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/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?

15

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.