Their Arrows Will Darken the Sun by Mark Denny

Author:Mark Denny
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2011-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

Bombs Away

In World War I it was difficult to aim from airplanes, as well as to aim at them. From the point of view of those on the planes, all their ground targets were moving fast. Bomb-aiming methods early in the war were as crude as the biplanes from which the bombs were launched. The pilot would hold a small bomb out the open cockpit and drop it when he thought it a good idea to do so. Bombs are designed to be aerodynamically stable in that they have fins at the back to help them maintain a streamlined aspect, but these same fins make bombs susceptible to crosswinds. Bombs dropped from altitude were thus not very accurate: if 100 bombs are dropped from an airplane at exactly the same time, they will spread out and not land in the same place. Even if there is no systematic error (say due to crosswind or mistaking air speed) the bombs will spread out randomly around the intended target because of random atmospheric disturbances. This spread is statistical; the degree of spread (the standard deviation of the distribution) depends upon bomb design, airplane altitude, atmospheric disturbances, and other unquantifiable effects, such as the different ways that individual bombs tumble out of the airplane.

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