[Milsurplus] Norden Bomb Sight

Wed Aug 1 16:33:30 EDT 2018

Hi

Since this is Milsurplus ….

One of the “tricks” to manufacturing a Norden was hand selecting the ball bearings to tightly (but not to tightly) pack each
bearing race. Too tight and nothing worked. Get it a bit loose and it still functioned, but with degraded accuracy. After the war
a large number of un-issued sights turned up on the market. They still were a staple in magazine ads for a *long* time afterwords. 

One of the things some enterprising people did was to check the bearings in the un-issued sights. Surprise !!! Over the course 
of the war, the very labor intensive process of hand selecting balls for a bearing set apparently was dropped. The result was
a sigh that still functioned. It just didn’t function as well as the originals. 

Why did they have piles and piles of them sitting in boxes un-issued? Well, eventually they found that simply having a small 
number of planes with sites and *very* talented crews to drop the bombs worked better than having everybody do it all from
scratch. The “leader” dumped his load and everybody else just did the same thing. Net result was better on target performance 
than before. Indeed the crew skill counted for a *lot*.

For whatever reason, this change in strategy didn’t get fed back to the procurement end of things. They kept on churning out
sights as if each and every bomber was going to get one ( plus spares). Not the first (or the last) time this sort of thing happened.
One wonders if dropping back to 10% production, but keeping the hand selection process would have been an option … we’ll 
never know.

Bob

> On Aug 1, 2018, at 2:23 PM, Joe Connor via Milsurplus <milsurplus at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
> 
> It's crucial to understand the context.
> 
> The Norden bombsight was hyped as being able to drop a pickle into a barrel from 20,000 feet, but those tests were done under optimal conditions in the States. It was a little different in the field, where these planes were being attacked by fighters and dodging flak. To get accuracy, the bombers had to flight for several minutes in a straight line at a steady speed and altitude before dropping their bombs. Very tough to do under combat conditions. The Eighth Air Force took horrific casualties, especially before the U.S. developed long-range fighter escort. 
> 
> The Air Corps probably oversold the Noden bombsight. They were at war with the rest of the Army in the battle that Billy Mitchell started. The airmen pushed hard on the concept that strategic bombing could win the war all by itself. Historians still debate how effective that bombing was (at least before Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
> 
> Fascinating discussion.
> 
>                                     Joe Connor
> On Wednesday, August 1, 2018, 3:13:55 PM EDT, Mark K3MSB <mark.k3msb at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> >> Just trying to understand 
> 
> Here's a good way.    Climb up into the upper turret of a B-17 and get comfortable.   Think about those powerful twin 50's you have at your disposal.    Now, imagine you have a pair of FW-190s bearing down on you.    You have NO place to run.    You have NO place to hide.  And the pilot has very very limited evasive options.      If your knees don't get weak and you don't start to perspire a bit,  you're not human.     Those young flight crews had balls.
> 
> 73 Mark K3MSB
> 
> 
> On Wed, Aug 1, 2018 at 3:06 PM, David Stinson <arc5 at ix.netcom.com <mailto:arc5 at ix.netcom.com>> wrote:
> You know, mechanical computers on battleships were pretty good at delivering a 14-inch-diameter shell miles on-target, under way and in seas.   When considering the low on-target rate for bombing using the Norden Sight, one wonders how much could be attributed to design limitations and how much to 18-20-year-old, lightly-trained flight crews, scared out of their wits (as any sane person would be), who just wanted to unload the bombs and get the heck out of there.  Not bad-talking the flight crews- I have no right to “cast shade” on these men.  Just trying to understand.
> 
> 
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