Edit: Re-posted AGAIN for some reason this showed up only on all topics instead of in Off Topic, very strange. The Fritz X was an anti ship radio guided glide bomb that was invented by the Germans during World War 2. It was designed to penetrate the hardened hulls of Allied ships such as battle ships, carriers and cruiser. It was the first of its kind and paved the way for the guided munitions of the future in all of warfare, from cruise missiles to ICBM's. The Fritz X was controlled by a Funkgerät 230 Straßburg receiver (Think of a RC controller for an RC plane only with controls that make it go left, right, up and down very slowly). It was operated by the bombardier in the aircraft who would watch it through the bomb sight as it went down. Since it was a glide bomb he could only move the fins on the outside to influence its course very slightly. The Fritz X was designed to penetrate into heavily armored ships and explode inside, which it did very effectively. The only aircraft to be fitted with the Fritx X and to be used by it was the Do-217 (Picture- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Do_217E-2_NAN15Jul43.jpg ), the HE-111 was tested but stopped in the testing phase. Fritz X's were used in the Italian theater of operations and can be credited for a few high profile kills. It was first deployed in an attack on Augusta Harbor in Sicily, although there were no hits on any ships the Allies were stumped as to what "Those large bombs" were. Ironically the Luftwaffe on September 9th achieved their greatest victory with the weapon when they sank the Italian battleship Roma (Italys flagship) after Italy signed the armsitice with the Allies during the invasion of main land Italy. The Fritz X penetrated one of the battleships turrets and exploded inside the magazine sinking the ship. It also sank some Allied merchants in ports around Italy. Another more notable incident was the attack on the British battleship "War spite" which was critically damaged after also suffering penetration in a forward turret and detonating its magazine. It limped back to port at Malta and made it in time for the D-day invasion. When the Allies began to realize how the Fritz X worked they devised a device to jam the radio link between the reciever and the bomb. This can be attested to being the first "electronic warfare" scenario in the world. The Americans and British mounted manual jammers onto there ships to interfere with the bombs frequency, these became more effective after the capture of a Fritz X receiver during the battle of Anzio. Better jammers made it in time for Normandy but by that time the Fritz X was largely useless anyway due to allied air superiority. The Fritz X is another example of Germany's wonder weapons that shaped the technology of war even to this day. Picture- A Fritz X positioned under a JU-88 fighter/bomber. The Ju-88 was never equipped with the Fritz X. Thank you for reading and as always if you like what you see feel free to follow me!