B-17 Bombing Ballistics Math Explained

The intent of this part 4 video is to discuss WWII B-17’s Bomb ballistics including ground impact ballistics, trail, bomb release angles, actual range, whole range and usage of bombing tables.
B-17 Bombing 7 part Series:
B-17 Part 1 (Bombing Introduction): • B-17 Bomber, Aerial Bo...
B-17 Part 2 (Fuses, shackles): • B-17 Bombing, Fuzes, S...
B-17 Part 3 (Norden Integration): • The Norden Bombsight B...
B-17 Part 4 (Ballistics Math): • B-17 Bombing Ballistic...
B-17 Part 5 (Training Accuracy): • B-17 Bombing Accuracy ...
B-17 Part 6 (Combat Accuracy): • B-17 Combat Bombing Ac...
B-17 Part 7 (Norden Bombsight): • WWII B-17 Combat Bombi...

[@fredfrancis5221]

I used to know a WWII bombardier who flew B-24's in the Pacific. He became an electrical engineer after the war, working for Hughes aircraft. During the war, he had also rotated out to become both a bombardier instructors. In the 1990's, after retiring, he bought 2 partial and one complete Norden bombsight from ebay. As an instructor, he knew how to service and calibrate the thing, including the analog computer components which calculated the release for the bombardier after the bombardier entered the required information. With his experience as an EE, he combined the bombsight with a laser pointer and treadmill to a create a moving map bombing simulator which would allow a person to look through the Norden, "pickle" the target on the moving map displayed on the slow-moving treadmill, and simulate a drop. He brought it to several airshows during the early 2000's, where i saw him several times before he died in ~2012.

[@truthsayers8725]

when i was in the Air Force i went to a DRMO auction at Tinker AFB. they had listed "Sights", palletized, $300 each or something like that. i went to look at this pallet of 'sights' that they wanted $300 a piece. it was a pallet of Norden's, on their aircraft mounting stands, bolted to a pallet. there were 20 or 25 on a pallet. of which they had a dozen or so pallets. ONE pallet would have set me back $6000-$7500. too rich for my $1400/month before taxes and deductions paycheck...

[@paoloviti6156]

This bombardier must been a brilliant and a very interesting person to be able to work at Hughes Aircraft as they were only interested in selecting the the crop of talented engineers! And after retirement he was still capable of calibrating the Norden Bomb Sight together with it's analogue components! Impressive! I would have wished to meet him. Thanks for sharing this little part of history...

[@dalecomer5951]

@@paoloviti6156 You obviously never worked for the Hughes Aircraft Company.

[@paoloviti6156]

@@dalecomer5951 of course I never worked for Hughes Aircraft Company but I know that it was a very important company for many sectors for the defense defense. Did I have written something that irked you?

[@dalecomer5951]

@@paoloviti6156 Guess. I did work for a division of HAC for several years. The people I worked for were almost all incompetent boobs and almost all with a PhD.

[@m26a1pershing7]

The more content that comes out of this channel, the more I want

[@shakeydavesr]

Seeing a new video made my day

[@kfisher5050]

Great job with the math! Hoping you'll do a video on the B-17g chin turret and how it was operated by the bombardier. Thanks for your in-depth videos - keep 'em coming...

[@Youareme42o]

Going out to all USA veterans past present and future I just wanted to say thank you very much for your service we appreciate it have a nice day.

[@Paul-eb2cl]

Excellent video, as I have an interest in both maths and US 8th Airforce bombing operations in Europe I found this fascinating. Thank you for taking the time and effort to make this and share it. This is what the internet was invented for.

[@MURDOCK1500]

I had no idea that the bombs dropped from such an altitude were still moving forward. I assumed they'd lost all forward momentum and were just falling straight down. Never mind 140-odd mph at 650 mph impact speed.

[@primmakinsofis614]

Basic physics. Inertia means the bombs leave the aircraft with the same forward speed as the aircraft.

[@craigpennington1251]

Lots of math going on there. And it paid off big time. Very interesting stuff.

[@msgfrmdaactionman3000]

Looks pretty simple the way you explain it, thanks! I like how the war movies seem to always have the bombardiers looking straight down over the target when in reality they had to release the bombs miles away!

[@ronaldtartaglia4459]

I love your videos. I listen to them and I feel like they make me smarter.

[@blurglide]

I ran the numbers. The kinetic energy of impact is only like 0.25% of the total energy delivered

[@GilmerJohn]

I think you put in an unnecessary decimal point.

