30-40 years ago I was told a story by a WW2 vet who fought in Europe. He was some sort of engineer when I had known him, and in WW2 he had done a lot of secret work.
This one story he told was about a raid he was involved in on a Nazi sub den during the war. The gist of it was that they wanted to destroy this nazi sub den so this plan was devised to send a bunch of aircraft there to attack it. They took some number - 6, 8, whatever - of some type of bomber and converted them into flying bombs. They were controlled by radio by people in other bombers that flew with these flying bombs. When they got near these sub dens, the radio control operators blew the wings off these flying bomb SSI they’d fall onto the sub den and explode.
He went on to say how their next recon showed the sub den had little damage, later they learned that this sub den was so well constructed, with such thick concrete, that their attacks couldn’t have damaged it much.
Are any of you familiar with this raid? I’d like to learn more about it. Unfortunately the man who told me this story and everyone I knew who was attached to him passed away 20+ years ago.
Under Project Aphrodite the USAAF took a number of old B-17 bombers, removed extraneous equipment, loaded them with explosives and fitted rudimentary radio control systems. The resulting drones, designated as BQ-7s, needed a human pilot and engineer to take off, fly to altitude, and arm the explosives. The two crew would then bail out of the aircraft over Britain, and a remote operator aboard a second B-17 would take over, guiding the drone towards its target. The US Navy ran a similar project in parallel using B-24/PB4Y bombers designated as BQ-8 drones.
I don't believe the wings of the drone were blown off, that would result in an erratic descent, rather it was just aimed to crash into the target. The project was unsuccessful, though; few drones even got to their targets due to control problems or weather conditions, and their low altitude and predictable flight path made them quite straightforward targets for flak guns. Several aircrew were lost, most notably Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., brother of John F. Kennedy.
U-Boat pens were amongst the intended targets of BQ-7s, and were highly fortified targets that were resistant to most bombs up to (and sometimes including) the massive Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs employed late in the war, but I don't believe it was the explosive power of the BQ-7 that was the issue, rather the ability to actually hit a target with one.
For more details see Walter J. Boyne, "The Remote Control Bombers", Air Force Magazine Vol. 93, No. 11, and Roger Connor, Remembering the Death of Lt. Joe Kennedy Jr. and America’s First Combat Drones.