 in 1942. It was used in the battle of the Bismarck Sea
Yes, "skipping" standard bombs had been a tried and true tactic.
But the bouncing bomb was intended to optimise the practice with a weapon designed to reduce the risk of deflecting at unwanted angles and to extend its range.
Cracking video! What an eye opener 👍 So little coverage of this 😉
Not true about the Mosquitos being unable to land on carriers.
It was the first twin engine plane to land on a carrier flown by Eric 'Winkle' Brown
So how much better was highball than the skip bombing with conventional bombs that the yanks use in the battle of the Bismarck sea?
The difference was a matter of optimisation.
To get a conventional bomb to skip, the aircraft had to fly low and fast. This presented the danger of the bomb and its splash bouncing back into the aircraft itself (there is footage around of what I think is an A26 disintegrating). One of the Mosquitoes in this documentary suffers the same fate.
The backspin and shape of the bomb allowed a higher release. And both also kept the weapon going straight and bouncing longer. A conventional bomb could hit the water at an odd angle and be deflected/slowed somewhat randomly.
I understand that the bombs used against the dams could not be conventional because the need for them to sink to depth while remaining in proximity to the dam face,
but I am curious as to what the perceived advantage of the "highball" bombs were vs either conventional "skip-bombing" tactics, or conversely,
since these were supposed to be stationary vessels, conventional level bombing -
especially with high capacity weapons - such as were used to sink the Tirpitz?
The considerations were probably:
Japanese harbors may have been outside the range of the heavy tallboy and grandslam.
Letting in water does more serious damage to a ship than hitting its armoured deck and superstructure.
Harbor nets had made torpedoes redundant (a lesson from Pearl Harbor and Taranto).
The backspin would cause the bomb to "hug" the side of the ship, maximising blast damage.
Looks like they induced a list to port on HMS Malaya. Of course it might just well be that the old battleship just was run down but the Royal Navy likes to keep things neat so I suppose it had more to do with the trials. But it must have been weird for the ship's company to sit in a fjord and have mosquitos drop giant bouncing balls on you instead of bombarding targets or so
One instructional frame I clipped from this set says the list was deliberately induced to "protect" the thin plating of its torpedo bulge. It was harder to repair than the standard hull plating.
No make-and-mend for the damage control party!
Do wonder if open ocean sea states drops were made or contemplated ~~
I have always accepted the name highball but I do wonder if it was just a play on words because the dropping bomb really does look like an eyeball!
That final scene ( and the first- same one ) show o e of the bombs skipping up and hitting the Mossie, whereupon, it disintegrated. Yet, this says: "no fatalities"? Maybe this shot was from another test series? Am I mistaken? Great footage, btw, and an interesting bit of history of my favorite aircraft.
The crash scene was a standalone piece of footage. Not part of the overview / film report. Unless it happened after the main assembly, "no fatalities" is clearly a bogus claim as there was at least "two" aboard that disintegrated Mossie.
fascinating footage!
in the opening shot which is also the final one, does the Mosquito break up after release?
did it clip a wave and then disintegrate, or is that debris fling through the air the highball shattering...
splash from the drop damaged the tailplane which caused the whole aircraft to disintegrate moments later.
You are using an excerpt of Bizet's L'Arlesienne suite which ironically was the anthem of Vichy France
Looks like the HMS Malaya they are they are testing the weapon on. 2:35. Later footage shows a few hits on her and little of a list. Now what ship is at 18:50 ? Is the run at the end 27:00 a mosquito crashing?
You mean the Courbet?
The other ship is the French WW1 era Battleship Courbet, later expended as a breakwater in Normandy. So the footage is reversed. Courbet was used first then Malaya as Courbet was by then sitting on the bottom of Mullbery harbor
16:39. interesting that it punched a hole and then climbed in. Would it have done that with more modern ships/armor?
Armored belt usually starts further down the ships hull to protect magazines , machinery boilers etc.
Mug of tea and lovely Bacon sarnies , not bad for a Jewish lad . That made me chuckle , years ago in my local pub chatting to a young Jewish chap , he said my grandmother is very orthodox , but loves bacon sandwiches. Has to ne a moral there somewhere.
Is that one of the 'R s' being used for testing?
HMS Malaya, one of the "Q"s.
So how did this compare to skip-bombing with conventional bombs? Greater range?
Greater range, but also a more reliable bounce - and therefore accuracy.
Traditional bombs could land at angles, sideways etc, and sluice somewhat off course.
The backspin was also intended to make the bouncing bomb "hug" the target once it hit it, allowing it to sink alongside the ship before the warhead went off under the protective belt and/or bulges.
Whether or not all this would work / was worthwhile is of course a matter of speculation as they were never used in action.
Poor old Malaya!
✨🏴✨🥰✨👍✨♥️✨🤗✨.
Eric "Winkle" Brown, Fleet Air Arm test pilot and all round flying genius was the first guy to land a Mozziea on a carrier. So the guy who said it was a one way mission because you simply couldn't do it was wrong.
Footage at czcams.com/video/AMjjrp6axWs/video.htmlsi
That's why I gave "Winkle" the first commentary slot in this episode.
While I know Sea Mosquito prototypes were built with folding wings and arrestor hooks, these were conventional bomb and torpedo carriers.
I'm not sure if the bouncing bomb versions planned for this strike had that degree of carrier equipment.
I understand one example remains in a Western Australian museum. I'll add a talk from its curator to the end panels of this show.
@@ArmouredCarriers Nice one! Brown, by rights, should've been 1st through Mach 1 until (I'm convinced) the yanks leant on our government to pull the plug on the project & hand over all of Miles' data so I tend to stick up for Eric Brown where I can.
I look forward to your addition mate. 😀☮️
I havent' watched it yet. Hopefully it answers our questons: czcams.com/video/wdlmGuFHMD0/video.html
@@Aengus42
@@ArmouredCarriers Cool, thanks very much!
Shame the museum's closed to the public... Oooh! They're doing up my Mozzie! That's nice of them! (Mozzie for fun & a Catalina for living on whilst island hopping. That'll do me 😎)
So Wallis was a total 💩 and wasn't at all like portrayed in the dam busters film.
A lot of genius types did not have great interpersonal relationship skills (to use modern terminology), and so were considered shits. While he might have been hard to work with he did come up with some good stuff. I'd rather work with successful shits than incompetent shits like the guys who refused to consider that the USN torpedo was flawed.