page_title: Bomb
section_title: Delivery
hierarchical_section_title: Bomb / Delivery
caption_attribution_description: A US Air Force (USAF) F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft from the 492nd Fighter Squadron, 48th Fighter Wing, Royal Air Force (RAF) Lakenheath, United Kingdom (UK) releases a GBU-28 "Bunker Buster" 5,000-pound Laser-Guided Bomb over the Utah Test and Training Range during a weapons evaluation test.
context_page_description: A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechanical stress, the impact and penetration of pressure-driven projectiles, pressure damage, and explosion-generated effects. Bombs have been utilized since the 11th century starting in East Asia.
  The term bomb is not usually applied to explosive devices used for civilian purposes such as construction or mining, although the people using the devices may sometimes refer to them as a "bomb". The military use of the term "bomb", or more specifically aerial bomb action, typically refers to airdropped, unpowered explosive weapons most commonly used by air forces and naval aviation. Other military explosive weapons not classified as "bombs" include shells, depth charges, or land mines. In unconventional warfare, other names can refer to a range of offensive weaponry. For instance, in recent Middle Eastern conflicts, homemade bombs called "improvised explosive devices" have been employed by insurgent fighters to great effectiveness.
context_section_description: The first air-dropped bombs were used by the Austrians in the 1849 siege of Venice.  Two hundred unmanned balloons carried small bombs, although few bombs actually hit the city.
  The first bombing from a fixed-wing aircraft took place in 1911 when the Italians dropped bombs by hand on the Turkish lines in what is now Libya, during the Italo-Turkish War. The first large scale dropping of bombs took place during World War I starting in 1915 with the German Zeppelin airship raids on London, England, and the same war saw the invention of the first heavy bombers.  One Zeppelin raid on 8 September 1915 dropped 4,000 lb (1,800 kg) of high explosives and incendiary bombs, including one bomb that weighed 600 lb (270 kg).
  During World War II bombing became a major military feature, and a number of novel delivery methods were introduced. These included Barnes Wallis's bouncing bomb, designed to bounce across water, avoiding torpedo nets and other underwater defenses, until it reached a dam, ship, or other destination, where it would sink and explode. By the end of the war, planes such as the allied forces' Avro Lancaster were delivering with 50 yd (46 m) accuracy from 20,000 ft (6,100 m), ten ton earthquake bombs (also invented by Barnes Wallis) named "Grand Slam", which, unusually for the time, were delivered from high altitude in order to gain high speed, and would, upon impact, penetrate and explode deep underground ("camouflet"), causing massive caverns or craters, and affecting targets too large or difficult to be affected by other types of bomb.
  Modern military bomber aircraft are designed around a large-capacity internal bomb bay, while fighter-bombers usually carry bombs externally on pylons or bomb racks or on multiple ejection racks which enable mounting several bombs on a single pylon.  Some bombs are equipped with a parachute, such as the World War II "parafrag" (an 11 kg (24 lb) fragmentation bomb), the Vietnam war-era daisy cutters, and the bomblets of some modern cluster bombs.  Parachutes slow the bomb's descent, giving the dropping aircraft time to get to a safe distance from the explosion.  This is especially important with airburst nuclear weapons (especially those dropped from slower aircraft or with very high yields), and in situations where the aircraft releases a bomb at low altitude. A number of modern bombs are also precision-guided munitions, and may be guided after they leave an aircraft by remote control, or by autonomous guidance.
  Aircraft may also deliver bombs in the form of warheads on guided missiles, such as long-range cruise missiles, which can also be launched from warships.
  A hand grenade is delivered by being thrown. Grenades can also be projected by other means, such as being launched from the muzzle of a rifle (as in the rifle grenade), using a grenade launcher (such as the M203), or by attaching a rocket to the explosive grenade (as in a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG)).
  A bomb may also be positioned in advance and concealed.
  A bomb destroying a rail track just before a train arrives will usually cause the train to derail.  In addition to the damage to vehicles and people, a bomb exploding in a transport network often damages, and is sometimes mainly intended to damage, the network itself.  This applies for railways, bridges, runways, and ports, and, to a lesser extent (depending on circumstances), to roads.
  In the case of suicide bombing, the bomb is often carried by the attacker on his or her body, or in a vehicle driven to the target.
  The Blue Peacock nuclear mines, which were also termed "bombs", were planned to be positioned during wartime and be constructed such that, if disturbed, they would explode within ten seconds.
  The explosion of a bomb may be triggered by a detonator or a fuse. Detonators are triggered by clocks, remote controls like cell phones or some kind of sensor, such as pressure (altitude), radar, vibration or contact. Detonators vary in ways they work, they can be electrical, fire fuze or blast initiated detonators and others,
caption: An F-15E Strike Eagle releasing 1 5,000 lb (2,300 kg) GBU-28 "Bunker Buster" during a test
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