British Bomb Sights

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pinehilljoe

Senior Airman
742
572
May 1, 2016
We read so much about the Norden Bomb sight. What bomb sights were used in British planes like the Wellington, Halifax, and Lancaster?
 
thanks, another of Patrick Blackett's contributions to the War, I didn't know that.
 
Kevin J said:
So RAF bombing of German targets before 1942 was doomed to fail?
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Yes, and that was borne out by the surveys of bombing accuracy conducted in 1941. Fortunately, people like Hewitt had the vision to push for better bomb aiming solutions which did eventually come on stream mid-war. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of lives were wasted unnecessarily (or, more accurately, for precious little strategic-operational benefit) during the first 3 years of the war.
 
So for daylight bombing that means dive bombing, skip bombing and torpedo bombing are the only effective means of attack. That means that the USSR got it right.
 
Kevin J said:
So RAF bombing of German targets before 1942 was doomed to fail?
Click to expand...
And frequently after 1942, you have to be able to see the target to start with, not always possible by day with smoke and cloud, even more difficult at night. To this end a huge effort was put into navigation beams, radar imaging and meteorology recon. by both forces, actually working as one force in many cases.
 
Kevin J said:
So for daylight bombing that means dive bombing, skip bombing and torpedo bombing are the only effective means of attack. That means that the USSR got it right.
Click to expand...
For us Brits this means using Battles for dive bombing, Blenheims for skip bombing and Hampdens for torpedo bombing in 1939 to 1942. Now that's a really scary thought. Perhaps Whitleys for leaflet drops and Wellingtons as bomber recce aircraft around the European coast. Even more scarier. It sort of puts everything into perspective. Oh yes, Lysanders for artillery spotting and dropping / retrieving agents into enemy occupied Europe.
 
Kevin J said:
Battles for dive bombing, Blenheims for skip bombing and Hampdens for torpedo bombing in 1939 to 1942.
Click to expand...

Battles were sometimes used to "practice" dive bombing, which often consisted of diving at the ground with no bombsight for the pilot, dropping nothing and pulling out in time to avoid hitting the ground. While a 500lb bomb could be carried under each wing the impact on performance has never been mentioned, the normal load was four 250lb bombs in the wing which were lowered just before dropping in level flight ? Many british bombers carried the bombs in wing cells that had doors held shut by elastic cords. Weight of the bomb/s when released from the rack pushed the doors open and then the cords yanked them back.

Fairey Battle had a few other problems operating in defended airspace.

WHile the rear gun did cover a fairly large area in theory, in practice the field of fire was a lot more restricted. Anybody want to try duplicating that gunners position/stance at over 200mph in a European winter?

The British had a simple bombsight before the war (and early into the war) but it didn't work below 3000ft. Which made anti ship, anti sub and any other low level attack a matter of pilots eyesight and judgement (real large average miss distance).
Low level "skip" bombing needs a bit of practice and new fuses. Some of the first losses of the RAF Coastal command were when the 100b anti sub bombs dropped at low level managed to throw enough fragments to bring down the 2 aircraft dropping the bombs, fortunately for the aircrew it was a British submarine they had bombed and the sub (relatively undamaged) rescued the downed airmen.

You need long enough delay fuses to get the aircraft out of the blast area. I don't know if the fuse "initiates " on impact with the water on the first skip and the clock starts then or if the bomb/fuse has to hit a substantial part of the ship. IN any case this is not really a technique that could be learned at "annual bombing camp". Pre war most (all?) british bombing squadrons only practiced dropping bombs ata 1 to 2 week annual camp.

Prying Hampdens out of the clutching hands of Bomber Command in the early years of WWII to give to coastal command was going to take a big pry bar and quite likely a stunning blow to the head. A Hampden could carry 4 times the bomb load of a Blenheim and carry much larger bombs. BC's opposition to giving up such capability would be vehement.
 
Last edited:
There is a philosophical problem with bomb sights. If the sight worked perfectly and the bombs had perfect ballistics/aerodynamics they would all contribute to making one single large hole at the same point.
 
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