The Norden Bomb Sight
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.พ. 2023
- In this episode we're visiting the Lone Start Flight Museum and taking a look at a war winning technology, the Norden Bomb Sight.
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One of the people I knew back when I was in the military was a retired military intelligence analyst. He told me the story of when they were doing his background check, a record popped up that his mother had had a top secret security clearance during WWII. The agents who went to interview her asked her what she had done in the war that needed a clearance, and she said "I can't tell you." and refused to tell them anything more. They actually had to go to FBI headquarters and I guess some other office in the Pentagon to contact her and let her know it was alright to speak to the agents about what she had done. Turned out she had been working in the plant that made the Norden bomb sights.
I admire the Mom's attitude!
@@klsc8510 Yes, that's what you have to do. What else would you be able to say? Mom worked on something called the Manhattan Project but lived in Nevada. The agents would not be happy. Of course, they never are.
My mother also worked on the Norden. She worked in manufacturing at Iron Fireman in Portland, Oregon. She never would say exactly what she did.
@@roderickcampbell2105 My job as a Computer Repairman in the Air Force required me to have a Top Secret. My stuff was unclassified, but other gear that was part of the system was Top Secret. I still don't talk about it. My job did get me into neat places like SAC Wing Command Posts and Minuteman Launch Crew Capsules.
@@jamestorrence9340 My Mom made decals for Army trailers at Kalasign in Kalamazoo, MI. Nothing classified! Later got "drafted" to work in the office doing accounts receivable. Not bad for just a high school grad.
One of the technical devices that was a dismal failure was the firing mechanism for the US Navy's torpedoes early in the war. How many men lost their lives trying to force their torpedoes to fire. How many enemy ships didn't get sunk, thru no fault of the submarine crew's best efforts.
Yes - the pre-war firing mechanism was a disaster. It wasn't tough enough to survive the hit to the ship. and the torpedos did not run at their selected depth (I don't remember whether it was too high or too low - it strikes me as too low) for the magnetic triggers to work.
@@scottcooper4391 The depth setting was its own issue, iirc. The magnetic... "pistol", iirc, the problem there was that it was never tested in other geomagnetic field-environments, other than up in New England, AFAIK. The conditions in the Pacific were different, which caused the device to malfunction.
Reportedly, the Germans had similar issues with some torpedo types, but less bureaucratic "friction" in realising and analyzing the problem, iirc.
That was the first thing that popped into my head. Drachinifel has a lot to say on the subject !:-)
Not just the US navy using did torpedos. Numerous accounts of Royal Navy subs firing duds at enemy ships. Accounts from survivors saying at least two torpedoes hit the ship and bounced off, and also of one entering the engine room without exploding
Mechanisms, plural. The magnetic exploder was faulty as well as the traditional contract exploder that jammed when experiencing high G forces like slamming into a ship hull or cliff side.
The Norden story is actually more a story of good salesmanship than good design. The unit was actually abandoned by the Navy before WWII as unworkable, and personal connections/lobbying by Norden got the project adopted by the AAC instead. A huge reason for the secrecy itself was actually sales practice. By strictly controlling and requiring strict secrecy for all the sights, the Norden company was able to create somewhat of a mythical aura around the sight that led to the belief in its supremacy, despite it actually being among the worst sights available to the US, with the Sperry bombsight being superior in function, human interface, autopilot interface and accuracy. They also helped perpetuate myriad myths about the sight, from the "bomb in a picklebarrel" to the ultra fine crosshair coming from a specific southern belle.
Hmm? My late father was always telling me that Burroughs Corporation Manufacturer the Norden Bomb Site. He worked for Burroughs for over 40 years. Burroughs and Sperry did merge to become Unisys.
@@JohnPepp : The reality is that the US Army Airforce were not happy with the Sperry gunsight, which was developed for the US Navy - it was too difficult to use in a heavy bomber under combat conditions. They encouraged one of the Sperry Gunsight engineers, Carl Norden, to leave, form his own company, and design a new bombsight based to the same principles but much simpler to use.
Carl Norden proved to be a good engineer, but not much good at running a company. The USAAF induced him to take on people to manage production. Due to the large number of bomb sights required, Carl Norden's design needed up being made by his own company, plus Burroughs, and a couple of other firms.
All of Inak's comments are quite wrong. It was never a matter of Norden selling it to the USAAF, it was the USAAF who requested it. It did exactly what they wanted. It went through about 9 MINOR upgrades as the USAAF's requirements evolved - putting the lie to Inak's claim that it was the worst available.
@@keithammleter3824 no, Inak is correct. The studies showing that the Norden bombsight didn't work were highly classified and buried because it was considered better to pretend that it was a secret superweapon than to admit that that the project was basically an expensive failure. At the onset of US bombing in Europe the Norden immediately failed to meet its design accuracy. USAAF made a number of doctrinal changes to address that, to little effect. Postwar studies showed that the Norden didn't have any better performance in combat than cheaper, simpler systems. The British recognized this before the end of the war and dropped their similar systems, and the US also abandoned tachometric bombsights (as a dead end) post-war.
The security measures were invented by Norden, not by the Army (as a tool to improve the mystique of their product). The Germans had gotten a fairly complete understanding of the system via espionage before the war even started, and were fielding their own bombsights on the same principles. Nothing that the Norden did was so revolutionary that a technically advanced adversary couldn't come up with the same solution. (And the Germans were pretty good at optics and physics. The British built their own since the US wouldn't share the Norden for political reasons--the secrecy justified/hid the colossal expenditures.) The Norden itself was basically a refinement of systems from WWI.
The Norden company was initially funded by a sole-source Navy contract, before the formation of the the Army came in later. (Though Norden's business partner was an Army colonel...recommended by the Navy.) The Army's complaints about Navy designs that didn't take Army requirements into account referred to the Norden sights, and in the late 30s the Navy basically ended Army access to the Norden. It was Sperry that the Army looked to as a replacement, but Norden eventually got most of the money as the Norden company depended entirely on the bombsight and fought hard for that business, whereas Sperry just didn't care as much since that was just one product and they were making a heck of a lot of money selling other stuff.
Ironically the Navy gave up on the Norden and switched almost exclusively to dive bombing during the war.
Before the end of the world the Norden was discussed publicly, and declared a war-winning superweapon as a propaganda tool. Amazingly, that propaganda had legs and people believe it to this day.
As pieces of engineering the Norden sights are amazing. As an actual weapon system, they were a failure.
@@subtlehacker : You have no idea what you are talking about in your first paragraph. No idea at all.
Re your last sentence - the Norden was not all that amazing, given that its principles were described in US patents dating well before the War, but it did indeed work well. Not a failure at all.
1. Your alleged studies showing the Norden didn't work: Just about every US military document from WW2 has been declassified. Please identify these alleged secret documents that showed the Norden didn't work. In actual fact, there are a large number of USAAF documents that have been declassified and released to the public domain that show the Norden DID work - exactly as it was supposed to, including:
[Title, Year, Originator, classification]
# AAF Bombing Accuracy SC-T-83 1945 USAAF (originally secret, now declassified)
# Norden Bombsight - Maintenance & Calibration - M Series 1943 USAAF (this was never classified secret)
# Bombardier's Information File 1945 USAAF (Not classified secret. Earlier versions may have been)
2.. Wartime security measures:
This thing about the Norden requiring secrecy is just nonsense - in fact the concept of a company telling the US military what to do is just ridiculous. The Norden was never actually secret anyway - as the classification on each document shows.
The Norden, and the other bombsights in use in WW2 by the USAAF were subject to security measures, such as being kept in locked rooms, escorted to planes under guard. These measures were not designed to keep it secret from any enemy - given it flew in vast numbers of bombers, that would have been futile. The measures were designed to ensure that the Norden's complex machinery worked correctly in every flight, and that aircrews could not claim they had to abandon a mission and return to base because the Norden was defective. As folk say, those WW2 bomber crews generally had "balls of steel" - however you always get someone who is unwilling to go, and it was quickly learnt that the typical excuse was things hard to prove a lie, such as "could not level the sight" or "engine was mis-firing".
3. The US Navy was committed to medium sized aircraft carriers carrying dive bombers anyway. They could not fly heavy bombers off an aircraft carrier. What won the War in Europe was not the Navy, it was the USAAF precision bombing specific targets. This is clearly shown in a number of documents. And what enabled them to do it was heavy bombers equipped with the Norden and good navigation.
4. Use after WW2. The fact is, the USAAF/USAF continued using the Norden after the war, eg in Korea, until smart bomb (guided bomb) technology was developed, which made final aiming before release obsolete.
I suggest you read the USAAF and US Govt documents now in the public domain, before running your mouth off with urban myths gained from certain TH-camrs and the like.
@@subtlehacker That doesn't read right. Computing bomb sights worked so long as you had a cool headed crew to follow the drill properly under fire (admittedly difficult). A Norden at 15,000ft was very accurate, more accurate than a non computing sight because of its ability to measure head wind and cross wind drift as well as target motion. At 25,000ft mid altitude cross winds made this almost impossible (smoke bombs, met aircraft might be used). A Squadron of B-26 had no problem destroying a Bridge at 12000-15000ft with a Norden. The Germans and British alike achieved spectacular results from these altitudes. Besides high altitude cross winds there was the issue of cloud cover. So long as the computing bomb sight had good visibility and it was not used at altitudes so high that mid altitude cross winds were involved it worked very well.
-Eventually doppler radar and IMU provided with wind drift and increasingly high resolution radar allowed bombing at night and through cloud cover (post war). Obviously bombing with crude WW2 radar was more accurate than bombing through cloud (90% of the time in Europe)
There's one in the Wright Museum of WW2 in Wolfeboro, NH. It's an extremely nice museum that focuses on the home front as well as having a large running vehicle collection.
Thank you so very much for all the work you & the volunteers/staff do! 🙏❤️
The Navy's TBF Avengers were originally fitted with Norden bomb sites to engage in level bombing of ships and ground targets and were found to be a complete waste of space, maintance time and both moderate angle drive bombing and skip bombing of ships and Torpedo (once MK 13 was fixed) was more effective attacking enemy ships than the useless Nordens. By late 42 to the radio/bombader suite was being reword for radar sets for night attacks.
That's my understanding too. The bomb sight was essentially just propaganda and hyper-hype.
I love your videos. My father in law served on USS NJ in the Korean conflict. Hopefully he left his name there somewhere
I can't help but notice the stealth aircraft behind Ryan. You can see the chocks.
Thank you Lone Star and BB62 for this Video . I have to wait to learn more . My youngest Brother grew up with 2 kids Beeper and Spooker . I used to see their Dad at the Gunshow and he Collected everything . Story goes that he donated his to our local Museum and was owed a Ride in Fuddy Duddy . I do not know if he Ever collected ? Both Dave and the B 17 are gone .
The "dropping a bomb into a pickle barrel" story was popularized by the company themselves at circus shows, basically to boost morale and as a marketing stunt. As Ryan says, in real life it wasn't great (but in fairness, very few of the precision bomb sights of the era met expectations).
Malcolm Gladwell's book The Bomber Mafia is a good read for those interested in the history of WWII American strategic bombing and the Norden's role in that.
It's kind of amazing how much technology got rushed into service without much testing in those days. (See also, torpedoes.) Modern defense procurement drags on forever and goes horribly over budget.
But a bunch of the modern cost overruns are basically because the manufacturer made a "pickle barrel" exaggerated claim that didn't pan out in testing, so they had to go back and do more cycles of iteration before the military would actuallya dopt it. If the Norden sight had been more robustly tested, I can't imagine that the military would have actually invested so much effort keeping it secret. (And they would have continued more R&D on precision bombing rather than assuming it was something of a solved problem.)
The Pickle barrel at 20,000 feet was hype. Actually Sperry made a better machine. The British machine was equally as good. In truth bombing accuracy was not really that good. The only thing that actually worked was saturation bombing, the theory being if you dropped enough bombs in a given area, one or two would hit the intended target.
Sure if the barrel is an acre wide. Its all how you phrase it.
+1vommer mafia
@@michaeltroster9059
No the British system wasn't, they couldn't even bomb from the altitude that the USAAF bombed from, Lancaster bombers had a version of the Merlin engine that wasn't the same one that was in the late war Spitfire's like the Mk IX and the Packard Merlin in the P51, the Merlin's in Lancaster's only had single stage superchargers and not the 2 stage high altitude supercharger that late war Merlin's had, there was only a limited number of high altitude superchargers that could be produced so they were only used on the Merlin's that went in fighter's like Spitfire's and Mosquito's, even Hurricane's didn't get them.
But B17's like most other USAAF aircraft such as the P47's, P38's, B24's, B29's and others had turbo chargers that compounded the engine's single stage superchargers starting at medium altitude which gave better high altitude performance than even 2 stage superchargers much less the single stage supercharger Merlin's in the Lancaster's, a B17 loaded with 6,000 lbs of bombs for a high altitude deep penetration mission could fly 5,000 ft higher than an empty Lancaster could.
The RAF didn't bomb at altitudes anywhere close to what the USAAF could, and they claimed a 36% bombs on target average while the USAAF claimed a 32% bombs on target average but the RAF considered an entire city to be it's target while the USAAF targeted factories and sometimes specific buildings.
So while the USAAF was bombing from higher altitudes it was far more accurate than the RAF that could only get 36% of it's bombs to hit an entire city with the rest impacting out in the countryside and maybe killing a cow or two.
The real proof as to the accuracy and effectiveness of the USAAF bombing campaign can be heard in the German reports, the reports on how much of their facilities were destroyed and the urgency in their reports that something needed to be done about it along with the fact that they moved fighter units that were desperately needed in the east to the west where they were even more desperately needed.
There's been more nonsense spread around by so called historians about the Norden bombsight non of which have degrees in history and who quite obviously have a bias and an agenda to both bash it and to make themselves look like they know what they're talking about, it's doubtful any of them have ever even read a USAAF report on the accuracy of the Norden bombsight, all they want to do is blame every single bomb that missed it's target on the Norden bombsight, when in fact 65% of the bombs dropped by the 8th Air Force weren't aimed using the Norden bombsight instead they were aimed using the H2X ground scanning radar system especially during the winter months when overcast skies prevented optical aiming, needless to say the ground scanning radar system was far less accurate than optical aiming but they include the results from it when they're ragging on the Norden bombsight, I highly doubt any of them even know about the H2X system much less the fact that the majority of bombs dropped by the 8th Air Force were aimed using it instead of the Norden bombsight.
Other factors that unjustly get blamed on the Norden bombsight are things like lead navigators flying entire formations to the wrong target resulting in it getting bombed and a zero bombs on target result getting averaged into the math when they access the accuracy of the Norden bombsight, even if the bombardiers absolutely plastered what they were actually aiming at, the Germans lighting off smoke pots to obscure targets and camouflaging targets and setting up decoys down the road resulting in another zero bombs on target result that gets factored into their math when talking about the Norden bombsight.
And then there's that pickle barrel nonsense, nobody that had anything to do with designing or manufacturing the Norden bombsight nor the USAAF ever made the claim that the Norden bombsight could drop a bomb in a pickle barrel, nobody knows where that nonsense got started at but it had nothing to do with anyone who had anything to do with the Norden bombsight, if someone is running around in town telling everyone that you can beat up Mike Tyson does that mean you're obligated to fight him? No, of course it doesn't, and neither should the makers of the Norden or the USAAF be held to task over that stupid claim, even at the lowest altitude possible to use the Norden bombsight because of it's settings the lenses in it aren't powerful enough to make out a pickle barrel from that distance, so why would any of them have made that claim?
And just so you know so that you won't go sticking your foot in your mouth anymore the Sperry bombsight and the Norden are one in the same, the development of the Norden bombsight is quite a long story and at one point Sperry because involved and was the principle manufacturer including an earlier version that was on US bombers early in the war before the gyro stabilizing base was fully developed and ready, some people call it the Sperry sight but they're one in the same.
The Norden bombsight was incredibly accurate, saying it isn't is like claiming the M1 rifle wasn't accurate because a post war report showed that on average 387 shots were fired from M1's for every enemy soldier killed by one, and since another report shows that the average distance between infantry engaging each other was 60 yards then that means that the M1 rifle could only hit a man sized target at 60 yards once out of every 387 shots, that's the same measuring metric nonsense logic people use to claim that the Norden bombsight wasn't accurate, the results from using that type of measuring metric doesn't speak to the accuracy of M1 rifles or Norden bombsights it only speaks to the conditions under which they were used.
The truth is when the Norden bombsight was used the first bomber box had an 83% bombs on target average, but because following boxes had to aim through all the dirt and debris thrown into the air above the target results dropped for each following box, each 500 lb general purpose bomb displaced and threw into the air above the target enough dirt to fill 13 dump trucks, each B17 on a deep penetration mission dropped twelve 500 lb general purpose bombs so that's 156 dump trucks worth of dirt thrown into the air above the target for each B17, 16 B17's in a box makes it 2,496 dump trucks worth of dirt in the air above the target that the 2nd box had to aim through, add on another 2,496 for each box, read the reports on that, they include pictures of the same target taken from a B17 from each box, by the time you get to box number 5 you can't see anything on the ground not even an entire factory, the percentage of bombs on target for the 2nd box was down into the 70 percentile, by the 5th box it was in the 20 percentile.
The Enola Gay released it's bomb from 31,000 ft moving at over 300 MPH yet it's bomb detonated directly over a spot just 800 ft from it's aiming point, that's 5.9 miles above the earth it dropped it's bomb at over 300 MPH, to hit the target 45 seconds after it was dropped required it to release it's bomb almost 3 miles before it was over it, and it hit just 800 ft from where it was aimed, anyone who claims that wasn't accurate for 1945 has no clue what they're talking about, not only was it incredibly accurate for the 1940's but no one else in the world aside from the USAAF was capable of doing it, to say it wasn't accurate based on comparing it to today's pin point laser guided bombs is more highly flawed logic, it was the 1940's and it was the first time in history that anyone had ever bombed from those altitudes and speeds and 800 ft from the target wasn't accurate? Yes, it was accurate and no one else in the world could match it at the time.
I believe the term 'pickle' (as in 'to pickle') is still used to indicate the moment the trigger is 'pushed' to release a bomb (from a plane).
1940s to early 1960s saw so many curiosities in military technology. Some, like the radar, were an absolute hit. Some not so much. My favorite oddity remains the Goodyear Inflatoplane. An inflatable plane, exactly what it says on the tin!
Thanks to all the folks providing references to actual data. Meanwhile if Ryan can leave NJ for TX then maybe he can do a personal exploration road trip to Dayton OH and visit National Museum of the USAF. Did it Apr 2022 - it is huge, awesome, exhausting. Well worth it regardless of what exploration/war era is your interest as long as it flies.
It must have been nearly impossible to be strategic with this thing during the nightmare of battle
Those bomber dudes were on another level ✌️💯
My dad flew B-29s in Korea. The Norden was still used and treated as a highly sensitive item. I remember him freaking out when we saw one sitting in a scrap yard.
I would love to see statistics comparing its accuracy to its competition. Who used what at what accuracy? As much as this thing was literally smoke and mirrors, as much as it was contractor-padded pork-barreling, I still think it was kinda effective.
The Norden did just what it was supposed to do. There has been a lot of uninformed nonsense that it was overhyped or even a scam - and unfortunately Ryan has repeated some of that.
All the training, service manuals, and performance reports pertaining to the Norden have been declassified.
Report AAF Bombing Accuracy SC-T-43 1945 gives a graph on page 18. It shows the mean error ranges from 150 feet when the bomber is at 5000 feet altitude, to 200 feet when bombing from 25,000 feet. This data is aggregated for all bomb sights the AFF used, not just the Norden. However, practical bombing accuracy was another matter. Its a bit like using a steel ruler - I as a trained machinist, can consistently mark out to within 0.5 mm. But it I had to do it while being shot at by ack-ack, I wouldn't be that good.
That was until the B-29s over Japan tried bombing at high altitude. The Norden Bomb sight had no adjustments for the high winds of the jet stream. General LeMay found they were lucky to hit the city let alone the target! The jet stream scattered the bombs all over the place!
@@klsc8510 : You're not correct. The Norden was modified in time for Japan - the USAAF modified it to retain accuracy at the higher altitudes they planned to use. Note that the planned change in altitude was not great, compared to the campaign against Germany. The service ceiling of a B-29 is about the same as for the B-17, but as the B-29 was preasurised, it was a lot more comfortable and less strain on crews on long flights.
The story about the jet steam being a factor is an urban myth. All airforces at and before WW2 were well aware of the jet stream phenomena. Japan even used it to fly balloons from Japan to the USA to drop bombs on the USA - the US authorities clamped a tight secrecy over it, so that Japan could not evaluate if it was worthwhile by reading newspapers etc. What was different about the weather in Japan compared to Germany was the existence of strong unpredictable low level winds.
Jet streams are pretty constant, so easily compensated for by the Norden and other sights.
The USAAF found that (compared to Germany) the Japanese ground based anti-aircraft guns were ineffective, so LeMay ordered the B-29's to fly much lower, because they could do so fairly safely and because it saved a certain amount of fuel. Saving fuel was important as the B-29's were operating at the limit of their range.
There was nothing difficult about finding Japanese cities - they were huge sprawls even then, on the coast, and the Japanese coast is highly irregular and easy to identify.
But the USAAF didn't know where in any given city where specific targets were. If you wanted to, say, bomb a ball bearing factory in Germany, or a radio tube plant, just get a German phone book or trade journal and look it the address. Germany concentrated its industry in huge industrial complexes. The underground and spies could feed back useful information and confirm targets. Germany had huge electricity generating stations - again you could get the address by looking it up.
In Japan, except for a few exceptions, there were no big industrial sites. No big power stations - just a lot of little ones. Japanese industry then was like Pakistan is now - a multitude of father & son (and/or uncle) small businesses mixed in with houses. One over here making piston rings (one size only, someone else made other sizes) and nothing else, another over there making choke cables and nothing else. From the air it just looked like a lot of houses. And no phone books. No trade journals. No spies or underground. That's why in Germany the USAAF did strategic bombing against specific large targets, but in Japan they just carpet bombed everything.
An indication of USAAF accuracy in Germany is eg Cologne Cathedral. The US command ordered that it not be touched. It never was, but the city blocks surrounding it were completely wrecked. One side of a street - normal ;- on the other side - rubble.
An indication of USAAF accuracy in Japan was the emperor's palace complex and grounds. The US command ordered that it not be touched (they were saving him for later). It was not touched, not a scratch, but city blocks around it were wrecked.
@@keithammleter3824 If the Norden did what it was supposed to do, they would not needed to do massive area bombardment such as the Tokyo fire bombings which actually killed more civilians than the atomic bombs.
The first B29 combat mission with Norden bombsight was to bomb a bridge in Bangkok…. the bridge was fine, the hospital 2 km away from the bridge… was not.
A lot of lives would’ve been save if it did what it was supposed to do.
@@tonamg53
Comprehension much?
If you want to see one closer to BB62, they have one at the Millville Army Air Force Museum in Millville NJ
I remember seeing a photo article in Life magazine a long time ago in which a group of bombardiers staged a competition based off of the 'pickle in a barrel' claim. They each dropped pickles out of a 4-5 story building window, hoping to hit the barrel on the street. None were very successful, if memory serves.
Did Ryan have custom 1911 grips made out of the old teak? That's what I thought would be cool using it for. For now, the teak I received is stored somewhere safe.
Ooh I like the idea of 1911 grips!
That teak wood, would increase some firearm values quite alot!
It also gives me an idea!
Really interesting training video you showed, but what I really want to know is what the "MARRY ME" sign reflected in the display case next to Ryan is all about! 😁
someone was proposing at the museum
the fact that this is 100% mechanical, a machine, so precise and complicated, that someone thought of and built. i can barely rebuild a chevy 350 and that thing had far greater tolerances than the norden, i cant imagine the delicate process of building one, especially in those days.
Way back in 1977, I went to a gun show. They had a Norden bomb for sale for $25. Many time I wish I could of bought it but that was a lot of money for me back then.
My old ship, DD-945, had the LORAN radio navigation system in the mid-seventies. It was developed in WW II but the intervening years didn't improve it. We never bothered to use it.
A Norden employee leaked the plans for the bombsight to the Germans prior to WWII and they developed a few mock ups. It wasn't as much of a secret as the Allies thought
didnt have to steal it it was a product on the open market
Even better, the Germans evaluated it and decided it wasn't any better than the much cheaper, much simpler sights they were using. The Norden was pretty much entirely a scam.
@@cptjeff1 Germans developed more advanced bomb sights, using primitive analogue computers for Ar-234, and automatic mechanical ones to pull Ju-87's out of a dive in case the pilot lost consciousness due to excessive G-forces.
The Germans knew pretty how it worked with all the downed bombers scattered in Europe since the beginning of 1942. Regarding the drawings of how the Norden Bomb Sight worked giving wrong info as the Germans were not fooled and they were producing better Bomb Sights on their own. Finally the Norden Bomb Sight was a marvelous machine but it wasn't very precise and generally the Bomb operator couldn't care less were the Bomb was dropped provided that it was dropped on the city....
@@paoloviti6156 Ordanance dropped all over the place is still a problem in Germany. Not only for the public disturbance when they are found and cleared, but also a deadly risk for construction workers.
Dropping bombs just anywhere is a warcrime.
I wonder if Missouri museum has something on her involvement with the search for lost British South American Airways Avro Tudor 4B, the Star Tiger
If you come to jacksonville for the uss Orleck. Please post in advance so i can be there that day.
A friend had nothing good to say about Norden company. He worked for LTV in Texas on the electronics of the MLRS system. Norden was a subcontractor building electronic modules for the MLRS. My friend was sent to Norden in New York on many occasions because Norden did a poor job of assembly and would substitute cheaper parts without telling anyone. The modules would fail testing and my friend had to figure out what was being done incorrectly.
These old mechanical computers were absolutely amazing.
Numbers were represented as shaft terms. Addition & Subtraction was performed by differential gears (like in a car). Multiplication/Division by two variable by using a logarithmic cams to convert to logs and then uses differentials to do the addition/subtraction anti log cams to get the result. There were also trigonometric cams, ballsitc cams for gun superelevation, and flight time etc. Many cams were 3D. They were cast, went through a cam copying machine and were then ground to optical lens precision.
Because friction would build up in the computing gears early computers had opperators (up to 9 men) reading intermediate calculations out on dial gauges and then reentering the data. Latter they were replaced by electric servos. The US atlas ICBM used mechanical computing. It was very accurate. Digital computers have errors in the analog to digital converters.
There are other more in depth analysis of the Norden. It's effectiveness was not only over hyped but there's quite a story about the shenanigans of the company owner to get the AAF to use the Norden over the Sperry bomb sight which was better and more effective. The British looked at it but we're unimpressed as were the Nazis.
It was good enough I guess.
@@scrapperstacker8629 +/- a few hundred yards is good enough when you're carpet bombing.
Much of the secrecy around the Norden bombsight was pure hype. The Norden bombsight was at a lower level of classification than a comparable Sperry system that nobody has heard of, because they were not allowed to talk about it. The Sperry system used more advanced technology and was better integrated with the autopilots also made by Sperry. Norden took advantage of its lower classification to advertise the bombsight, so military procurement officers would know it existed. There was even a children's toy "Bombs Away!" that allowed kids to bomb Japanese ships with a 'Norden' bombsight (actually a periscope). A joystick moved a plane back and forth over a turntable with targets on it and the periscope gave the view below the toy plane. The Joystick had a trigger that dropped bombs. The toy was brought back in the 1970s, reskinned as air dropping rescue supplies.
The big problem with the Norden bombsight was that two knobs that would benefit from being adjusted simultaneously were not placed so that both hands could on them at the same time. Fortunately for Norden, the performance gap between the Norden bombsight and superior bombsights was not enough to make selecting the Norden bombsight an outright mistake, as their system was cheaper.
Complicated to operate especially under the stress of battle conditions and amazing tech. for the era
i went to a DRMO depot in oklahoma when i was in the Air Force. they had Bombsight, Norden, mk whatever for sale for something like $20. you only had to buy 10 pallets of 30 in 'the lot' that was for sale. i didnt get any. 10-15 years later good Nordens were going for well over $1,000 and minty, complete examples considerably higher
thanks
How long are you in Houston?
the front entry of the lone star flight museum has a really cool thing people often walk by without noticing.
there is a Blue Link Trainer, pretty cool that they had flight simulators in the 1930's.
I don't think theirs is functional but it would have run on air Pumps!
The gun stabilizer in Sherman tanks were an interresting device! Was difficult to use, but it had to start somewhere!
It is much like the gun stabilization on the M4 Sherman. Very few could effectively use it, and they didn't have a large enough pool to draw competent bombardiers from.
while I believe fear of the enemy getting a Nordon bomb site. That wasnt the important reason they were removed from the Dolittle Raid planes. The raid required them to fly on the deck. low and fast. the Nordon was notoriously unaccurate at normal heights, even worse on the deck. plus it was heavy as hell. a pilot for tge raid developed a easier, more accurate bomb site with parts from a hardware store costing around $4.. After proving its accuracy, the Nordons were thrown out.
Norden was worried that the Japanese would then make a more accurate bombsight that was also smaller and cheaper to buy, so the Doolittle B-25 sights had to stay behind (pictures a Norden Sight on the Pier waving goodbye to the Hornet)
Great to use the animation with the actual model. My over rated tech is remote control aircraft for bombing targets. Senior Kennedy son killed trying to arm one of those (they think).
@Ryayn, I live/grew up in the south east US. I've seen pickle barrels. I think one 1 curator = 2 pickle barrrels. Approximation. Just a thought.
Delivering a new world.
I see CV-8 USS Hornet there behind you, I love large scale models
Pickle Barrel, from memory, was 87 gallons, perhaps 60% larger than, say, a bourbon barrel.
"Could drop a bomb into a pickle barrel!" Operative word "COULD". COULD also miss it cause situation wasn't perfectly managed by a mathematical genius in an extremely controlled flight where they all knew the exact parameters with the most advanced flight instruments they could make at the time calibrated to the exact sight used during the test.
It was "theoretically" vs "practically" on an airforce scale. And no one wanted to admit the practical wasn't living up to the theoretical. The bomber he missed, the pilot he wasn't perfect, the general it wasn't the best conditions, the designer it couldn't account for them, and the salesman that it wouldn't do it for you. Math is perfect, and the Norton was a perfect example of a mechanical calculator adjusted for flight bombing conditions. The real world just didn't match the angles
I bet what they did was have the first squadron sight the bomb run exactly per procedure. Then they'd take note of where the bombs landed. Then the guys from the first squadron would then
relay the results of their bomb run to the next squadron behind them. That way, each group of B-17s could dial in better accuracy based upon the previous results. They could correct
for random wind-drift caused by various layers of air moving in different directions much like a parachute spotter does by dropping a streamer over the DZ and then watching
where it lands and then make sure to make the spot exactly that same amount upwind of the DZ to get a good spot.
I'd love to see a video on all the tech that went in to the anti-aircraft capabilities of US warships. VT fuzes, etc.
VT fuzes were a very top secret thing too !
I remember the era where you were told not to ask people what they did during the war, as it was thought it would bring back too many memories they were trying to forget, or that they couldn't talk about because of the secrecy involved.
I doubt the classification of the secrets survive to today, except for some of the nuclear bomb technology.
"Carl Norden, as a proper Swiss man, was enamored by German engineers. In the 1930's he hired a bunch of them, including a man named Herman Long, who in 1938 gave a complete set of the plans for the Norden Bombsight to the Nazis,"
Carl Norden was a Dutch/American engineer born on Java: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Norden
if you get your hands on a sperry bomb sight can you show us ? the old hq/ manufacture site is about 20 minutes from me but nothing was saved and is now a medical facility
If you ever get a chance to planes of Fame Museum and the Yanks air museum are wonderful museums in Ontario California.
I am still sore with POF for selling the Howard Hughes ME-262
@@larrybremer4930 when did Howard Hughes go to mister Schmidt me-262?
My late father was proud that he worked for the company (Burroughs Corporation) that manufactured the Norden Bomb Site.
There was a story told by Japanese Navy fighter ace Saburo Sakai he and his crew was stationed at a shared Army/Navy airfield in the Philippines when they saw a lone B-17 attempting to land at the airstrip, the wheels were touching the ground…However, the Army personnel manning the AA started firing towards the plane…. The B-17 gunned the engine and took off… The Navy guys were so pissed that a huge fight ensued between two services….The Japanese military lost the opportunity of obtaining a fully operational B-17…
The enigmatic Norden worked as well as the previous LAR Method, which is Looks About Right.
I was talking to a friend who was a bombadier on B-17s in Europe. He told me that by mid-war, most aircraft had the sight removed, since the squadrons were largely bombing by formation.
King of the Battlefield!
"MARRY ME" reflection... what's that about?
Probably the most problematic technological innovation of WW2 was the magnetic detonator for torpedoes. Neither the US or Germany could get them to work properly. They were either over-sensitive or failed to detonate at all. One well-known example of premature detonation happened with the British carrier Ark Royal. One can only imagine the course of naval history in the Atlantic had Ark Royal been sunk in 1939, just a couple of weeks after the loss of Courageous. For one, the Bismarck most likely would've made it to a friendly port.
5:20 You are in trouble when they find a broken one and see that it doesn't look like your drawing. But by then, the secret is out.
Mission creep was part of the Norden bombsight "problem." That bombsight worked fine when at 15,000 feet at 150 knots airspeed and in clear weather without flak, fighters, and other countermeasures. When the altitude exceeded 20,000 feet and bomber speeds exceeded 200 knots and the target was shrouded in smoke and cloud and flak bursts after fighters had a go at the crew, plus hours of flying through air temperatures of minus 40--things were a lot harder.
Worse--navigation was a problem. Doesn't matter how accurate your bomb sight is when you are over the wrong city thirty miles away.
Analog technology is so brilliantly clever.
The most problematic by far was torpedos, torpedos, torpedos...
and Montgomery's ego. 😂
What about Macarthur's massive ego? !!!
@@alexwood5425 Add Patton and King to that list.
Mark Clark reporting for duty.
At least most soldiers that served under Monty tended to like his command style, including Americans during the Battle of the Bulge that were put (temporarily) under his command. He was disliked by most other generals which got him this reputation, and his Market Garden debacle of course but the critical lack of urgency to capture Nijmegen brigde couldn't be solely blamed on him.
But yes, most commanders tend to fall victim of hubris, goes with the fame I guess.
I had a neighbor who was the first woman to actually use the Norden Bomb site to drop a bomb from a plane. Bullseye by the way. she was training to be a bombader trainer during WW2
Waiting for an animation of the mark 8 (48?) mechanical analog computer on the New Jersey with some actual movement of the real components in this computer..
The standing joke. ‘Bombardier to pilot, did you say that the address was 106 Berlinstrasse or 107?’
Under-rated is the Vacuum Tube based Proximity Fuse for Anti Aircraft rounds
Pickle barrel sounds like a perfectly normal US dimension. Remember, they measure the weight of naval artillery shells in Chevrolets.
Unfortunately, the training of the bombardiers was lacking, and the actual battle conditions (altitude, airspeed) it was being used in didn't match the parameters it was designed for... Also, there was a lack of "real time" ACCURATE atmospheric conditions data to feed it, which made the inaccuracies even greater. Not too be ignored, the aerodynamics of the bombs themselves were lacking sufficient development to lend to better accuracy...
There was a competing technology, from the Sperry company, that might have been somewhat more successful. Or at least, cost less to build and manufacture, since accurate high altitude horizontal bombing was basically a pipe dream at the state of WWII technology...
You should read actual US AAF technical documents and get the facts. They have all been declassified and are available on line. You've got all your facts wrong. The Norden (actually pre-war technology) was just as accurate as it was supposed to be. The US AAF didn't go with the Sperry as it was an ergonomic disaster. You needed both hands to operate it. The Norden could be efficiently operated with just your right hand, which left your left hand free to hang on tight to something rigid while the plane was being jostled about by close shave anti-aircraft fire, turbulence, etc. As a result, the AAF asked Norden to redesign the Sperry.
WW2 bombs dropped from aircraft quickly accelerated to close to the speed of sound. This meant that uncertainty in aerodynamic forces acting on bombs was just not a significant factor.
High ground level winds in Japan could have been a factor, but the USAAF didn't know where militarily significant targets were located, so they just carpet bombed and wrecked entire cities.
@@keithammleter3824 th-cam.com/video/U6D5rXbMBKo/w-d-xo.html
@@keithammleter3824 th-cam.com/video/3tlHOSCZwC8/w-d-xo.html
@@GeshronTyler1 : I watched that video 3tlHOCZwC8 some time ago. I can't remember exactly what was in it, but I base my views and posts mainly on reading original (now declassified) USAAF wartime documents and war's end US government documents.
The ones most pertanent to the Norden and achieved accuracy include:-
AAF Bombing Accuracy SG-T_83 1945
AAF Eighth Airforce Statistical Summary 1945Bombing Surve
AAF Eighth Airforce Tactical Development 1945
AAF Statistical Digest 1945
AAF Terminal Ballistic Data Vol 1 Bombing 1944
United States Strategic Bombing Survey Overall Report - European War 1945
United States Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Pacific War 1946
Note that the last two references were the output of a civilian investigation committee established by the US President, and despite the title, the data within the European War report did not and could not distinguish reliably between bombs dropped by the USAAF and bombs dropped by the RAF.
These references are readily available free from Hathi Trust and a few US museum websites.
You may like to watch the excellent videos by a TH-camr "WWII US Bombers".
The pickle barrel nonsense began in the US magazine "Iron Age" for December 1944 during WW2 and the article was widely derided at the time. Nobody with half a brain thought that the report was a serious claim.
@@GeshronTyler1 : re video U6D5rXbMBKo Flight Dojo is just yet another TH-camr who posts about things he knows nothing about, regurgitating myths from other TH-camrs, going off down rabbit holes, and not going back to original sources to get the facts.
I recall another video Dojo made. claiming that another engine was better than the RR Merlin, because it had more power than the Merlin. It did, but if he looked at the fuel consumption he would have immediately seen why the RAF went with the Merlin, which was much easier to make in quantity too.
He starts of by saying the Norden was THE most, or the second most, military secret. Clearly that is utter nonsense. Basic information was printed in mass circulation magazines before the WW2 was over. Boeing even ran an advert mentioning it in Fortune Magazine (1943 January Page 161).
If you think anything fitted to all B-17's, B-25's etc flying over Germany could be any sort of secret, given how many got shot down, you are living in a complete fantasy.
If you think that something that thousands of bombardiers were intensively trained on, and many more trained to service and calibrate them, you living a complete fantasy.
The people who ran the US AAF were not fools. They understood the waste and inefficiency of trying to keep something secret that could never be secret. That's why all teh Norden training and technical documentation was classified at the lowest level (restricted) - a classification they applied to everything that wasn't actually secret
Yeah considering that the British had intended to build 9158 Avro Lancaster and 4545 Avro Lincoln in WW2 with the bulk being Heavy Bombers
What was the production limit for the Norden bomb sight as there would be a hard limit i think
The production rate of Norden Bombsights was irrelevant to the number of Lancs/Halifaxs or Lincolns built - the RAF did not use Norden Sights, they achieved pretty comparable results using the Mk14 Bombsight
Well you would have had a similar production limit problem
@@Knight6831 Well they made 7377 Avro Lancasters, 6176 Hanley Page Halifaxs and 2371 Short Stirlings (all 4 engine bombers) plus 7871 DH Mosquitos (though only some varients had the Mk 14 sight) so production didnt seem to be a restricting factor......
@@davehopkin9502 The RAF did use them, though very few aircraft had them ftted.
Very few.
@@ABrit-bt6ce We tried to get hold of them but the US refused, it went right up to PM v President level following on from the Tizzard mission.
If there is evidence to show we used them, I'd like to see it
Saw the title and said why the heck would the NJ have a Norden bomb sight?
In the long long time ago when I was a child pickles were generally processed in oak barrels and they sold those barrels full of pickles to grocers. In the general store quite often there would be a large open barrel full of soaking pickles for you to select the pickles of your choice from. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your view of it) they were outlawed sometime during the 70's as I recall, so probably before your time.
Outlawed the pickle barrel you say? Every Christmas I go home to Worcester Massachusetts and visit my favorite Polish deli. With barrels full of pickles. The best half sour anywhere.
@@bebo4807 -- I misrepresented the ban actually. Some companies do still do some pickling in barrels, but because they can no longer buy the empty barrels back from the grocers for reuse (as I recall the banning was actually for reuse of barrels, it was considered impossible to properly sterilize the barrels) and buying new barrels for every batch of pickles makes them very expensive. Are those the big 60 gallon barrels of pickles we used to have in our little general store? It's like with whiskey, there's something in the oak that really seemed to bring out the flavor in a pickle.
@@bebo4807 as a Pole it is my pleasure to announce that pickle barrels are still common enough around here
They used to be wooden barrels. Now they are (ugh) plastic. But they are barrels.
@@bebo4807 -- Well no, they're plastic tubs shaped like barrels, that's like saying you buy pickles in glass barrels from the Piggly Wiggly. Pickle barrels are made of oak.
Definitely the US torpedoes, not only did they have a massive failure rate, but there's at least one recorded instance of a Mk14 circling back around and sinking the sub it was launched from.
Wonder how many bombardiers switched it off & used the force.
They used a system called 'Bomb On Leader'. The lead plane would be carrying a very good bombardier while the rest of the bombers had their bombardier toggle their bombs either when they saw the bombs dropping from the lead or when he dropped a smoke marker.
The Notion Bombsite is definitely up at the top of the list (top three) of over rated equipment of WWII!
I forget which documentary I was watching, but one of the bomber veterans had said, "they told us you could drop a bomb in a pickle barrel with the bomb sight; we couldn't drop a bomb in Europe...[pauses] anywhere near the target."
for those of your interested in the myths and wild bs of Norden and their Bombsights
a channel by the name of Flight Dojo made a video regarding the myths of the Norden Bombsight, along with wild stories of the sights being made from spider silk or from the bleached hair of a donor, or even landing a bomb into a pickle barrel, or even that of compatibility with the contemporary autopilot systems.
i don't remember this one well, but i think Gregs' Automobiles and Airplanes also mentioned the stories of the Norden bombsight, but i can't remember in which of the videos he did.
this is not a promotion of such channel, i just find the points in their particular videos quite intriguing.
I remember hearing all sorts of stories from friends of my father who flew B-17s during World War II. Some said the bombardier had to shoot the bombsite with his pistol to keep it from being falling into enemy hands. Some said they kept a grenade near the sight just for this reason. I wonder what the truth is?
The sad part is ,a Nazi sympathizer gave the Germans the plans for the Norden
I've heard actually most of this was requested by the Nordin company to enhance its mystique to the American public, who would influence the Congress, who was actually the purchaser of many pieces of equipment. It was an early preview of the MIC system we know and hate today, where weapon systems are promoted heavily to the general public so the civilian government will buy them, irregardless if the actual military wants them or not.
The modern equivalent is the A-10 platform. Completely obsolete, it can serve a minimal role as a stand-off weapons platform with light ground support as long as its unopposed by SAM's. Its 30 mm cannon's effectiveness is dubious at best in actual battle-action reports, and in Gulf Storm's SAM-filled environment they suffered so many airframe losses, the air force grounded ALL of them in favor of the F-15E and F-16 platforms. Yes damaged ones did fly back to base, and were subsequently scrapped due to irreparable damage suffered. So while they, thankfully, saved their pilots the planes were still lost.
But if you here in youtube you can find about 10 minutes about how amazing the A-10 "SAM-magnet" is at close ground support and somehow the best aircraft ever made.
@@nordoceltic7225 The Warthog pilots love the airplane as do the ground troops. It is the Air Force equivalent of the Battleship New Jersey in a way. In many ways obsolete, yet it can do missions no other can.
The story was used in an episode of the TV series '12 O'clock High', if I remember correctly. The crew was forced to crash land and the bombardier shot the bombsight afterward. He was promptly shot by the German patrol that had captured the men.
I remember there's a training film you can find on TH-cam. I think it's in Periscope films collections, about ditching at sea in a B-17. The bombardier does in fact open up on his bomb sight with a pistol before he leaves his station to take up his crash position in the rear cabin. Since that's how it's being done in a training film, I have to assume that was what they expected of a bombardier getting ready to abandon his plane in a real scenario.
From what I understand of this bomb sight, it was basically snake oil but they had to use it because so much money was poured into it by the MOD
MOD?? Ministry of Defence? - that's a British term. The Norden was developed in the USA in response to a request by the US military when they found the Sperry sight and ergonomic disaster.
I'm surprised you didn't mention that the Norden Bomb site began as a project for the US navy.
Were there other allied bombsights that were more accurate?
Requesting an update on whoever set up the "marry me" sign.
I was reading the comments lookin for someone else who seen that just to make sure i wasn't crazy lol but i also would like an update.
I love talking like that guy on the film. My wife, however, hates it!
"Hey, Mack. What are you doing with that fancy gizmo?" Which is usually followed by, "Honey, please STFU!" I usually give in...usually.
Over hyped? Yea this is top teir for sure. Well has anyone done statistic numbers on the effectiveness of the best bombers w/ out that system vs w/ that system? That would be fascinating. PPL always bring this topic up but I've never seen data for the argument for or against.
i think the remote controlled turrets on planes like the b-29 and others were more a hinderance than a help. too heavy for one thing.
I believe the remote turrets shot the shit out of Japanese planes.
If it served the same purpose, and was equally effective. Why is the battleships rangekeepers are so much larger? Why couldnt they have been downsized to make room for other componants?
Since they rely on triangulation, optical rangefinders like the ones on New Jersey (and like the one on M60 and M60A1 tanks) are more accurate the wider the base leg (the width between the two optical lenses). In the case of both New Jersey and an M60A1 tank, the rangefinder spans the entire width of the turret to gain that width and increased accuracy.
Fritz X was tested by dropping it on a barrel of Sauerkraut.. I've heard
Considering all the bomb-sight equipped planes shot down over Europe it couldn't have stayed secret too long. Besides, the Germans had their own ultra-sophisticated gyroscopic systems in the V2 and radio-guided bombs
The Germans had actually already stolen the plans, built their own copies, and determined that it was overengineered crap before the US even came into the war.
No better than the sight the RAF used.
The RAF area bombed at night, the USAF area bombed during the day.
Won the war, job done.
Does that mean Ryan might be meeting up with Tom Scott?
US Torpedoes, from 1936 through 1945 some killed our ships, not the enemy.
Firstly, it’s again the Geneva Convention to drop things on Curators And secondly why is there a reflection of ‘Marry Me’ in lights??? 🤓
As a topic of certain controversy, Jets were pretty useless in actual combat in WW2. Many praise the German and British jets, but the P-51D and H alongside the P-47s were faster flat out, could turn much better, carry many times as many munitions, and carried enough ammo. No doubt the Late spitfires were great too dispite their terrible stall characteristics, but my argument is that until the F-84, jets were very overrated. The Me-262s and British Meteor all had engines that were essentially a one-time use as well
4K CAMRAS!!!!!!!!!!!
👍👍👍👊👊
Gotta love analog computers.
My gpaw was a former a.s.a. precursor to cia.. his job was to sit and listen for loose lips.
The most over rated thing in WWII was the Yamato class battleships. They were truly only fearsome on paper.
Easier than the RAF's precision sight that had extra guide wires and took massive skill.
and was also FAR more accurate than the Norden was. SABS was the best bombsight of the war, period.
The Norton Bombsight was overhyped even during WWII to keep them in circulation. The Germans had captured Nortons early in the war, how could they not with the early bomber losses the Allies experienced. It was kept “Top Secret” to increase its importance and hyped as a crucial piece of military technology mostly so Norton could keep their control on the market. When the British were able to get their hands on one they decided to keep their own sites because they were just as accurate, and were more so by the end of the war. Remember through a good half of the US’ involvement in WWII the Army Air Corp was adamant that the bomber was the most important aircraft and that fighters and escorts where not really needed. It really was a Bomber Mafia and the pedestal that the Norton Bombsight was put on was part of that.
What utter nonsense. All the Norden training texts and films, and technical manuals were classified "Restricted" - the lowest possible classification and applied to just about everything in the US armed services, from trolleys to typewriters.
The British had no need for an accurate bombsight, as their policy was just bomb everything, not just militarily significant targets. Consequently they never developed and deployed an accurate bomb sight in WW2. Their navigators were so poorly trained and equipped they often had trouble finding the right city, let alone a specific target.
It is well documented that a fundamental difference existed between the British and the Americans. Churchill and Bomber Harris thought that war was about punishing the civilian population, killing them and rendering them homeless and thus destroying the enemy's WILL to fight. The USAAF thought that war was about bombing specific strategic sites and thereby destroying the enemy's ABILITY to fight. Consequently they needed accuracy and had the Norden developed before the War even started.
@@keithammleter3824 "Consequently they never developed and deployed an accurate bomb sight in WW2." SABS would like a word with you..... right after it drops a Tallboy on your head from 15,000 feet.
@@showtime1004 : SABS (Stabiised Automatic Bomb Sight) was available only for trial runs from 1943 onward, and never saw much use. Most British planes flew with the MkXIV sight. SABS was rated for an accuracy of 300 feet for bombs dropped at 15,000 feet altitude. That was considerably inferior to the Norden's demonstrated accuracy of better than 175 feet at the same drop altitude.
The Norden was linked to the aircraft autopilot and bomb release was entirely automatic. The bombardier maintained the target aiming point (a landmark not necessarily where he wants the bomb to impact) centred in the viewfinder for at least 10 seconds or so, and the Norden flew the plane and triggered bomb release at the right time, Once the run started, the pilot could be occupied with managing combat damage or his own injuries - the bombs would all still be dropped accurately, unless the autopilot had to be disengaged.
SABS was not linked to the autopilot. It generated a left/right correction indication displayed to the pilot, who had to manually maintain course under fire for the entire run, so accuracy depended considerably on the undistracted pilot.
Both systems had in practice a lot less accuracy in combat than the technical accuracy, for a multitude of reasons. The Norden system, being more automated, performed in combat closer to the Norden technical accuracy.
@@keithammleter3824 check your facts. The Norden's '175 foot' accuracy was only ever achieved on the test range. In 1945 the average margin of error of 8th AAF bombers using the Norden was 900 ft, and that was the best it was during the war. At times earlier in the war it was as high as 1200 feet. In operational use the SABS ranged from 500 feet early on, down to 300 feet late in the war once the crews had gotten better at using it. Nearly 2-3 times more accurate than the Norden. Late war RAF crews using the basic Mark 14 bombsight (which was not nearly as complex as the Norden) were getting essentially the same results as the USAAF crews were, with an average error of 3-400 yards. The Norden bombsight is one of the single most overrated pieces of military hardware of all time.
@@showtime1004 : You check your facts. As I pointed out before, achieved accuracy is not necessarily the technical accuracy of the equipment. There were many factors influencing the accuracy achieved, here are the main ones:-
# German countermeasures such as decoy sites (fake factories and oil plants), using smoke to obscure the target area;
# German anti-aircraft fire - it's harder to drop bombs where you are supposed to, when your aircraft is getting shot thru;
# The use of large formations as a defence against German fighters - this necessarily broadens the impact zone.
# If your aircraft is shot up before you even got to the target (say an engine is out, or a fuel tank holed), jetison your bombs immediately so you can get home. This counted as a bombing error, but that error was not the fault of the Norden.
# If the bombardier has been shot and can't perform his duties, drop the bombs anyway - no point in carting them home, even if you have fuel needed for the weight, which you mostly won't. Yet another error not attributable to the Norden.
In some cases, the USAAF determined that they should bomb a certain German factory - the size of it meant that only 3 or 4 B-17's could carry sufficient bombs to destroy it. But if they only sent 3 or 4, those aircraft were certain to be shot down. So the USAAF in such cases sent 30 or so. This large number could defend itself against German fighters and most would survive. The extra 25 or so B-17's might as well carry a full load of bombs too. They have to drop them somewhere, even if the target is already 100% rubble - so drop them nearby. Such factors are not the fault of the Norden, nor does it mean the Norden was of no benefit. The destruction of the specified target was assured.
The USAAF bombed what they thought was an oil plant repeatedly. It was quite a while before they realised they had been accurately bombing an elaborately constructed and easily repaired decoy site complete with what looked like (from the air) railway sidings - the real oil refinery was a few kilometres away, That is a bombing error of the same few kilometres, but not the fault of the Norden.
When RAF crews achieved accuracy with SABS, it was with crack crews flying when German ability to shoot back was already seriously compromised.
The RAF could achieve good accuracy when they really wanted too. But mostly they didn't - they just wanted to destroy widespread residential areas - they didn't need accuracy for that, and so didn't bother with SABS.
When the Germans surrendered, the US Govt tried to check with German records and by interviewing German officials just what USAAF achieved accuracy was. The trouble was, as the War went on and German functioning deteriorated, the German authorities could not tell which were bomb craters from a B-17 day raid, and which were RAF bomb craters from the following night. So they reported the composite accuracy of both - even though everyone knew that the RAF were not attempting to be accurate.
The Norden assumed that there was no wind and that the plane was flying strait and level. This tended to result in good accuracy on a test range with no wind. In combat the wind and buffeting from AA, made it difficult. Then there is the human input into a mechanical instrument. Some people are better at this than others, but I suspect the instrument was more accurate then the human input could manage.
The Germans could have built a Norden, but decided it wasn't worth the money. The Norden cost more than the B17!
Having operated one, I can tell you it almost felt alive. It was the most advanced electromechanical device built. After the Norden, electronics and then digital computers took over.
Think about a bomb run compared to NJ shooting. NJ could correct on the next shot.
Without the extraordinary efforts to keep the Norden bombsight secret, this device would never have been so overrated. Since the German Luftwaffe had a comparable, just as precise but simpler bomb sight and was well informed even before the war, these efforts were in vain.
America’s "super secret weapon" was never really secret.
Most overrated: Easy, the Mark 6 magnetic exploder on the horrific Mark 14 torpedo. I don't think they ever got it to work.
They finally got the March 6 magnetic exploder to work in 1945.
By the end of 43 the Mark 14 worked but it's true that for the first two years of the war the US had no torpedo. But I wouldn't say the MK 14 was overrated because its reputation was that it was a piece of junk.
Yes as well as the cost each was not that high compared d to some systems and was nesasiary steps
@@joshuarosen465 I am dissing the Mark 6 exploder more than the Mark 14. The horrific nature was entire debacle to get BuOrd to see their pre-war failure.
th-cam.com/video/U6D5rXbMBKo/w-d-xo.htmlsi=53SVkScRv8jECIJD
This gives another perspective on the bombsight. It’s a very interesting 30 minutes about the Norden.
As the Bombing campaign ramped up the Luftwaffe were able to to get an intact Norden from the shot down bombers. There were not as impressed as the Americans