This is widely considered the world’s first anti-ship missile to see combat, although in modern terms it is more of a boosted smart bomb. This was a direct copy of a German weapon, the Henschel Hs-293. This proposed carrier-based naval fighter was a failure.) the Palombe (The SO.8000 Narval of 1949 used the Junkers Jumo 213 engine, MG 151 autocannons, the He-162 Volksjäger’s ejection seat, and other WWII German technology. Finally, there was a finite number of aerospace engineers, and all three service branches were striving to use German technology.ĭirectly reverse-engineering German weapons was done in a number of cases, but was frowned upon by GANES in favor of exploiting the underlying technology for new French designs. From 1946 on there was ever-increasing expenses of the war in Indochina – for example, the French army’s plan to field V-2 ballistic missiles was cancelled simply because the army needed the money for the Indochina war. France’s cities were devastated by WWII and reconstruction costs were massive. The efforts described below were not happening in a vacuum. On 1 March 1947 GANES disbanded and was replaced by a “special engines” department at Fréjus-Saint Raphael.

During Novermber 1946, GANES relocated to Fréjus-Saint Raphael on France’s Mediterranean coastline, where most of the weapons described below were developed and tested. Patrice Desaix, GANES was based in Hechigen in the French occupation zone of Germany. It was named Groupe d’Aéronautique Navale d’Engins Spéciaux, or GANES. Several weeks after Germany’s surrender, the naval effort began.

The two projects were completely independent of each other. (Like the French navy’s Maruca, the French army’s SE.4100 surface-to-air missile was based on the WWII German Schmetterling. There was a national-level effort which began while WWII was still in progress, and the French army, air force, and navy also had their own independent efforts. Less famous than the USA’s operation “Paperclip”, France attempted to secure information on Germany’s WWII guided missile efforts. Immediate post-WWII intelligence gathering (The WWII German Hs-117 Schmetterling SAM and its postwar French naval offspring, the Maruca.) (French navy personnel with a WWII German Junkers Ju-88 during postwar weapons tests at Fréjus-Saint Raphael, France.)

After WWII ended the French navy experimented with grafting German technology into new French naval weapons, with varied results.

French navy world war 2