[@russguffee6661]

Great job, bro. You really described that in pretty simple terms.... I think if you handed me the tables and set me loose I think I could hit a factory.....

[@fahey5719]

EXCELLENT analysis.

[@Youareme42o]

Nice video thank you for your work.😊

[@keithammleter3824]

This video is rather good. It makes a few things clear that would otherwise be not obvious. E.g. he points out the that the bomb horizontal speed at impact is still 71% of the aircraft ground speed, and trail is only about 9% of the range, in the realistic example he uses. The bomb drop time is only 4.5% longer than it would be in a vacuum (stated at 8:08). So error in targeting due to non-uniform wind speed over the altitude range cannot be great

[@donf3877]

Except, while flying in the jet stream when bombing Japan in the beginning, using the Norden bomb sight that was very effective in Europe, they found high altitude bombing to be completely lacking in accuracy. They had to drop below the jet stream to 8,000 feet, to have any accuracy at all. Of course, very little was known about the "jet" steam, in that beginning. Luckily, they did get things hashed out. There was no way the atomic bombs could have been dropped at 8,000... without the bomber going up with it. They almost did anyway.

[@keithammleter3824]

@@donf3877 : I think you are repeating misconceptions dreamed up by other KZbin presenters and authors. As far as I know, US WWII Bombers is the only KZbin presenter who has based his videos on declassified official US AAF documents, and other original sources of reliability. Few book authors did so too. Chart 3 in the official US airforce report "AAF Bombing Accuracy SC-T-83 1945" shows accuracy decreases in direct proportion to altitude. It makes your claim that accuracy at high altitude quite unfounded - accuracy at 25,000 feet was only about 15% worse than at 5,000 feet. That chart applies to the version of the Norden used in Europe. The Nordens for the Pacific War were adapted to improve accuracy at the higher altitudes used. It is an old urban myth that the jet stream phenomena was not well understood at the time. All airforces then were familiar with it. What was different about Japan was that it was subject to erratic high winds at low altitudes down to ground level - that was sometime the US AAF had to grapple with, but it wasn't a huge issue. My first post here shows why. The US AAF did indeed decide to bomb at low altitudes in Japan particularly when specific targets could be identified - not so much to get better accuracy, they did it because they could - the Japanese defence against the B-29 was not very good, and not flying at maximum altitude saved a bit of fuel. Japan had no radar controlled anti-aircraft guns like Germany did, and their fighters and pilots were not up to the speed and advanced guns of the B-29. Flying B-17's at low altitude over Germany was near suicide, but over Japan in a B-29 was fairly safe. The biggest problem for the US AAF in bombing Japan was that they generally didn't know where good targets were. Things like phone books and trade journals gave target locations away in Germany, but such things did not exist in Japan. German production was in huge industrial complexes and campuses. Most Japanese industry then was small "cottage" type production scattered around in cities, much like Pakistan has today. A house-size factory making bearings here, another making hydraulic cylinders there .... So the US AAF just carpet bombed entire cities. Accuracy with the nuclear bombs was unimportant, due to the huge blast radius. Due to a coordination mix-up with the observation plane, the bomb for Nagasaki was dropped with considerable error as they were running out of fuel after flying around in circles waiting for the observation plane to show up. The navigator told the commander that fuel was critical, they must go home NOW, so the commander immediately ordered the bomb dropped regardless, and he turned for home. It didn't matter. The destruction still scared the bejesus out of the emperor, who stopped the war.

[@donf3877]

@@keithammleter3824 Talk about "misconceptions" "Japan had no radar controlled anti-aircraft guns like Germany did". Maybe you should study just a little more history, before making a comment on a subject you obviously know nothing about. And, maybe you should watch "Battle 360 Episode 7 -Hammer of Hell" here on KZbin about the carrier USS Enterprise, specifically at 41:25. On the second attack of Truk Atoll, it states and explains Japan DID IN FACT have radar controlled anti-aircraft guns. Japan was using them to protect their Pacific island bases, as well as the home islands, before the US even took the Mariana Islands... where the B-29's would eventually be based. And therefore, well before Mariana-based B-29 bombing attacks on the Japanese homeland. "fighters and pilots were not up to the speed and advanced guns of the B-29". Again, study a little more history. The Ki-84 Hayate (Code named Frank by the Allies), and the pilots based in the home islands... were every bit a match for the pilots, and the speed and maneuverability, of the P-51 Mustangs escorting the B-29's, and shot many down. They were most certainly faster than the much slower B-29, and again shot several down. "Accuracy with the nuclear bombs was unimportant, due to the huge blast radius". WOW... you REALLY should study more history. Watch "Enola Gay The men,The mission, The atomic bomb" here on KZbin. While it does have a little extraneous fluff in it, the basics of the movie is an extremely factual account of the training of the crews leading up to the atomic bombings... and just how important ACCURACY was to the mission. The Technical Supervision for the movie included Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay (but obviously NOT his wife); most of the crew of the Enola Gay; and others involved in the mission. They made sure the movie was as factual as possible. Watch all the way to the end, since it took a look into what many of the men of the mission did after the war. It was released in 1980... so it doesn't account for them after that time.

