Bombardier on Enola Gay missed Aioi bridge by 400feet. Not bad from 30,000 ft.

You should do videos of your father explaining the sight, showcasing it, and stuff like that. I would *absolutely* watch such videos!

@@davecrupel2817 yes

...and the sad part is the sight was not at all that accurate. At BEST at altitude, bombs would impact within a mile of the target. Also by 1944, bombers dropped when the lead bombardier dropped, a defacto area bombing strategy...

@@grumblesa10 Wrong, the Norden bombsight was incredibly accurate, when it was used, the myth that it was inaccurate came to be because of all the hack aviation historians looking at the overall bombs on target average and not subtracting the averages from when other bomb sighting systems were used namely the H2X ground scanning radar system that was used to drop the majority of bombs starting in the fall of 1943 especially during the winters when overcast skies prevented optical sighting. When you look at only the results from when the Norden bombsight was actually used they had an over 80% bombs on target result. Other factors that affected their accuracy were things like the amount of dirt and debris thrown into the air from previous bomber box's bombs, just one 500 lb general purpose bomb displaced enough dirt and threw it into the air above the target to fill 13 dump trucks, each bomber on a deep penetration mission dropped twelve 500 lb general purpose bombs, so that's 13 dump trucks times twelve worth of dirt thrown into the air above the target times the amount of bombers in the first box that the second one has to sight through with every box afterwards having to deal with that much more obscuring their visibility and sighting. Many other things contribute to the myth of it's inaccuracy like navigators flying a formation to the wrong target and it getting bombed resulting in a zero bombs on target result getting blamed on the Norden bombsight by hack historians who don't do the proper research. Germans obscuring the targets by lightning off smoke pots and obscuring visibility isn't the fault of the Norden bombsight, targets being camouflaged with decoys being set up down the road isn't the fault of the Norden bombsight. The fact that the majority of bombs were dropped using bombsighting methods than the Norden bombsight is never subtracted from the results that all get piled on the back of the Norden bombsight leading to all the nonsense about it being inaccurate, just that alone completely destroys it's record and unjustly at that, also is the use of the Intervalometer setting for dropping bombs that intentionally dropped them at intervals along the bombers path, non of the hack aviation historians even take that into account, when you do that means that only the center bomb in the line is actually dropped at the exact aiming point and only it's distance should be factored into the math when evaluating the accuracy of the Norden bombsight. As explained to accurately determine the results of the Norden bombsight it's far more complex than just looking at the overall results of bombing and piling it all onto the Norden bombsight, especially when you consider that the majority of bombs dropped weren't even sighting using it, the fact is correct studies on it's results show that it could consistently drop a bomb from a B17 at 25,000 ft traveling at 225 MPH and have it impact within 400 ft of it's aiming point, no other bomb sighting system used by anyone in the war can even come close to that. Even your figure of the supposed one bomb hitting within one mile, which itself is total nonsense and is something you've picked up from BS online sources most likely just a KZbin comment like your's and not something from an official source, still wouldn't subtract the results of flat out errors like a lead navigator flying an entire formation to the wrong target.

It doesn’t work. The Norton bombsight is nothing but a scam.

Guy was a nutjob who was always NOT delivering what was ordered, but who was left alone because of all the career officers who would be embarrassed and possibly cashiered if it were ever found out. The bombsite was an early demonstration of the vendor using "it's Secret" and the military passing that along to keep Congress from getting too nosy and demanding accountability. Thousands died because the military refused to admit they failed.

Military military Glory Glory. You don't even have to explain it to taxpayers anymore because since the late 80s the American propaganda system makes the military Glory Glory Glory thank you for your service. 911 put a turbocharger on that. Now everything is Glory Glory Glory Military military. You can't go to a sporting event in the United States without being reminded of the glory of the military and thank you for your service blah blah blah blah. Billion dollars on this billion dollars on that nobody's even asking questions anymore.

It would be nice if it actually work… The fact is, it doesn’t. The Norton bombsight is actually a scam.

@@tonamg53 Norden. And it wasn't a complete scam; they used a bombsight intended for hitting merchant shipping at moderate altitudes to perform precision attacks at high altitude. It was better than trying to hit by eyeball at over 20,000 feet, but everyone was constantly overstating its capabilities, giving it a difficult standard to live up to for an electromechanical computer.

@@eddievhfan1984 Well, there was a mission where they dropped 600+ bombs using the Norden bombsight and only 2 actually hit the target. I wouldn’t say that “eyeballing” it would be less accurate…

@@tonamg53 Know where I can find a mission report or BDA of that raid, or a specific date/target reference?

@@eddievhfan1984 yes, its call google. The first B29 combat mission in WW2 was to bomb a bridge in Bangkok. They hit a Japanese military hospital instead… the hospital was more than 2 km away from the bridge. And if you’re too lazy to use google, then you should able to think for yourself that the bombsight need very accurate wind information and smooth as silk flying for it to work properly.... Do you think it was possible to have both in WW2? Not to mention that wind can change direction at different altitude… This was unknown phenomenon during that period which pretty much rendered the principle operation of the bombsight practically useless.

keeping the silly bubble leveled would be a distraction if nothing else.

