Aerial bomb

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GBU-31 JDAM aerial bombs in the hangar bay of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)

An aerial bomb is a type of

incendiary weapon intended to travel through the air on a predictable trajectory. Engineers usually develop such bombs to be dropped from an aircraft
.

The use of aerial bombs is termed aerial bombing.

Bomb types

Aerial bombs include a vast range and complexity of designs. These include unguided

gravity bombs, guided bombs, bombs hand-tossed from a vehicle, bombs needing a large specially-built delivery-vehicle, bombs integrated with the vehicle itself (such as a glide bomb), instant-detonation bombs, or delay-action bombs
.

As with other types of explosive weapons, aerial bombs aim to kill and injure people or to destroy materiel through the projection of one or more of blast, fragmentation, radiation or fire outwards from the point of detonation.

Early bombs

explosive, 250 kg concrete
practice bomb, 50 kg concrete practice bomb.

The first bombs delivered to their targets by air were single bombs carried on unmanned hot air balloons, launched by the Austrians against Venice in 1849 during the First Italian War of Independence.[1]

The first bombs dropped from a

heavier-than-air aircraft were grenades or grenade-like devices. Historically, the first use was by Giulio Gavotti on 1 November 1911, during the Italo-Turkish War.[2]

In 1912, during the

Captain Simeon Petrov developed the idea and created several prototypes by adapting different types of grenades and increasing their payload.[3]

On 16 October 1912, observer Prodan Tarakchiev dropped two of those bombs on the Turkish railway station of Karağaç (near the besieged Edirne) from an Albatros F.2 aircraft piloted by Radul Milkov, for the first time in this campaign.[3][4][5][6] Aerial bombs became very popular during World War Two.[citation needed] Examples of this are the bombings of Dresden, the United Kingdom and Germany bombing each other back and forth, and the bombings of Tokyo.[citation needed] This method is still being used, but alternatives such as missiles, ballistic missiles and ICBMs are more popular as they don't pose a threat to the human delivering the bombs.[citation needed]

Technical description

An F-100 Super Sabre being loaded with M117 bombs during the Vietnam War

Aerial bombs typically use a contact fuze to detonate the bomb upon impact, or a delayed-action fuze initiated by impact.

Reliability

unexploded bombs
which may be able to detonate are discovered every year, particularly in Germany, and have to be defused or detonated in a controlled explosion, in some cases requiring evacuation of thousands of people beforehand. Old bombs occasionally detonate when disturbed, or when a faulty time fuze eventually functions, showing that precautions are still essential when dealing with them.

See also

Types of aerial bomb

References

  1. ISBN 0-88487-235-1
    .
  2. ISBN 9780751337327
    .
  3. ^ a b Who was the first to use an aircraft as a bomber? (in Bulgarian; photographs of 1912 Bulgarian air-dropped bombs)
  4. ^ A Brief History of Air Force Scientific and Technical Intelligence Archived 30 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ "The Balkan Wars: Scenes from the Front Lines". Time. 8 October 2012. Archived from the original on 27 March 2016. Retrieved 28 July 2015.
  6. ^ I.Borislavov, R.Kirilov: The Bulgarian Aircraft, Vol.I: From Bleriot to Messerschmitt. Litera Prima, Sofia, 1996 (in Bulgarian)
  7. ^ Brian Melican (23 April 2018). "'They haven't lost their potency': Allied bombs still threaten Hamburg". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 23 April 2018. Retrieved 23 April 2018.

External links

  • "bomb" at Encyclopædia Britannica
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Air-dropped bombs.
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