[@keithammleter3824]

@@donf3877 : You have no idea what you are talking about. Sure Japan had radar - of a very crude sort. Despite having invented a key part - the magnetron - years before. But their AA guns were nothing like as effective as what Germany had. I base my words on declassified official US AAF documents, not movies. We all know the Hollywood propensity to turn out movies claiming to be accurate and that the movie company retained so-and-so military expert as a consultant - with varying actual results, often entirely bent to satisfy director's wishes for dramatic impact. Sometimes they pay the guy a big bag of money just so they can use his name. In any case, the Enola Gay dropped the bomb on the Hiroshima naval base, not Nagasaki. Note that a fighter being faster than a bomber is not the whole story. A fast bomber was harder to hit than a slower one even if the fighter was faster than both. My comment was that the nuclear bomb dropped (very inaccurately) on Nagasaki, because of the huge blast radius from just one plane, frightened the emperor into giving up. That's entirely correct. For all he knew, the US might have been able to continue, and with the number of planes the USAAF had, with this new bomb, they could blast all Japan clean out of existence, and him with it. They sure didn't, they only had enough reactive material to make 3 bombs, but he didn't know that. So, he ordered his armed forces to stop fighting, and the War was over. It was the blast radius that did it. Accuracy just didn't matter a whit. By the time the USAAF dropped the bomb, Japan had hardly any operational fighters of any sort. As I said, due to a mix-up with the observer plane, the plane that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki flew around in circles until they ran critically low on fuel waiting for the observer plane to show up. The Japanese were well aware of it circling, but didn't bother to scramble a single fighter until it was too late. As far as they were concerned, there wasn't much point. And no, they could not hit it with their anti-aircraft guns. That B-29 was perfectly safe. You should watch all of US WWII Bombers' KZbin videos on the US AAF performance. Take note of the references he cites, almost all of impeccable value, download and read them before shooting your mouth off.

[@donf3877]

@@keithammleter3824 And again, for someone that thinks he knows everything... and shoots his mouth off... you don't know jack. First, they were NOT "Hollywood movies" slick. The Battle 360 series was a detailed DOCUMENTARY (you might want to look that word up) on the History Channel, and was a historical record of the USS Enterprise throughout World War Two. Oh and, your "declassified official US AAF documents" do NOT include declassified US NAVY documents, which WERE used in the making of the series. The USAAF was never even CLOSE to the Truk Atoll. The USAAF was never even close to ANY of the evasions of the islands. They came AFTER THE FACT. After the Marines and Navy already had possession of the islands. And, of course the German AA was more effective. The B-17's over Europe were flying much lower. As you said yourself... Japanese AA couldn't REACH the bombers, radar-controlled or not. But, it COULD reach the dive bombers of the Navy. And, the Japanese radar-controlled AA was quite effective against those lower flying aircraft. Even though they were operating at much higher speeds. Once the cream of Japanese pilots in the Pacific was eliminated, the Navy lost more aircraft due to AA, than they did fighters. However again, Japan kept its best remaining fighters and pilots for the defense of the home island. And again, they WERE effective against the P-51 AND the B-29. As far as Hiroshima... again, you know NOTHING about what you are talking about. You really need to study more history. You are making a FOOL of yourself. The target was NOT the naval base. The "target" was a bridge in the center of town. And, the bomb was directly over that target when it exploded one thousand feet up. You keep insisting that accuracy wasn't important. YOU ARE WRONG SLICK. YOU don't think it was important. But, accuracy WAS important to the USAAF. The old adage "close only matters with atomic bombs and...", is just that... AN OLD ADAGE. The military is ALWAYS concerned with accuracy. And, at the beginning of the training... the bombers picked for the atomic missions, were as far as five to seven MILES off-target. And, "Enola Gay The men,The mission, The atomic bomb", is an accurate account of the book "Enola Gay: The Bombing of Hiroshima" It was written by Gordon Thomas, a British investigative journalist and author, notably on topics of secret intelligence... and Max Morgan Witts, responsible for The British Empire series, a historical documentary series. They are both distinguished authors, and you might want to check them out. They are what you call historians (you might want to look that word up, too). They also co-authored "Voyage of the Damned", "The San Francisco Earthquake", "Anatomy of an Epidemic", and many more historically accurate books. Oh and, your "pay the guy a big bag of money just so they can use his name" is hardly it at all. The Technical Advisors would NOT have allowed their names to be used, unless it was factual. They included retired Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets, retired Capt Robert Lewis, Lt. Jacob Beser, retired Col. Donald Burggrabe, retired Lt. Col. Duncan Wilmore, and Sgt. William Hess. Most being retired, they still fall under the rules and laws of the UCMJ. That's the Uniform Code of Military Justice, for a clown like you. They are NOT people that would allow someone to "use" their name in something that was inaccurate. They could be court-martial for it. As far as the US WWII Bombers channel. If you bother to check comments on his videos, you will find people "correcting" him all the time. Of course, since you don't know JACK... you won't be one of them..............................