It's Norden.

When thats your job, it is just another day at the office

1944 I would guess

Spooky Man 2 Ok thanks.

2020

@@Buschwick Yeah? Thought 2029

That's correct. You shouldn't watch a training video to see what results they actually got in combat. There are better sources for that. What this film does tell you is that the sight was pretty darn accurate, under training conditions.

I think I'm right in saying they eventually just followed the leader. When the lead plane opened the bomb bay doors all the others did etc... That way only one bombadier had to do his thing, if even. Maybe I'm wrong but I do know that that type of raid I described was performed a lot.

Just get one of the flight sims available that actually feature level bombing and have your own try. You have people who can put bombs one by one into a blast-pen sized target (more or less the limit of the ballistic accuracy of the bombs) with one hand tied, and you have people who couldn't hit a railway yard. Has a lot to do with keeping your calm and sticking to the procedure, which is easier done from your living room than when you have 88mm shells shaking you up.

Neat.

hrosemd Yep and if you got a “totally destroyed” report in the debrief that just proves that the Norden does work if everything goes as planned.

@@raymondyee2008 they are making a new "mighty eight" game. it looks amazing so far. the company making it is called microprose

the silent farmer Yes I have heard of that and that includes the B-24. How it’ll play out once released we’ll know later on.

I'm very disappointed that there hasn't been to my knowledge another pc simulator with a fully functioning Norden bombsight. The might 8th is pretty old and it would be great to see a modern game like dcs use the Norden. Hope I'm worng and can be corrected. I'd buy immediately.

Good question. Would make an interesting story.

A job for Mark Felton.

I believe some of their bombsights relied on similar principles as the Norden did, but there were still some major differences between the two I believe.

@@MrB1923 Mr. Everything Nazi himself.

They must have had a bunch of them by the end. They had the plans before the U.S. entered the war.

LOL!

Only on Thanksgiving!

@@smudgey1kenobey Mom burned the turkey........"that's one mistake she'll never make again"!!!:)

@@RB-ib3mo that suddenly took a darker turn ))

Just in time!

You think thereforr you are

Top Secret but I learned several years ago they were not as accurate as touted during the war. That's why they were not used after the war. Today it's all GPS.

