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Post by director on Aug 3, 2016 21:01:25 GMT -6
The point I was trying (but perhaps failed) to make was that the Norden was viewed as a good solution to the problems of strategic bombing, but it was not and perhaps could not have been, under war-time conditions with massed bomber strikes. Dive-bombing was one way to deliver a bomb accurately (though it did expose a bomber to light AA) but it was extremely difficult to build a big bomber that was strong enough to use as a dive-bomber, as Germany found out. The Norden bombsight and the heavy armament of US bombers did give the USAAF the incorrect belief that they could accurately and safely conduct strategic bombing, but once they realized it they had to keep going because they had no other acceptable option.
The first technological development that permitted truly accurate delivery of aerial munitions was the 'smart bomb' self-steering laser-guided warhead.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 3, 2016 21:14:37 GMT -6
The point I was trying (but perhaps failed) to make was that the Norden was viewed as a good solution to the problems of strategic bombing, but it was not and perhaps could not have been, under war-time conditions with massed bomber strikes. Dive-bombing was one way to deliver a bomb accurately (though it did expose a bomber to light AA) but it was extremely difficult to build a big bomber that was strong enough to use as a dive-bomber, as Germany found out. The Norden bombsight and the heavy armament of US bombers did give the USAAF the incorrect belief that they could accurately and safely conduct strategic bombing, but once they realized it they had to keep going because they had no other acceptable option. The first technological development that permitted truly accurate delivery of aerial munitions was the 'smart bomb' self-steering laser-guided warhead. The Norden was a good bombsight, but it just was never accurate enough for the doctrine that it was designed to be used in. You have to take the word "precision" out of precision daylight bombing. It was area bombing, and that was it. The technology was never up to the challenge.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 4, 2016 9:12:11 GMT -6
Here is a document that provides some planning information about the strategic bombing campaign. It might be useful for our discussion. StrategicBombing.pdf (216.25 KB) www.afhra.af.mil/studies/index.asp - This link is to the USAF Historical Research Agency official studies. A wealth of information about everything. I am going to try to find information on RAF bomber command documents.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 4, 2016 10:44:01 GMT -6
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