[@JennaCee]

Very interesting!

[@billyponsonby]

Fascinating

[@glennschemitsch8341]

The problem of 'creepback' or early release has to be figured in the inaccuracy of hitting the primary target.

[@Chena_Pan]

Thank you for your great video. Unfortunatly, I can't download pdf documents in description. Could you fix the problem, please? Thank you very much.

[@billsmith5109]

Daylight formation bombing. Following bombers dropped when they saw the lead ship’s first bomb. This created a pattern on the ground loosely equivalent to a shotgun from sum of each aircraft’s string of bombs. Not obvious is that by the time that first bomb cleared the bomb bay and reaction time of following ships, the following ships were past point in space lead ship had been at at release point. So their bombs impacted forward of lead ships bomb string. The lead bombardier’s goal is to put the total pattern centered in the target, say a bridge. So in reality he didn’t put his crosshairs on the bridge. He put them on the water, 1/2 design bomb pattern length in front of the bridge. This while being fired upon by radar laid guns. It wasn’t important if his bombs hit the target. It was the formation that mattered. At least this was the practice using same tech at Korea, which often had smaller formations. Standard bombs had a 6’/1000’ elevation dispersal. A few bombs wandered off so bomb scores only included a circle encompassing 90%. None of this applies to magnesium rod fire bombs. After all wide dispersion was the goal of fire bombs.

[@MarcinP2]

So the logical next question is how precise were the gyros (and their drift) and how the crew would even get true vertical direction as a reference to start the gyros in correct orientation. If it was a spirit bubble then how precise was that?

[@ME-xh7zp]

Would love to hear your opinion on Flight Dojo's "Was the Norden Bombsight a Lie" etc video

[@dalecomer5951]

It's not totally wrong although the title is clickbait.

[@tomleach8579]

Why do we need the trailing distance? I understand it pulls together all the pieces, but does it matter to the end result? Maybe so you can double check when they hit versus when you released so make sure you were right. Maybe someone knows why it is important. Thanks Tom

[@michaeldenesyk3195]

Fascinating. Did the H2S radar-equipped B-29 have a more accurate bombing than the B-17/B-24?

[@tripley66]

Thank you. Just where I am in a story I am writing about a September 6, 1943, bombing.

[@francescofissore161]

... one thing I'm unable to understand - if 655 mph is speed at impact, and the bomb already has had deceleration due to some inevitable factors, what could be its speed somewhere at the fastest point? Necessarily supersonic, no way otherwise as I can see the matter.

[@marcusmoonstein242]

The GIGO principle states "garbage in, garbage out". The best sight in the world is still only as good as the information fed into it, so how accurate was that input information? Just a 3% margin of error on both the altitude and airspeed would throw the sight out by quite a bit.

[@primmakinsofis614]

It gets more complicated when, during the bombing run, clouds drifted in and concealed the aiming point. Now it's either abort the bomb run and bomb 'holes in the clouds' or continue the run and know accuracy is pretty much gone.

[@dalecomer5951]

@@primmakinsofis614They normally didn't drop the bombs if the target was obscured. They had secondary and tertiary targets. Worst case they dumped the bombs in the English Channel. Later in the war they had radar bombsights but those were not always effective.

