Ciao a tutti,
riprendo brevemente la difesa "missilistica" dei bombardieri USA durante la 2GM: anche sui B-17 testarono dei razzi almeno in tre progetti, due per la difesa superiore contro attacchi dall'alto (anche contro caccia che sganciavano bombe sulle formazioni americane) e uno con un lanciareazzi in coda. I dettagli sotto e la foto sono tratti da qui:
http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.o ... =3&t=65926
e qualche altro dettaglio qua:
https://www.airfieldresearchgroup.org.u ... g-fortress
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As part of a scheme intended to attack enemy aircraft flying above B17 bomber formations, a trial was carried out in mid-1943 of a four tube upward firing rocket installation. The four launcher tubes were around 12 feet long and angle 4 degrees forward protruding through the mid-upper gun turret modified to remove the perspex and guns.
The trial aircraft was flown from Bovingdon to Pembrey and trial firing carried out successfully over Cardingan Bay. It is reported that the tubes could be reloaded in flight with the 3 inch rockets armed with a light HE warhead and time fuze.
The codename 'Sunflower' was used as a cover for the installation and 'Sunflower Seeds' for the rockets.
AND
Another scheme grew out of an Eighth Air Force request for an upward-firing rocket launcher to protect B-17 formations from planes bombing them from above. The development known by the code name SUNFLOWER SEED, was worked out in England, using a special British rocket, and a B-17 so equipped was flown to the United States for study.
At the same time technicians at Wright Field evolved a somewhat similar vertical-firing installation using the American M8 rocket; this was tested at both Aberdeen and Eglin Field during the spring of 1944.
The rockets behaved as the designers hoped, but the low velocity of the projectiles and the lack of flexibility in aiming them led to the conclusion that neither SUNFLOWER SEED nor its American variant would serve the intended purpose. By September 1944, with the cessation of overhead bombing attacks against Allied bomber formations, tactical need for such a weapon disappeared.
Results generally similar to those obtained with the vertical-firing rocket launchers followed when test data were assembled on a rearward-firing breech-loading 4.5 inch rocket launcher mounted in a B-17 bomber. Consequently, until scientists could develop rockets of higher velocity, even rockets with proximity fuses promised little for defensive air combat.
Source: US Army in WWII, The Ordnance Department, Planning Munitions for War, page 437.
.... ma con un particolare, la prima bomba di grosso calibro da sinistra è un corpo di una 500 kg, ma il governale non c'entra un acca con le bombe di quel peso.
) mi associo... 
