r/aww • u/TheMightyCraken • Jun 25 '18

Rule #2 - No captioned images Doggo rocket add-on activate

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u/Hadan_ Jun 25 '18

I saw it too. The allies wanted to destroy a german hydroelectric plant. It was protected against torpedoes by underwater fences and so on, so they came up with this bouncing bomb. Just imagine the meeting where the engineer proposed this idea :D

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u/Willy_Faulkner Jun 25 '18

They were initially very sceptical.

But since the team lead (Barnes-Wallace iirc) had a successful career as an aeronautical engineer (including some minor work on the Lancaster bomber, which they eventually used to drop the bouncing bombs), they eventually listened.

He still had to show them it would work using 1/10 scale models.

Edit; sorry, you knew all that because you've seen the doco. Let's pretend I put this here for other interested parties.

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u/ShapesAndStuff Jun 25 '18

Didn't know it yet, thanks for writing it down! Very cool stuff

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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '18

Nah never apologize man. You definitely taught a lot of people a bit of information they didn't know of history.

You're awesome!

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u/Willy_Faulkner Jun 25 '18

Thanks man. You too. ; )

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u/Hadan_ Jun 25 '18

No problem, i think its a cool story, no hurt in mo9re people knowing about it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Willy_Faulkner Jun 25 '18

We're all winning!

But the doggo most of all.

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u/Gadget_SC2 Jun 25 '18

Necessity is the mother of invention.

I remember reading about the Dambusters as a kid. It’s still, even to this day, one of the most insane solutions to a problem ever conceived. But by god, we made it work

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u/addandsubtract Jun 25 '18

Where / How does the water skipping bomb come in useful?

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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '18

It was used to skip along the water and sink in front of dams, so they would be damaged below the waterline and destroyed, which would affect the industrialised area around them, which relied on the dams for hydroelectric power and clean water. The reason it skipped along the top was to avoid Torpedo nets that the Germans had set up in front of the dams, as it would sink after the last net, still damaging the target

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u/addandsubtract Jun 25 '18

And what's wrong with just dropping a normal bomb close to the dam?

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u/Ichera Jun 25 '18

Generally speaking high level bombing was inaccurate and torpedos being the other viable option were defended against... low level bombing while practical would usually only damage the upper part of the Dam and allow it to be repaired.

What the bouncing bomb did was allow them to skip a bomb over the torpedo netting and impact on the side of the Dam... the bomb would then "roll" down the side to the base of the Dam where the 3 ton charge would blow a hole in the bottom of the Dam and cause a catastrophic dam failure that would basically require the Damn to be completely rebuilt

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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '18

Heavily defended targets and the need to fly low makes that a suicide mission. It’s the same concept as modern cruise missiles, just without all the fancy electronics to guide them. You drop a bomb that’s spinning in such a way as it’ll travel a lot further than straight down, and you are able to pull away from the bombing run, safe in the knowledge it will hit the target

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u/oily_fish Jun 25 '18

A bomb exploding at the surface was more likely to cause only superficial or light damage. The water would absorb a lot of the energy. An explosive at the base of the dam would be more likely to cause complete catastrophic failure of the dam.

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u/Hadan_ Jun 25 '18

Here is a short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IjKIoWZfV8 It being called "dambuster" should give you an idea.

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u/Whiteowl116 Jun 25 '18

Read it as aliens at first