[@dalecomer5951]

Excellent question. For accuracy they would have to know the true ground speed and drift at the aiming point. They would not have had time to estimate variable winds aloft between the initial point and the AP.

[@paulchukc]

It takes a lot of knowledge to kill and destroy at a big scale!

[@Whitpusmc]

If there was no combination of altitude and speed that would cause a GP500 to impact the ground at sonic speeds, what allowed the British bombs to break the speed of sound beyond the obvious significantly higher mass? Were they more aerodynamic?

[@eddievhfan1984]

If you're thinking of the Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs, Barnes Wallis *did* design them with supersonic fall in mind, and they were specifically streamlined for that purpose. But as far as I know, most general-purpose bombs used by both sides were your standard blunt-nose-welded-to-cylinder types that wouldn't have exceeded Mach 1.

[@Whitpusmc]

@@eddievhfan1984 exactly, thanks!

[@kellypbr7742]

Do one on torpedoes.

[@notmenotme614]

There’s a submarine simulator for PC’s called Silent Hunter. I remember you could manually do the torpedo calculations to work out the lead angle. If I remember correctly, the Submarine Captain would work out the distance to the target ship by using a optical ranger finder. He then would work out the speed of the target ship by taking a first bearing to the target, then starting a stop watch and then measuring a second bearing to the target after ? seconds had elapsed. The targets course or heading can be calculated by repeatedly plotting it on a map or a graph paper.

[@emmgeevideo]

I hope you cover the post-war analysis of bombing effectiveness. These charts sound so scientific and mathematical. But my memory is that the actual accuracy of so-called precision bombing was pretty minimal. It was only when the US decided that area bombing was the strategy and striking cities was acceptable, that's when actual results were obtained. The concept was that German workers were part of the military targets such as marshaling yards and ball bearing factories. It was easier to hit a city in general than a specific pickle in a pickle barrel.

[@keithammleter3824]

I hope he does too. But for a different reason to why you want it, I think. There has been a lot of rot written about the Norden bombsight and US precision bombing - this reflects a lack of understanding of the statistics behind bomb raid design, and of the fighting, camouflage, and decoy measures the Germans put up. The Norden did just what it was supposed to do, and was never claimed in official documentation to be able to hit pickle barrels. But if crews accurately bombed a German decoy site and not the actual intended factory a few miles away, that is hardly the fault of the Norden. If crews couldn't see the target due to German smoke making, that is hardly the fault of the Norden. And don't forget that Stalin put pressure on Churchill and Roosevelt to lift their game, and it was well understood by both that the USSR was doing the heavy lifting in fighting Germany, in both men and resources committed, and men killed.

[@primmakinsofis614]

_But my memory is that the actual accuracy of so-called precision bombing was pretty minimal._ Accuracy depended on many operational factors. The biggest impediment to accuracy was clouds. Many a bomb run was spoiled when clouds concealed the aiming point during the run in; others were prevented entirely when the aiming point was completely obscured. It was the constant complication of weather which prompted the USAAF to go heavily into radar-guided bombing, which the British had gone to first as a result of bombing at night. H2X radar offered U.S. bombers the opportunity to bomb when the weather over the target was otherwise unfavorable --- but at a big cost in accuracy, as the radars of the time rarely allowed specific aiming points to be discerned. The advent of H2X allowed the USAAF to considerably increase the tempo of bombing operations, since impact of weather was reduced. _It was only when the US decided that area bombing was the strategy and striking cities was acceptable, that's when actual results were obtained._ Strictly speaking, the USAAF always followed its 'precision' bombing method. Practically speaking, though, when many bomb runs were done non-visually by radar, damage was going to be widespread since non-visual bombing had low accuracy. But it was deemed better to do at least some widespread damage rather than doing nothing at all. The Oil and Transportation Plans were key factors in hitting the German war economy. But both of these plans didn't come about until spring of 1944, a time when sufficient force had been built up to really go after the wide array of targets with the frequency required to keep them out of action. The effects can be seen in German overall military production, which peaked in July 1944 and began to fall off after that, declining rapidly in the winter of 1944.

[@primmakinsofis614]

@@keithammleter3824 _The Norden did just what it was supposed to do, and was never claimed in official documentation to be able to hit pickle barrels._ The Norden performed very well in peacetime over the clear skies of Arizona. In wartime, when enemy flak was shooting, enemy fighters were prowling around, and skies over the targets cloudy 70% of the time, performance was of course considerably lower.

