Talk:Hughes JB-3 Tiamat

The pathetic state of this article
This article suffers from both poor research and incredible credulity. This is in one way understandable as the JB-3 was a little known missile and a notable failure. Thus little information remains which is easily accessible. The JB-3 article was an abject failure in the essential sense that a it failed to give a person accessing it the ability to become informed about the JB-3 Tiamat. The ability to correctly inform the public should be the goal of any Wikipedia article.

Consider the references of this article. #1 simply takes us to the AF Historical Support Division. It provides nothing in the way of information. #2 is to a commercially published copy of a government produced paper which is readily available for nothing from the government.

References #3 & #4 refer to Andreas Parsch’s Directory of U.S. Military Rockets and Missiles VB page. The JB-3 Tiamat is correctly not listed on Parsch’s Vertical Bomb (VB) page. It may be found on the Jet Bomb (JB) page at http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app1/jb.html which the authors did not reference.

References #5 & #6 are most revealing of the quality of “research” performed by prior authors. It cites the Google Books teaser on a work about Hughes Helicopters. The teaser on the Google site does make mention of the JB-3. It says: “It (JB-3) was intended to arm the Northrop-built JB-1 Bat bomber. A rocket propelled missile the JB-3 would attack planes with a 100-lb warhead at altitudes up to 50,000 feet speeding along at 600 mph over a range of 9 miles.” The JB-3 was never intended to arm the JB-1. The assertion proves the person who wrote the book as well as the person who used it as a reference did not know anything about either the JB-1 or JB-3. JB-1 was a Jet Bomb intended for attacking area targets like cities not an interceptor intended to shoot down airplanes. (see: ) JB-3 used semi-active radar homing which requires a radar transmitter as a source for the radar emission to illuminate the target so it might be homed upon. The JB-1 had no such radar transmitter. Had the author actually read Andreas Parsch’s JB series page which covers the two vehicles, JB-1 & JB-3, the author would have known that the section on the JB-1 says “JB-1 turbojet-powered flying bomb under project MX-543” and that Parsch’s section on the JB-3 says “The Tiamat used a semi-active radar seeker and the warhead was triggered by a proximity fuze.” It appear that the author simply looked up something which might be used as a reference and then not only failed to read the referred material carefully enough to realize the error, but further botched it by citing Parsch’s VB page. References #5 & #6 are most revealing of the quality of “research” performed by prior authors. It cites the Google Books teaser on a work about Hughes Helicopters. The teaser on the Google site does make mention of the JB-3. It says: “It (JB-3) was intended to arm the Northrop-built JB-1 Bat bomber. A rocket propelled missile the JB-3 would attack planes with a 100-lb warhead at altitudes up to 50,000 feet speeding along at 600 mph over a range of 9 miles.” The JB-3 was never intended to arm the JB-1. The assertion proves the person who wrote the book as well as the person who used it as a reference did not know anything about either the JB-1 or JB-3. JB-1 was a Jet Bomb intended for attacking area targets like cities not an interceptor intended to shoot down airplanes. (see: ) JB-3 used semi-active radar homing which requires a radar transmitter as a source for the radar to illuminate the target to be homed upon. The JB-1 had no such radar transmitter. Had the author actually read Andreas Parsch’s JB series page which covers the two vehicles, JB-1 & JB-3, the author would have known that the section on the JB-1 says “JB-1 turbojet-powered flying bomb under project MX-543” and that Parsch’s section on the JB-3 says “The Tiamat used a semi-active radar seeker and the warhead was triggered by a proximity fuze.” It appear that the author simply looked up something which might be used as a reference and then not only failed to read the referred material carefully enough to realize the error, but further botched it by citing Parsch’s VB page. References #5 & #6 are most revealing of the quality of “research” performed by prior authors. It cites the Google Books teaser on a work about Hughes Helicopters. The teaser on the Google site does make mention of the JB-3. It says: “It (JB-3) was intended to arm the Northrop-built JB-1 Bat bomber. A rocket propelled missile the JB-3 would attack planes with a 100-lb warhead at altitudes up to 50,000 feet speeding along at 600 mph over a range of 9 miles.” The JB-3 was never intended to arm the JB-1. The assertion proves the person who wrote the book as well as the person who used it as a reference did not know anything about either the JB-1 or JB-3. JB-1 was a Jet Bomb intended for attacking area targets like cities not an interceptor intended to shoot down airplanes. (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_JB-1_Bat). JB-3 used semi-active radar homing which requires a radar transmitter as a source for the radar to illuminate the target to be homed upon. The JB-1 had no such radar transmitter. Had the author actually read Andreas Parsch’s JB series page which covers the two vehicles, JB-1 & JB-3, the author would have known that the section on the JB-1 says “JB-1 turbojet-powered flying bomb under project MX-543” and that Parsch’s section on the JB-3 says “The Tiamat used a semi-active radar seeker and the warhead was triggered by a proximity fuze.” It appear that the author simply looked up something which might be used as a reference and then not only failed to read the referred material carefully enough to realize the error, but further botched it by citing Parsch’s VB page.

