Max Kramer
Encyclopedia
Dr. Max Kramer was a German scientist who worked for the Ruhrstahl AG steel and armaments corporation. He was responsible for the construction of the Fritz X
Fritz X
Fritz X was the most common name for a German guided anti-ship glide bomb used during World War II. Fritz X was a nickname used both by Allied and Luftwaffe personnel. Alternate names include Ruhrstahl SD 1400 X, Kramer X-1, PC 1400X or FX 1400...

 and the Ruhrstahl X-4
Ruhrstahl X-4
The Ruhrstahl X-4 was a wire guided air-to-air missile designed by Germany during World War II. The X-4 did not see operational service and thus was not proven in combat...

 missile (1943-1945), among others.

Personal Background

Max Otto Kramer was born on 8 September 1903 in Cologne, Germany, earned a degree in electronic engineering at the Technical College of Munich in 1926 and received his doctorate in aeronautics from the Technical College of Aachen in 1931. Already by the late 1930s he was an authority on aerodynamics, working at the German Institute of Aeronautics in Berlin, and holding patents for important innovations related to aircraft, such as landing flaps. His specialty was in the modeling of complex airflows, especially those related to laminar-flow dynamics.

Early Research in Germany

Dr. Kramer had a wide range of interests and his work encompassed automobiles, gliders, propeller noise, acoustic missile and wake tracking, and underwater coatings. However, he is best known for the development of the Ruhrstahl X-1 "Fritz-X" glide bomb, a radio-controlled bomb whose descent could be adjusted. This bomb was deployed a number of times in late 1943 and early 1944, achieving several successes before Allied air superiority and electronic countermeasures rendered it ineffective. Notable amongst its successes were the sinking of the Italian battleship Roma
Italian battleship Roma (1940)
Roma, named after two previous ships and the city of Rome, was the fourth Vittorio Veneto-class battleship of Italy's Regia Marina...

 and the infliction of severage damage upon the British battleship Warspite, the American light cruiser Savannah
USS Savannah (CL-42)
USS Savannah was a light cruiser of the Brooklyn-class. She was laid down on 31 May 1934 by the New York Shipbuilding Association in Camden, New Jersey; launched on 8 May 1937; sponsored by Miss Jayne Maye Bowden, the niece of Senator Richard B. Russell, Jr., of Georgia; and commissioned in the...

 and the British light cruiser Uganda.

Dr. Kramer continued to evolve the basic Ruhrstahl X-1 design during the war. One direction of research was to improve the ability of this weapon to penetrate the heavy armor of modern battleships of the British King George V
King George V class battleship (1939)
The King George V-class battleships were the most modern British battleships used during World War II. Five ships of this class were built and commissioned: King George V , Prince of Wales , Duke of York , Howe , and Anson .The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 limiting all of the number,...

 and the American North Carolina
North Carolina class battleship
The North Carolina class was a group of two fast battleships, North Carolina and Washington, built for the United States Navy in the late 1930s and early 1940s...

 classes. The X-2 and X-3 variants of the weapon did so by achieving even higher descent speeds into the transonic
Transonic
Transonic speed is an aeronautics term referring to the condition of flight in which a range of velocities of airflow exist surrounding and flowing past an air vehicle or an airfoil that are concurrently below, at, and above the speed of sound in the range of Mach 0.8 to 1.2, i.e. 600–900 mph...

 range without losing directional stability. The X-5 and substituted greater explosive power for descent speed, with a total weight approaching 2,250 kg. The X-6 attempted to overcome heavy deck armor with a very heavy steel tip and an enhanced explosive charge. None of the variants ever made it into large-scale production or operational use.

One of Kramer's most renowned development efforts involved the Ruhrstahl X-4
Ruhrstahl X-4
The Ruhrstahl X-4 was a wire guided air-to-air missile designed by Germany during World War II. The X-4 did not see operational service and thus was not proven in combat...

, also known as the Kramer X-4. This was a highly innovative air-to-air missile, designed to be guided by airborne operators into the midst of Allied bomber formations. As such it was a precursor to the air-to-air guided missiles developed in the post-war period. Developed late in the war, X-4 does not appear to have been used in combat.

Post-War Activities in the United States

Dr. Kramer relocated to the United States after World War II as part of Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip was the Office of Strategic Services program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for employment by the United States in the aftermath of World War II...

. From 1947 to 1952 he worked for the Pilotless Aircraft Laboratory at the Naval Air Development Station in Johnsville, Pennsylvania conducting research on autonomous air vehicles and missiles and building upon his research on the X-4.

Kramer left government employment in 1952 to take a position as Technical Director with Coleman Engineering Company where his work focused on the highly efficient movement of structures through fluids via creation of laminar flows. He often reported that on crossing the Atlantic he noticed dolphins have a shape implying laminar flow and that this was the inspiration for his research. However, he had been researching laminar-flow issues long before he came to the U.S. After ten years of effort he discovered that a compliant coating, such as the skin of a dolphin would dampen any turbulent tendencies resulting from movement through water. He claimed that a 30% reduction in drag was possible, but subsequent researchers were unable to duplicate these results, leading to what has been called "The Kramer Controversy." Over time, as more research on the topic has been conducted, scientists have gradually confirmed Dr. Kramer's pioneering views.

In 1956, in order to monetize Kramer’s research on “Boundary Layer Stabilization by Distributed Damping,” Coleman Engineering and Kramer founded a jointly-owned company, Coleman-Kramer, Inc. The result of this combined effort was a new material designed to reduce drag in underwater vehicles emulating the compliant skin of porpoises. In 1957 the technology was licensed to US Rubber Co. for manufacturing, under the trademark Lamiflo. The Navy wasn't interested in this material, so Kramer patented it. Later the FBI claimed he sold it to the Russians.

Kramer died in June 1986 in Pacific Palisades, California.
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