[@keithammleter3824]

@@primmakinsofis614 : You've got it mostly right, but there were other factors that contributed to the decision to carper bomb. The US continued to use precision bombing when targets could be identified and weather permitted. Even when precision bombing was used, the percentage of bombs hitting the target was always a LOT less than the percentage achieved in demonstration runs in the US, but most of the reduced percentage in combat was not the fault of the Norden sight, and this should be understood. Being a visual tool, the Norden of course was not much good if cloud obscured the target, or if the Germans made smoke. The weak point in the Norden was the need to level the gyros shortly before reaching the target. Post war navigation gyros had computers attached that automatically compensated for precession, but in WW2 this wasn't possible. (Gyros "precess" over distance as they don't follow the curvature of the Earth's surface). Levelling in the Norden was done with spirit levels - this required a lot of skill and judgement as the bubbles tended to move about due to turbulence and nearby flak bursts. But, as I said, a lot of the reduction in percentage hits on targets was due to the statistical nature of bombing mission design, even with precision bombing in clear weather. Bombing mission design requires an understanding of statistics and is best explained with diagrams - to explain it here would make my post very long. I may post later when I have worked out a concise way to explain mission design in words. A key question is "would the US have bombed just as accurately (low as the percentage target hits was) without the Norden?" The answer is: No, they definitely would not. A key question is: "would the German war effort have crumbled quicker if area bombing was always used instead of precision bombing?" No, it would not, in fact the war in Europe would have lasted longer. Area bombing by Britain had surprisingly little effect on Germany's ability to fight, even though it made a lot of Germans homeless and ruined their lives. And German attempts to area bomb Britain into submission were so ineffective it was hardly worth bothering. My mother worked in a factory near London making bomb arming mechanisms. When German bombs started falling, she and her work mates were pretty scared, and hurried into their bomb shelters. But, after a while, when the sirens went off and the bangs started, they called to each other things like "Come on Jerry, bring it on, get it over with," "Stick plugs in your ears and sing." and carried on working. My father served as part of the occupation forces in Japan after their Emperor stopped the fight. He always said the destruction of Japanese cities from area bombing was so total that the two nuclear bombs were not at all significant. Yet the Japanese were still keen to fight on - only the cease & cooperate order from the Emperor stopped the War, as he and his entourage thought he would get the next nuclear bomb on his palace.

[@dalecomer5951]

Wrong. The term for the revised bombing tactic was "carpet bombing" not area bombing. An entire group of bombers, generally two full squadrons on a given mission, would drop at the same time. Not the amoral area bombing tactic of the Luftwaffe and RAF. Regretfully, the USAAF did participate in some RAF area bombing missions such as the bombing of Hamburg and Dresden probably under pressure from the Brits for support, and with electronic warfare assets. Curtis LeMay adopted British tactics for bombing Japan because he didn't know what else to do. He had a hugely expensive bomber fleet which wasn't working and didn't have the insight Doolittle had with the 8AF in Europe.

[@jasondiaz8431]

Instant swimming pools.

[@Snaerffer]

Not sure about your mathematics here. Assuming the bomb is dropped high enough to reach “terminal velocity” before impact it will only ever reach a maximum speed on impact of 21.937 mph/s. This is only about 120mph and a number of magnitudes than your 600+mph.

[@GilmerJohn]

It's a very dense object and it reasonably "streamline." It's implied that it's terminal velocity is much higher than, say, a human body dropping through space.

[@agrxdrowflow958]

These guys knew very little about compressibility, that is what happens to air at transonic+ speeds. The tables for flying over 26,000 ft is probably garbage.

[@webstercat]

They never calculate in curvature or earth rotation for some reason…

[@steveandulsky566]

It might be that given the rather short flight time of the bomb, the difference would be insignificant...a couple of feet perhaps.

[@snspartan714al2]

Probably because it’s dropping the bomb and not “shooting” it so it is less significant

[@stevepirie8130]

On mortars we were the same for ignoring earth rotation as our range was relatively short and pinpoint accuracy was unnecessary being an area weapon. Artillery however, the data computer would work that out.

[@markingraham4892]

You completely neglected the extensive studies in the 1920s on ballistics.

[@bettymalone3769]

p͓̽r͓̽o͓̽m͓̽o͓̽s͓̽m͓̽ 😘