Reference #7 does cite a useful although limited source. It even includes a photo of an early JB-1 hanging from the wing of a A-26. Had the author been alert they would have wondered why the photo is labeled MX 799 as the JB-3 was MX-570. MX-799 was the Ryan Firebird aka XAAM-A-1. Reference #8 is to the same limited source. The two references occur at exactly the same point. Why cite the same source at the same point twice?

References #10 & #11 are to the same source which makes me wonder if two different authors were involved. #10 gives useful information which may be used to locate the source. #11 is useless as attempting to check it produces a null (See: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/null). I have a copy of the report referenced, Air Technical Intelligence No. 2419. It contains useful information about the status of the program upon 1 October 1945 when the JB-3 effort to develop a weaapon was dying due to a lack of performance and the end of the war. The last line of report ATI 2419 reads “Of the thirty-five (35) full scale models planned the NACA has six (6) under construction.”

Had the authors of the JB-3 article chose to follow that information up the would have struck research gold. They could have found NASA Reference Publication 1028 “A New Dimension Wallops Island Flight Test Range: The First Fifteen Years.” That item tells of the tale of the last 7 JB-3s launched between late 1945 and 1949. There is pleasure in research well done. But to be effective research must be well done. The Wikipedia page on the Hughes JB-3 Tiamat is in need of serious repair if it is to be a useful encyclopedia reference work.

Mark Lincoln (talk) 17:35, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Researching Early Missiles
Researching any early US missile is difficult. They were both highly classified and in many cases, such as JB-3, failures. I use the term failure in the sense that they seldom achived anything like an operational system. Long before anyone sought to declassify JB-3 much more successful programs had been attempted and succeded. If you were Hughes in the 1950s would you have your publicity department talking of JB-3 Tiamat or of AIM-4 Falcon? As an additional complication much of what has been published about Tiamat is poorly researched and poorly edited. One source I cite states that the 625 lb JB-3 contained a 500 lb warhead! How such a obvious error slipped past the editing/proof reading of the publisher is inexplicable. Wikipedia editors owe the reader the best effort they may make. The closest to "source material" I have cited is " USAAF, "JB-3 Tiamat - Jet Bomb", Report X-135461-AA, Headquarters, Air Material Command, Wright Field, Ohio, 1 October 1945" It is often confusing conflating two separate test programs at two different locations. Were I willing to venture to a number of different repositories in several different states I might produce a better researched dissertation. But I doubt if it would produce a much better Wikipedia article as an encyclopedia article cannot be a book length work.

Mark Lincoln (talk) 16:44, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Duplicate Article?
Is there any particular reason there's this article for the "Hughes JB-3 Tiamat" as well as an article for the "JB-3 Tiamat"? Linked here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JB-3_Tiamat. Seems they're the same and should be merged. FlyingPedant (talk) 01:00, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Because at the time I created the other article, I was unaware of this one. Given 'this' article's creator was eventually indef'd as a serial copyright violator/close-paraphraser, I'm going to redirect this one to the other, if anyone wants to merge content from the history here to there - while rewriting it, because I smell close paraphrasing glancing over this - they can of course by all means feel free. - The Bushranger One ping only 05:11, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * ...checking the history I see Mark Lincoln rewrote it at some point, eliminating Sublette's copyvio possibilities - still going to see about merging myself at least. - The Bushranger One ping only 05:16, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge done. - The Bushranger One ping only 05:36, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Great work, thank you! FlyingPedant (talk) 14:22, 15 December 2023 (UTC)