Chapter 321 Air-to-Air Missile
At present, the German jet research and development department has gathered Ernst Heinrich Heinkel from Germany; Secondo Campini from Italy; Frank Whittle from the UK and others, and is working hard to develop the jet engine required by Yannick.
Compared with the ME262 engine with a life of less than 100 hours, Yannick hopes that the service life of Germany's first batch of jet fighters will reach at least 300 hours. The compressor adopts centrifugal or axial flow, with a total compression ratio of about 5, a single-tube combustion chamber, a single-stage turbine, a thrust of about 5 kilonewtons, a fuel consumption rate of 1 kg/newton·hour, and a thrust-to-weight ratio of about 2~3.
As for the life of the engine, Yannick has set a hard target, stipulating that it must reach at least 300 hours. You must know that the life of the current piston engine is often thousands of hours. If the jet engine cannot even reach a life of 300 hours, it is simply a chicken rib.
These data are not unrealistic requirements. They are all data of the first generation of jet engines in the United States and the Soviet Union after the war. This engine is improved from the German jet engine technology.
That is to say, he hoped that the performance of the first batch of jet fighters in service would reach that of the Soviet MiG-15 or the American F-86 Sabre.
As for the weapons equipped on jet fighters, the later MiG-15 was equipped with a 37mm (н-37) cannon, two 23mm (нс-23км) cannons, and 200 rounds of ammunition.
The F-86 Sabre was equipped with six Browning 7mm machine guns or four 20mm caliber cannons. The later models could also carry 24 75-inch "Maus" folding wing aerial rockets (FFAR) that could be launched in clusters. Using all rockets as weapons was very risky at the time, so there was a more traditional 20mm cannon solution as a backup.
Of course, advanced guided weapons are the general trend of the future, and Yannick could not help but study this technology. However, he did not need to specifically point it out. In the original time and space, Germany in World War II developed the world's first air-to-air missile-X-4.
In the 44th year of World War II, approaching the end of the war, the situation became increasingly unfavorable to Germany, especially the air supremacy, which was crucial to the war situation, was completely in the hands of the US and British Air Forces.
In particular, the large-scale strategic bombing of Germany by the US and British Air Forces severely damaged Germany's industrial and economic foundation. Faced with the powerful Allied bomber fleet, the once invincible German Air Force tried its best to intercept, but on the one hand, the Allied new heavy long-range strategic bombers such as the US B-17 bomber and the British Lancaster bomber had strong self-defense firepower and heavy armor protection; on the other hand, with the new long-range escort fighters of the Allies, the P-51D "Mustang" and P-38 "Lightning" were put into service in large numbers, and the previous interception method of the German Air Force fighters to approach and shoot at enemy large bombers with machine guns had become ineffective. This made Air Force Commander Goering extremely anxious. In order to regain air supremacy, Goering placed his hopes on new weapons. Including new fighters and new air-to-air long-range weapons. Among them, Goering himself felt that the most realistic and fastest-acting one was the new air-to-air long-range weapon.
The airborne weapons carried by fighter planes at that time were basically large-caliber machine guns and cannons. At first, the German army began to try to use air-to-air rockets. At that time, the main fighter planes of the German Air Force, such as FW190 and BF-1E-262, were equipped with air-to-air rockets to fight against Allied aircraft. However, although the rockets were much more powerful than aircraft cannons, their accuracy was greatly reduced, and they still could not defeat the Allies.
Under tremendous pressure, in 1943, the German Ruhrstahl/Kramer company took on the X-4 plan and began the development of air-to-air missiles. Under the leadership of Dr. Kramer, the plan progressed smoothly. In August 1944, the first batch of sample missiles were delivered for testing, and they were officially named RK-344 air-to-air missiles. The maximum speed is 1152 km/h; the maximum range is 5 km, the effective range is 5 km; the wing width is 575 meters, the missile length is 907 meters, and the maximum diameter of the missile body is 222 meters.
The design of this missile is the prototype of modern air-to-air missiles, and its basic design is still used in later generations. First of all, there are four large wings slightly forward in the middle of the missile body. There are four small tail fins at the tail, which is exactly the same as the air-to-air missiles of later generations; in addition, its pointed head is also the same as modern air-to-air missiles.
The power unit of the RK-344 air-to-air missile is the BMW 109-548 liquid rocket engine. The missile warhead weighs 20 kilograms and has a killing radius of 5 meters. This can already destroy any Allied aircraft at the time.
This air-to-air missile has three detonation methods: pilot detonation, impact fuze detonation, and acoustic proximity fuze detonation. Among them, the acoustic proximity fuze is detonated by the propeller noise of the Allied bomber as the sound source, and the design is very clever.
Limited by the technical conditions at the time, the guidance of the RK-344 air-to-air missile was based on wired remote control, that is, the pilot used a remote control to control the missile to fly to the target through a wire behind the missile, similar to the guidance mode of today's anti-tank missiles.
On the morning of August 11, 1944, a two-seat FW190 fighter took off with two RK-344 air-to-air missiles. After the launch, the RK-344 air-to-air missile accurately hit the target aircraft under the guidance of the weapon operator in the rear cockpit. This is an epoch-making moment in human aviation history! This is the first time in human history that a fighter jet launched an air-to-air guided weapon and accurately shot down a target! It kicked off the prelude to the long-range guided attack in the history of human air combat!
At the end of 1944, the RK-344 air-to-air missile, which was still in the final test stage, successfully intercepted the British "Lancaster" and "Halifax" heavy bombers carrying out night strategic bombing missions under the German night fighter, and shot down a total of 7 enemy planes! This is the first time in human history that an air-to-air missile shot down an enemy plane, which can be said to have opened a new era in the history of air combat.
By the beginning of 1945, with its simple structure and easy mass production, it can maintain high production efficiency even with unskilled workers. In just a month and a half, the Blackweed factory in the Ruhr produced 1,300 RK-344 air-to-air missile bodies in one go. Only the matching rocket engine can be put into actual combat. Air Force Commander Goering seemed to have seen the moment of victory. However, at this time, the German rocket engine factory in Stuttgart was subjected to large-scale bombing by the Allies. All the rocket engines of the 1,300 RK-344 air-to-air missiles that had been produced and waiting to be transported were destroyed. At the same time, the entire production system was also destroyed.
As a result, the RK-344 air-to-air missile, the world's first air-to-air missile, achieved a small number of results in the test phase, but ultimately failed to be put into large-scale actual combat in the true sense. In fact, the Allies were already approaching Germany's stronghold at the time. And the German Air Force had very few aircraft that could carry the missile. The total number of aircraft participating in the war by the Allied Air Force at the time had reached more than 20,000. Therefore, even if these 1,300 RK-344 air-to-air missiles could really be produced and delivered, it would not be able to stop the progress of the war.