@@dfirth224 It was every bit as accurate as they claimed, the narrative that it wasn't accurate or that it wasn't any more accurate than what the British and Germans had is a myth, but to understand it's accuracy and why those claims about it not being accurate there's several things that must be understood, bear with me here. First is the claims of how accurate it was, the famed "pickle barrel" claim is total nonsense and is something that was never claimed by the USAAF or the creator's of the Norden bombsight, it's absolutely ridiculous to think that a bomber flying at 25,000 ft traveling at 225 MPH could drop a 500 lb bomb into a 2 foot diameter barrel, that claim was never made from any official source nor does anyone know where it came from, it wasn't anyone official but critics of the Norden bombsight throughout the years for whatever reason like to use it as an example of the claims made by the USAAF and the inventors of it to bash it's reputation. Secondly, claiming that the Norden bombsight was inaccurate is like claiming that the M1 rifle was inaccurate based the fact that everytime a US soldier pulled the trigger on one an enemy soldier didn't drop dead, and by using post war reports and records showing that on average it took 200 shots from M1 rifles for every dead soldier as proof that it wasn't accurate, all based on the number of rounds recorded to have been fired in combat divided by the amount of dead enemy soldiers, anyone with any kind of common sense can see how problematic that claim is, take it from someone who owns and has been shooting M1's for 30 years they're deadly accurate, but there's a difference shooting at a target on the range off of a shooting bench and shooting one in combat, results may vary is an understatement for that one. But the single most important thing when it comes dispelling the myth that it was inaccurate is understanding how the critics of the Norden bombsight come to that conclusion, all the supposed experts on the subject want to do is take the total number of bombs dropped by the USAAF bombers and subtract the number that missed and blame the difference on the Norden bombsight, not only is that the laziest way of researching it's accuracy it's also highly flawed because they include the results from the bombs dropped using the H2X ground scanning radar system to sight the targets which was needless to say far less accurate than optically sighting the targets, and the fact is due to the weather over Europe and other factors like the Germans lighting off smoke pots to obscure visibility the majority of the bombs dropped over Europe were dropped using the H2X system and not the Norden bombsight, it's been a while since I saw the record but if I remember correctly something like 60% of the bombs dropped over Europe were aimed using the H2X system and not the Norden bombsight, factoring in the results from the far less accurate H2X system is how they come up with the outlandish figures they do when it comes to the Norden bombsight's record. They also include the results from human errors, like the lead navigator of a bomber formation flying the entire formation to the wrong target and it getting bombed resulting in a zero bombs on target record for that bombing run that gets factored into the math. Of the things that affected the accuracy of the Norden bombsight surprisingly post war reports showed that flak and enemy fighter's had virtually no affect on bomber accuracy, fighter's weren't attacking during the bomb run because of their own forces flak, and the way the bombing systems worked on the bombers the autopilot was actually flying the bomber during it's bomb run, and an autopilot won't be distracted by flak. The other factors that affected bomb accuracy were things like all the debris and dirt thrown into the air by the bombs exploding from the previous bomber boxes that the following boxes had to sight through, just one 500 lb general purpose bomb displaced and threw into the air above the target enough dirt to fill 13 dump trucks, each bomber in a deep penetration mission into Germany dropped twelve 500 lb bombs, that's 156 dump trucks worth of dirt in the air above the target from just one bomber, take that times the number of bombers in a box and that's how much dirt was in the air above the target that the lead bombardier from the next box had to sight through affecting it's accuracy, and every other bomber in that box since they'd toggle their bombs off on cue from the lead bomber. Another thing that gives a false impression of the Norden bombsight's accuracy that critics never take into account has to do with the way the bombs were sometimes intentionally released from the bombers, the Norden bombsight system had a feature called an Intervalometer that had something like 7 settings on it, what that did was release the bombs in a timed sequence along the flight path of the bomber instead of all at once, this was for bombing an area target like a railroad marshaling yard as opposed to a pinpoint target like a building or a ship moored up at a dock, the Norden bombsight took into account the setting on the Intervalometer so that the first bomb released would impact short of the aiming point with the last bomb released overshooting the aiming point by the same distance, when assessing bomb accuracy from drops using the Intervalometer the center of the bomb string should be measured from the aiming point and not all the bombs including the one's that intentionally hit the furthest from the aiming point. Tests of a B17 dropping a single bomb showed that it could consistently place the bomb within 400 ft from the aiming point when traveling at 225 MPH at an altitude of 25,000 ft, just like shooting a rifle from a bench that's the true measure of it's accuracy, factors like overcast clouds, smoke from RAF bombers bombing the same target the night before lightning fires and causing smoke to obscure the target, the Germans camouflaging targets and setting up decoys nearby, smoke pots being lit off to obscure targets, navigator errors causing the wrong targets to be bombed and especially the results from the more often used than not H2X radar system being used to aim bombs getting factored into results and being blamed on the Norden bombsight are not reflections of the Norden bombsight's accuracy, but simply the conditions under which it was used and sloppy research from biased people with an agenda who set out wanting to bash it's reputation in the first place. Realistic combat results of the Norden bombsight, that eliminate the bias of people who include the results from the H2X system into it's record and human error such as navigators leading formations to the wrong target, show that on average the first B17 box's bombs that were optically aimed, with no visual obstructions like clouds or smoke generated from fires as a result of the RAF bombing the night before, using the actual Norden bombsight had an over 80% "bombs on target" (400 feet or less) record, as a result of the dirt and debris thrown into the air above the aiming point from the first box's bombs the second bomber box had an over 70% bombs on target average, with subsequent boxes results degrading down to 25% by the fifth bomber box. An over 80% average of bombs hitting within 400 feet of the aiming point from bombers traveling 225 MPH at 25,000 ft was something no other air force in WW2 could achieve, not the British or the Germans or anyone else who by the way all bombed from lower altitudes and speeds than the USAAF did, that's actually an accuracy that wasn't improved too much on until the advent of GPS and laser guided bombs, the fact is the Norden bombsight was used by some US bombers all the way into the Vietnam War, and it did because despite the claims by critics who use highly flawed research to claim it was inaccurate it was actually very accurate, the Norden bombsight was actually a computer, albeit a mechanical computer and not an electronic one but still a computer, and being one produced computer results.

... and the Germans had plenty of examples, including plans one of the MANY GERMAN engineers Norden employed regardless of the BAD IDEA, smuggled to the Germans before the war. It was classified ALSO to keep Congressional Oversight out of the way when the FAILURE of the bomb sight became empirically evident even early on.

😉

It's a Beechcraft AT-11 Kansan, a military variant of the civilian Beechcraft Model 18 designed for bombardier and gunnery training, hence the greenhouse nose and in this case a faired over dorsal opening, in which a gun turret could be mounted.

It is interesting to note that the 8th lost 4145 bombers in WW2. BUT, it actually was the 15th that hit Germany the hardest with its oil campaign. The 15th recorded Just over 2000 bombers lost from a smaller number of groups.

@@BOORAGG I need to learn more about the 15th. Thank you for telling me this. :)

There are memorials scattered around the county of Northamptonshire where I live. Very poignant reminders of the very brave men of the USAAF and thanks from the British people.

The 8th Air Force Museum outside Savannah(?) is a death marker for the huge number of 20 year olds who, despite the Hollywood B/S, made up so much of the crews, up to pilots. It made me sick, later on, when I read up on the FAIL performance of the sight AND the idiocy of the military doctrine (bombing a continent with notoriously BAD weather all year long) and realized those young men were sacrificed to technical incompetence and doctrinal pigheadedness by the US Army's equivalent of Chateau Generals. LeMay was a butcher, but he knew what was going to work in Japan.

It would be much less with modern digital electronics instead of mechanical analog stuff.

I will take 2!!!!!