Word: bombe
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...surprise to most of the world in the Nazi drive through the Lowlands and northern France was the terrible accuracy of German dive bombers. Except for the U. S. Naval Air Service (which originated dive bombing, still works hard and ably at it), few of the world's air forces had fully realized the sharpshooting possibilities of a heavy bomb projected straight & true from a diving airplane...
Unless German scientists have developed a sight allowing accurate bombing out of turns, glides or climbs, maximum danger period of a Nazi level-flight bomber is in his approach to his target. For coming up to his bomb-release line he must fly in a straight line and at a constant altitude for about 60 seconds (more than three miles at 200 m.p.h.), to give his bombardier time to draw a bead. It is there that he is the best target for the antiaircraft guns. On likeliest directions of approach anti-aircraft guns are most heavily established. The batteries...
...seat, crouches or lies down flat over the bombsight just below his machine gun. Quickly he checks the spirit levels to be sure that the ship is parallel to the ground, other settings that correct for the speed of the plane and the wind drift (which slows a bomb, speeds or deflects it). Then he puts his eye to the eyepiece and takes his sight on his target. From that point until the bombs are dropped the bombardier is in charge of the ship. Training his sight on the target he may well find (and usually does) that the pilot...
What changes the Germans have added to such fundamental procedure the Germans are keeping to themselves. One possibility is that they have done away with the bomb-release button, use a photoelectric cell built into the sight to drop the bombs when the sight is on the target. Purpose of mechanical dropping is to avoid a lapse sometimes as long as one-fifth of a second between the time a bombardier sights the target and the time his mind has telegraphed the button-pushing impulse to his fingers. Split seconds in the releasing operation make yards of difference...
...Italy insisted last week that the British battle cruiser Hood and aircraft carrier Ark Royal were tied up in Gibraltar undergoing repairs after Italian bomb-hits last fortnight. Two small groups of big Italian bombers, each carrying two tons of explosive, appeared over the Rock one night after flying all the way from Italy (1,000 miles). A blaze of searchlights and a fierce storm of anti-aircraft fire burst from the Rock but the Italians got away after inflicting what they described as "serious damage" on the dockyard and supply dumps...