"The amazing story of the Norden Bombsight" Topic
10 Posts
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23 Feb 2019 10:08 a.m. PST by Editor in Chief Bill
- Changed title from "The amazing story of the Nordern Bomb site " to "The amazing story of the Norden Bombsight"
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Sir Able Brush | 23 Feb 2019 4:09 a.m. PST |
I recently watched this fascinating talk on the bomb site – the scale of the investment and the political significance of it is extraordinary link
and have today soptted that such a secret amnd preciuious and seriously expensive thing appears here ebay.to/2XjwSXy |
Fred Cartwright | 23 Feb 2019 4:14 a.m. PST |
Shame it didn't actually work that well in practice having spent all that money. |
Sir Able Brush | 23 Feb 2019 12:54 p.m. PST |
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Lee494 | 23 Feb 2019 12:59 p.m. PST |
Well after all the money they spent they had to say it was great right? And compared to other Air Forces who were lucky to hit an entire city, it was pretty good! |
Fred Cartwright | 23 Feb 2019 4:53 p.m. PST |
And compared to other Air Forces who were lucky to hit an entire city, it was pretty good.
Actually no it wasn't. In practice the US achieved about the same accuracy as the British and Germans. The CEP (circular area probable) of the Norden in combat was 1,200 feet, same as the Brit and German bombsights were achieving. |
Keith Talent | 24 Feb 2019 12:50 a.m. PST |
A massive waste of money, which indirectly gave rise to the (still) enduring myth of US precision bombing. |
Sir Able Brush | 24 Feb 2019 2:42 a.m. PST |
It's worth a few minutes to watch the Ted talk – the first link above. |
Skarper | 24 Feb 2019 3:35 a.m. PST |
Has wider implications for misuse of resources in all fields. Often as in the Norden bombsight case no malice or crookery is involved. We can learn a lot from the strategic bombing campaigns of WW2. |
Weddier | 24 Feb 2019 10:42 p.m. PST |
Circle of Equal Probability (CEP); half the bombs fall inside, half outside. |
StarCruiser | 25 Feb 2019 11:00 a.m. PST |
Generally – it was no more, or less, accurate than the Sperry bomb sight used on some other USAAF bombers. It's still silly how much effort was spent trying to protect this "secret" weapon, when the Germans knew pretty much everything about before we even got into the war… Not sure if anyone's seen or posted this so: PDF link |
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