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Message
re: 75 years ago right now....The city of Hiroshima disappeared from the face of the earth....
Posted on 8/5/20 at 6:55 pm to RollTide1987
Posted on 8/5/20 at 6:55 pm to RollTide1987
frick those whales and dolphins
0
Posted on 8/5/20 at 6:56 pm to Breesus
quote:
It always amazes me that the vast majority of Americans know literally nothing about the Pacific Asian side of WWII
It's always interesting to bring up Yamamoto to find out what people know about the Pacific side of the war. Everyone knows he planned Pearl Harbor. Most people don't know that he was shot down and killed in maybe the most well executed flight intercept mission in history.
Posted on 8/5/20 at 6:56 pm to bobdylan
quote:
Also, why was it necessary to switch pilots?
I assume the bombardier has specific training the long range pilots don’t that’s necessary in executing bombing runs.
Posted on 8/5/20 at 6:57 pm to Breesus
quote:
This. Nazi Germany didn’t have shite on the Japs.
It always amazes me that the vast majority of Americans know literally nothing about the Pacific Asian side of WWII
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:01 pm to RollTide1987
They should not have attacked us.
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:02 pm to bobdylan
quote:
Also, why was it necessary to switch pilots?
They didn’t, really.
The pilot just relinquished control to the autopilot (yes, they had auto pilot back then), which was being driven by the Norden bombsight, which was targeted by the Bombardier, which had a forward/low vantage point which was in the pilots blind spot of the target area as they got close.
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:02 pm to bobdylan
quote:
Also, why was it necessary to switch pilots?
Because the bombardier was the one looking down the bomb sight.
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:04 pm to slackster
quote:
This is understandable at the time, but it almost seems sadistic in hindsight.
Had to be done though, there is no argument there.
The photographic planes were there because nobody had any idea what the effects would be on a city. There was no prior evidence of something on this scale from which to draw predictions.
In the case of the Hiroshima bomb, it had literally never been tested. The scientists were so sure of Little Boy's design that the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was the first time it was ever tested with nuclear material in its core. The Trinity test that came before it tested the design of the Fat Man device that was dropped over Nagasaki.
The photoreconnaissance planes were quite frankly there because we had no idea what was going to happen and needed some data to calibrate future designs and devices.
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:07 pm to TH03
quote:
Ridiculous accuracy from that height.
That's why the B-52's bombing algorithms are the exact same as what was used in the Norden bomb sight. Only differences are:
1) the calculations are done by a computer (our Offensive Avionics System) versus a human being
2) our primary aiming device is our radar versus an optical sight (provides all weather capability)
3) We have better means to account for wind effects on the bomb as it falls
My best effort in an unguided weapon delivery as the bombardier was a 17' bomb from 23,000'.
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:09 pm to jlovel7
quote:
Also, why was it necessary to switch pilots?quote:
I assume the bombardier has specific training the long range pilots don’t that’s necessary in executing bombing runs.
Nah. The Norden Bombsight that the bombardier used to aim the bombs connected to the autopilot and the bombsight literally flew the plane and controlled the release of bombs so that the bomb would go where they wanted it to. The bombardier would point at what he was especially angry with and the plane would exact vengeance. It's the main reason U.S. bombing could be so precise.
It was one of the most closely guarded secrets of WWII.
This post was edited on 8/5/20 at 7:12 pm
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:10 pm to RollTide1987
quote:
Little Boy detonated at an altitude of 1,968 feet above the Dr. Shima's Clinic
imagine a conversation had just started... "I'm afraid I have some bad news..."
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:14 pm to TigerstuckinMS
quote:
Nah. The Norden Bombsight that the bombardier used to aim the bombs connected to the autopilot and the bombsight literally flew the plane and controlled the release of bombs so that the bomb would go where they wanted it to. The bombardier would point at what he was especially angry with and the plane would exact vengeance. It's the main reason U.S. bombing could be so precise.
It was one of the most closely guarded secrets of WWII.
Exactly right. Same happens on the B-52 today. The pilot flips a switch that puts the offensive avionics system in control of steering the aircraft, through the auto-pilot system, to the release point.
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:14 pm to VADawg
quote:
It's always interesting to bring up Yamamoto to find out what people know about the Pacific side of the war. Everyone knows he planned Pearl Harbor. Most people don't know that he was shot down and killed in maybe the most well executed flight intercept mission in history.
and Midway is America's greatest intelligence success
change my mind
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:15 pm to rt3
quote:
and Midway is America's greatest intelligence success
change my mind
I think the Culper Ring is the only other possibility.
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:16 pm to rt3
It’s about time to drop a few more.
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:19 pm to TigerstuckinMS
quote:
The bombardier would point at what he was especially angry with and the plane would exact vengeance.
In the case of Nagasaki, it was the city’s cathedral. Nagasaki was the most Christian city in Japan at the time.
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:21 pm to TigerstuckinMS
quote:
It's the main reason U.S. bombing could be so precise.
It was one of the most closely guarded secrets of WWII.
It’s perception of precision is a myth put out by the designer in post war propaganda to build his mystique.
It was astonishingly tight in field tests, but in actual combat performance degraded to being almost as inaccurate as what everyone else was doing.
Navy had a dream of targeted drops from high altitude to attack inbound fleets at range.
The wide CEP led to them abandoning Norden equípped b-17s for ship attacks for dive bombers instead.
This post was edited on 8/5/20 at 7:24 pm
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:25 pm to bobdylan
quote:
Do you know how they retrieved these pressure gauges or how that worked? Surely they would have been obliterated?
Nope. They were dropped well before the bomb and were miles away from the detonation. They knew where they dropped them and what the wind was doing, so they had an idea of where to look and they just went out and found them. Also, at those distances, it was trivial to build something that could survive; they weren't actually in the blast.
They knew the rough distance between the canisters and the bomb, and from the records kept by the canister, they had elapsed time, pressure vs. time, altitude, barometric pressure, etc. With all that information, they could calculate the energy that had to be released to cause the data measurements they saw.
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:25 pm to Volvagia
quote:
t was astonishingly tight in field tests, but in actual combat performance degraded to being almost as inaccurate as what everyone else was doing.
This is due to how long it took the bombardier to do all the calculations to adjust the sight and get the aircraft steered to the release point. It's why they pilot turned over steering at 7 minutes until release. In combat, that often meant they were supposed to not maneuver to avoid enemy fire during that 7 minutes, but they often did which upset the aiming which then forced new calculations which then forced new steering commands, etc, etc. That's why it is great that the calculations are now done by a computer which computes them 8 times per second. We can turn over steering much later, allowing longer time to maneuver to survive.
Posted on 8/5/20 at 7:28 pm to Mo Jeaux
quote:
In the case of Nagasaki, it was the city’s cathedral. Nagasaki was the most Christian city in Japan at the time.
fun fact... Nagasaki wasn't the primary target
it was Kokura
but weather spared Kokura immensely as cloud cover made using visual sights (which was the way they were ordered to aim the A bombs... instead of radar) impossible
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