The Flying Bombs of Salerno

As early as 1940, the German Luftwaffe began serious development of unpowered anti-ship missiles dropped by bombers. The missile would glide to its target, remotely guided by a controller within the aircraft. Testing in Germany proved difficult as atmospheric conditions interfered with the signals sent to the bomb, and by early 1943 the experiments had been moved to northern Italy. When Italy defected to the Allied side in September 1943, the test squadron (III/KG100) was in place to use its Fritz-X glider bombs attack the Italian fleet as it fled to Malta.

A Fritz-X is launched.

On the afternoon of 9 September, eleven Do.217 glider-bomb carriers of III/KG100 took off from an airfield near Marseilles and located the Italian fleet west of Corsica. The new battleship Roma sank after a single hit, while Italia suffered damage. Two days later, the squadron and its sister unit II/KG100 began attacks against the Allied fleet conducting amphibious landings in the Bay of Salerno.

A Fritz X badly damaged the American cruiser Savannah and slightly damaged her sister Philadelphia. On the 13th, a Fritz X seriously damaged the British cruiser Uganda and others damaged Philadelphia and two British destroyers while a Hs.293 glider bomb sank the hospital ship Newfoundland. A transport sank after a hit from an Hs.293 bomb on the 14th, and on 16 September the battleship Warspite suffered two serious hits from Fritz X bombs and had to be towed to Malta.

Once Allied fighters arrived on the scene, the glider bombs no longer proved effective. The carrier aircraft had to fly a long, straight path to launch them, and this made them easy prey for fighters. The Fritz X, designed to penetrate warship armor, could only be used during daylight; the smaller Hs.293 had some effectiveness at night and was used in that role after the Fritz X carriers were withdrawn.

Click the counter to download
the printable version.

In our Invasion of Italy game, the German player can attack Allied warships with glider bombs. In the game, the Germans get one air point each day that can’t be countered by Allied Air Supremacy. At the time, Avalanche Press was still a part-time operation with even fewer resources than we command today. But even so, we should have included a counter for this. Because it looks cool.

The free download is for Invasion of Italy. During the first daylight turn of each day, the German player places the Fritz X marker on an Allied warship of his or her choice. Resolve the attack on the “Air Attacks on Warships” table, but use the “2” column.