Fritz X - WW2 German Smart Bomb

Discover the story of Fritz X, the world's first precision guided weapon, deployed by the Luftwaffe against Allied warships from 1943 onwards, with some surprising results.

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Disclaimer: All opinions and comments expressed in the 'Comments' section do not reflect the opinions of Mark Felton Productions. All opinions and comments should contribute to the dialogue. Mark Felton Productions does not condone written attacks, insults, racism, sexism, extremism, violence or otherwise questionable comments or material in the 'Comments' section, and reserves the right to delete any comment violating this rule or to block any poster from the channel.

Credits: US National Archives; Library of Congress; Sanjay Acharya; Arjun Sarup.

[robertkorn]

There existed also a Fritz X version not guided by radio in the 50Mhz range, but by wire. There was a coil of wire about 8km length on board the bomb, connected with the plane. So there was no risk of jamming the controls.
Furthermore, there was a - primitive - tv equipment installed, which allowed the controller in the plane to keep the projectile on target. Was a very simple screen with 8 lines only, but was working. As one can see in the results.

P.S. Excuse me, must correct: the tv-device was not part of Fritz. The tv- device was part of HS293 gliding bomb. Worked on vhf and gave an image of 441 lines.

[beckymuska]

From Ken Muska, My cousin, Edward J. Muska, once removed, was on the USS Savannah, Sept. 11, 1943, when a Fitz bomb hit turret number 3. He was a shipfitter and turret gunner. Buried at sea at Malta.

[jerryjeromehawkins]

Believe it or not... as a child, I learned about the Fritz X in of all things... a Sgt. Rock comic book! In some issues they would have one or two pages devoted just to unique weapons of WW2.

[habedeque]

My grandpa joined the Wehrmacht when he was 18, this was 1939.
He was stationed in Norway for the entire time, he often told me insane stories about the war.
He told me, when the Allies came to liberate Norway, they (germans) had entire warehouses full of Fritz bombs an even more advanced tech,
basically primitive heat seaking missiles/bombs.
The only problem: they had neither planes nor pilots to use them, so they had to destroy all of them so the Allies couldn't get their hands on them.
He died in 2018 at the age of 98.

[MaskHysteria]

My personal favorite is the pigeon-guided "fire and forget" smart bomb under development by the U.S. Navy during the war. It had a camera in front of a guided bomb which projected a small image on to a primitive touch screen inside the housing. A pigeon trained to peck at images of warships would peck at the projected image on the screen to guide the bomb on to the target.

Thankfully for pigeons all across the U.S., it never saw service.

[ericscottstevens]

1:59 Maneuvers like these gave my Grandfather as a Stuka rear gunner with St.G 77 vertigo and blood pressure problems by April 1941 after the Balkan campaign concluded. The dive down was exerting, but the dive up was torture all the blood rushing to the front of gunners body/arms and the G's added up on imbalance of normal blood pressure. He was withdrawn and sent to flight school as a NCO gunnery cadre to recuperate, missing the opening of Barbarossa. Returned to flight service a year later with St.G151 for the continuing attack on Sevastopol.

[tsr]

My father (ex Royal Navy HMS Victorious) - saw this in a BBC documentary years ago and because he was below deck - was glad they never used them near him ! Excellent as always!

[tinkeringinthailand]

You have to give it to those Germans when it comes to engineering.

[cdr]

Crazy that the first motorized flight was only ~40 years before. Wars are truly a great tech catalysator.

[dgt]

You can see a Fritz X at the Scottish Air Museum at East Fortune along with an Me163. Well worth a visit.

[cjmanson]

One of the biggest issues with Germany's weapons development was that Hitler had a tendency to interfere. In fact, when told about the Roma's sinking, he was told that she was sunk by conventional, unguided bombs. The reason for this was that if the Fritz X's success was made known to Hitler, he would've deemed it a "wonder weapon" and would thus favor its priority over the production of Me 109s and Fw 190s meant to protect Germany from the Allied bombers.

[cranetrucker]

We had a maths teacher that helped design missiles in ww2, when we got bored of maths, we would ask him about ww2, he would spend an hour drawing technical diagrams of how they worked,
He also worked in a british car factory, when the bell rang...nobody would want to leave, unlike other classes😂 thanks mr mc gunnigle

[bashirmuhammad]

High tech 80 years ago.Interesting video. Well done Prof.

[emoryfindley]

My late Uncle was in the U.S.N. In the Mediterranean. His destroyer was sunk while on convoy escort near Sicily. It was thought they were torpedoed but later rumored to have been sunk by a “German Glide Bomb” He survived. Picked up by a UK freighter.

[The_Conspiracy_Analyst]

By the way, there were infrared seeking designs for free falling bombs in Japan in the late stages of the war. I do have an official U.S. technical intelligence report on it, which was classified for some time after the war, as it was the basis for many later infrared homing designs. I can dig it up if you wish, Dr. Felton (if you haven't seen it).

[tdubya]

Great video Doc! Not too long ago I tried to explain the Fritz X to a friend of mine but I didn’t do a very good job. I will direct him to this video. Thank you!

[peterbudgell]

I’ve read that radio jamming was developed at the National Research Council of Canada in order to counter radio controlled bombs dropped on ships, with a successful result.

[kevinhoffman]

Remember seeing these but not in so much detail excellent job Mark

[andrewsema]

Scary how quick technology improved and counter measures employed. Would be great to have an episode just for Allied tech in WWII. Thanks Again for a Great episode. Dr. Felton.

[codystout]

I read somewhere the first time they tried to use it. It splashed into the ocean. The next attack was a lot more successful. The captains of the ship couldn't figure out how they were hitting their ships when they were miles away