German Wire-Guided Missiles of WW2

Temistocle said:
Nice pictures, where did you get them?
Click to expand...

I scanned these images a little over nine years ago and I do not remember which book it was.
But we find the first image on "Mémoire d'usine - 60 ans à la production d'avions et d''engins tactiques", 1985. It is the story of the Châtillon factory. Unfortunately, the image is spread over two pages and therefore difficult to scan.
Concerning the 5201, we can also find this drawing which specify some dimensions. 5201 (schema).gif
 
It is certain that France was studying and had a model of the X-7.Philippe Jung in (The True Beginnings of French Astronautics 1938-1959.Part 1), states that after the departure of Max Kramer, the father of the X series.-"It would appear that some personnel left over from the closure of ACC (Atelier de Construction de Châtillon, ex-Brandt, and under the acgis of DEFA) on January 1, 1947 were taken by Stauff. He also recovered an air-to-air Ruhrstahl X-4, an anti-tank X-7, a V-1 and a Messerschmitt E-4 Enzian. Full of new ideas, Stauff was, however, persuaded by STA to initially use the wealth of German experience he had under his hands. He thus responded to the start-up programs AA 10, SS-10, and CT 10."- So, if Stauff recovered a whole X-7 the pictures of this model should be somewhere in the archives.
 
The following may perhaps be of interest.

From the looks of it, a team at the Arsenal de l’Aéronautique began to develop an anti-tank missile in 1946, with the help of captured German engineers, using the X-7 as a starting point. Incidentally, the X-7 was seemingly known as the Rotkäppchen (Red Riding Hood).

In any event, the resulting French weapon was to be produced by the Société française d'études et de constructions de matériels aéronautiques spéciaux (SFECMAS). In 1954, that government entity was absorbed by the Société nationale de constructions aéronautiques du Nord (SNCAN), which became the Société nationale de constructions aéronautiques Nord Aviation, Nord Aviation for short, as a result.

Initially known as the Nord 5200, the new missile gained fame as the S.S.10. Indeed, that guided weapon became the first antitank missile to go into full scale service anywhere in the world, in 1955. Up to 30 000 S.S.10s may have been manufactured up to 1962.

Realising that the SSM-A-23 Dart developed by the Aerophysics Development Corporation was way behind schedule and over budget, the U.S. Army dropped it (in the fall of 1958?) and acquired several hundred S.S.10s.

The engineer in charge of the overall design of the S.S.10 was Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry (1927-1963).

Bastien-Thiry was outraged by the September 1959 speech in which the French president, Charles de Gaulle, indicated he would give the people of Algeria the possibility to determine their own future, which could be full independence. He came to believe that this speech would lead to the surrender of Algeria, then the whole of Africa, to Communism.

At the time, France was fighting a bitter and internally divisive war with an Algerian independence movement.

Bastien-Thiry was actively involved in a failed assassination attempt against de Gaulle in September 1961 and in other attempts, all foiled by the security services. He also played a crucial role in the attempt made in August 1962. Bastien-Thiry was arrested in September, put on trial, found guilty and executed, by firing squad, in February 1963.
 
fortrena said:
The following may perhaps be of interest.
Click to expand...
Obviously dear fortrena, any additional information is worthy of interest as long as it fills a gap.the slice of life that you evoke of Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry is an example but concerning the AA-10 (Nord 5101) then the SS-10 (5201), the documentation is abundant, however everyone here on the forum would like to see a picture of the X-7 whereas the team of Max kramer and Emile Stauff had documentation and of the missile itself. Above JC Carbonel said "So far I have not found X-7 material in French archive" It is incredible this documentary gap, the proven existence of the German X-7 in France deprived of any information relating to it.this retention of information remains unexplained currently this technology became obsolete and I see badly why to this day its documentation even expurgated was not revealed
 
klem said:
I see badly why to this day
Click to expand...
After WW2, continuing Nazi-started projects was not something considered so glorious. At least not in France.
Would you show off your newest product as "this is our company's creation", or as "we improved on Ruhrstahl design xyz"? Was Marketing ever about saying the truth, only the truth, the whole truth?

As for the docs themselves, they are 50-60 years old, pre-digitalization. Even if they still exist, their whereabouts might not be remembered. The techs are long retired or even dead.
The heir companies may not be in a hurry to help tarnish their history, either.
 
dan_inbox said:
klem said:
I see badly why to this day
Click to expand...
After WW2, continuing Nazi-started projects was not something considered so glorious. At least not in France.
Would you show off your newest product as "this is our company's creation", or as "we improved on Ruhrstahl design xyz"? Was Marketing ever about saying the truth, only the truth, the whole truth?

As for the docs themselves, they are 50-60 years old, pre-digitalization. Even if they still exist, their whereabouts might not be remembered. The techs are long retired or even dead.
The heir companies may not be in a hurry to help tarnish their history, either.
Click to expand...
Certainly dear dan_inbox, you are probably right on many points, but my concern was very specific, it focused on saving and maintaining the documentary background away from all other speculations which sometimes I grant you are very well founded but for posterity, imperatives are essential, in particular by thinking of scientists and historians who are researchers of materials and this, in my opinion, comes from the conscientious will, for example like the AAAF and its review "the letter" and the effort of a few minds who care about safeguarding archives like Jung and many others or the newsletters of various associations who do everything to facilitate and enrich the work of researchers and in this sense I appreciated the effort to safeguard a documentary fund very interesting concerning the reports of the Banlève wind tunnel transferred to the Haute-Garonne Departmental Archives. The transferred background is a gold mine from 1937 to 1996, various tests carried out, their com agents not only the local aircraft manufacturers Latécoère and Dewoitine but also many manufacturers from the south of France, a listing which offers the historian several avenues of research, on the technical level but also in the industrial, economic and political fields. This initiative took place at the end of 2010, as part of the mission to safeguard the scientific and technical heritage of the Midi-Pyrénées region orchestrated by the University of Toulouse, Henri-Claude Boisson, research director at the Institute of Fluid Mechanics of Toulouse (IMFT) contacted the Haute-Garonne Departmental Archives to discuss the future of the institute's archives, starting with the documents relating to the Banlève wind tunnel. "These documents, kept in a simple metal cabinet within the very enclosure of the wind tunnel, did not then enjoy either the required security since they were freely accessible to anyone with access to the premises, nor the physical protection conditions necessary for their good conservation. This situation no longer allowed any valorization, the public not being able to access the documents."- (https://archives.haute-garonne.fr)
 

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom