Evening star., 1943-06-20
What Could Happena Pound Bomb and Streets
By Walter McCa alum.

A bombing airplane, dropping its eggs
on a pin point target from high alti-
tudes, is travelling gun platform. 1t
can do untold and even now only esti-
mated damage to structures, and can
kill personnel, but just how much dam
age depends on the type of structure and
the concentration of human beings in
the shock or blast and augmentation
area of the bomb which may cover many
hundreds Of yards or only few, depend
ing on the type of structures surrounding
the burst.
Air bombs do not drop in straight
line. They fall forward in long, curving
trajectory roughly paralleling the flight
of the airplane in the initial moments
of the fall.
A block buster" so-called by the Brit
ish, is any bomb of 1000 pounds and
more. The term does not apply to
bombs below that weight The British
now are using bombs weighing as high
as 5000 pounds and rumors have it they
are planning even bigger surprises for
the much-bombed Axis war centers, such
as hapless Dusseldorf, Stuttgart, Essen,
Berlin and others. Germany never has
used such super bombs as nightly and
daily are being dropped on Hitler's Gen.
ters of war production.
Estimating Damage.
Suppose an air bomb of the block
buster type, dropped from an airplane
moving at 300 miles an hour, fell at the
intersection of Fourteenth and streets.
The effect would be terrific in itself, but
material damage to buildings might not
be as great as imagined.
In the first place the bomb would be
dropped somewhere over Alexandria, or
over Soldiers Home or Eastern High
School, to hit the target at Fourteenth
and streets, so curving is the path of
the heavy projectile. The rate of fall,
distance to be covered in the fall, and all
the data necessary to accurate bombing
are known to the air forces of all nations.
But the United States air forces have
the advantage of the marvellous accurate
Norden bombsight.
Windows and doors would be shattered,
screaming, jagged fragments of the steel
bomb case would fly at high speed in
360-degree arc, fast enough to cut
human being in two But experts of the
Army Air Force have not measured the
exact effect of heavy bombs because
none has been dropped under such
circumstances, and the effect of them in
Germany is not accurately known.
The Block Buster
The British, in the main, have been
using the block buster type of air bomb.
The United States Air Force at present
believes that four 1000 pound bombs do
more damage dropped in the same area
than a single 1000 pound bomb, even
with precision pin pointing of the target.
I'VE do not know the exact effect of
heavy bombs" said Col C. C. Williamson
of the Army air force, an expert on
air bombing. The Germans did not use
block busters over London. But We do
know a good deal about shock and blast
effect as shown from photographs Of the
results achieved by the British over Ger
man cities.
hou M doubt Nf tho affpctjVp-
ness of heavy bombs, but the United
States Air Force prefers to use several
smaller bombs, of 1000 pounds or so,
aggregating about the same weight as
the block busters, to using single 1000
pound bomb" The Air Force calls 1000
Founders tin bombs" because Of the thin
case around the explosive charge, the
same metal case that does such tre-
mendous damage to personnel by frag-
mentation.
Pin.Point Bombing.
The American Air Force, equipped
with the Norden sight, the blue cow of
the bombardiers, heavily guarded,
highly complex piece of precision work,
goes in for pin-point bombing of ex-
treme accuracy 1t is no joke when Air
Force bombardiers say they can drop
their eggs in pickle barrel from 10000
feet.
So far in this war, the British, al
though equipped with accurate bomb
sights, have gone in more for area bomb
ing and saturation of given area with
heavy bombs than for the precision work
of the men in the big Flying Fortresses
and Liberators of the United States Air
Force.
Bombs Fall Slowly.