
Norden Bombsight (2004) - spking
http://www.twinbeech.com/norden_bombsight.htm
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rfinney
_Postwar analysis

Postwar analysis placed the overall accuracy of daylight precision attacks
with the Norden at about the same level as radar bombing efforts. The 8th Air
Force put 31.8% of its bombs within 300 metres (1,000 ft) from an average
altitude of 6,400 metres (21,000 ft), the 15th Air Force averaged 30.78% from
6,200 metres (20,500 ft), and the 20th Air Force against Japan averaged 31%
from 5,000 metres (16,500 ft).[46]

Many factors have been put forth to explain the Norden's poor real-world
performance. ... _

from
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norden_bombsight#Postwar_analy...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norden_bombsight#Postwar_analysis)

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smacktoward
The story of the Norden bombsight is remarkable in a whole bunch of different
ways.

1) As an historic example of the US putting an inordinate amount of faith in
high-tech solutions to military problems, only to be disappointed with how
those solutions actually performed when they reached the field. (This story
being a hardy perennial: see also the Browning Automatic Rifle, the Mark 14
torpedo, the M16 rifle, the F-111 fighter, the M2 Bradley AFV, the F-35 strike
fighter, etc. etc. etc.)

2) As a cautionary tale of building your security plan around the wrong threat
model: Nordens in the field were subject to extraordinary security measures to
prevent them falling into enemy hands, none of which mattered because the
Germans had a spy inside the Norden plant who had already passed them the
plans for the bombsight three years before the U.S. even entered the war
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duquesne_Spy_Ring#Herman_W._La...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duquesne_Spy_Ring#Herman_W._Lang)).

3) As an early example of PR prowess from what would become known as the
military-industrial complex: while the bombsight itself was kind of a dud, the
Carl L. Norden Company (with the eager assistance of the USAAF) were adept at
selling it to the public as a kind of wonder-weapon. As an example, here's a
1943 story from _Life_ magazine about Norden partnering with the Ringling
Bros. circus to work the bombsight into a show in Madison Square Garden:
[https://books.google.com/books?id=EU4EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA27&ots=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=EU4EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA27&ots=NweZxvCOCQ&dq=norden%20bombsight%20circus&pg=PA27#v=onepage&q=norden%20bombsight%20circus&f=false)

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neetdeth
Absent from this list: Laser guided bombs, thermal imaging systems, the F-15
Eagle, the Tomahawk cruise missile, the M1A1 Abrams tank, etc. etc. Examples
of high tech solutions to military problems that produced extremely favorable
lopsided outcomes when they reached the field.

Any military that places inordinate faith in low tech solutions is liable to
lose most of their armor and infantry to an aggressor that they can't even
see, much less fight. That seems like the much greater hazard.

~~~
smacktoward
_> Any military that places inordinate faith in low tech solutions is liable
to lose most of their armor and infantry to an aggressor that they can't even
see, much less fight_

This would of course come as news to the Russians, who absolutely creamed the
much-higher-tech Germans in WW2. It turns out that five lower-tech tanks that
start reliably are worth more than one high-tech tank that doesn't.

It's also worth noting that none of the technologies you list have ever been
deployed in the field against a real peer competitor, and many have never been
used in combat in the roles they were originally intended for. (The F-15 was
designed as an interceptor, for instance, but in actual combat has mostly been
used as a strike fighter. The M1 was designed to fight Soviet T-72 and T-80
tanks, which it has never had a chance to do -- even at the one real armor
battle it has taken part in, the Battle of 73 Easting in 1991, it faced less
capable export-version T-72s alongside older T-55 and T-62 derivatives.)

~~~
anonlastname
The Russian strategy during WWII and the winter war only "worked" because they
accepted an enormous loss of troops to compensate for all of their other
shortcomings. During the Winter War especially, Russian troops lacked
equipment such as white camouflage and a single Finnish sniper killed at least
500 Russian troops.

This strategy may have worked, but it's not acceptable.

~~~
mulmen
Also the Russians didn't win in a vacuum. The rest of the allies provided a
huge amount of support in the form of lend-lease and supplies. The war of
attrition would not have been winnable by Russia alone and came at an extreme
cost of human life.

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cafard
Moritz Thomsen, in _My Two Wars_ , wrote of service as a bombardier. He quoted
instructors as saying things along the lines of "You missed the Ruhr, but you
still hit Germany." I don't think that those who served in the bombers had
many illusions.

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wnkrshm
It's interesting to learn that there were orders to handle the device with the
utmost secrecy within the US air force, while the Germans already had the
blueprints:

> But U.S. intelligence experts received a shock when they interrogated
> Luftwaffe personnel: The Germans had known the bombsight’s secrets even
> before the war, thanks to a spy at Norden.

> Herman W. Lang, a naturalized U.S. citizen, had been employed as a draftsman
> and inspector at the Norden factory during the 1930s. American authorities
> didn’t know that he had served as Nazi stormtrooper in Germany between 1923
> and 1927. Recruited as a member of the Duquesne Spy Ring, in 1938 Lang
> gained access to the plans for the bombsight and hand-copied the blueprints,
> which were then smuggled to Germany via ocean liner. [0]

[0] [https://www.historynet.com/not-so-secret-weapon-the-
norden-b...](https://www.historynet.com/not-so-secret-weapon-the-norden-
bombsight.htm)

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PaulHoule
Ironically the first group of photos are of the bombsite on the Enola Gay --
an atom bomb is the only kind of bomb which the Norden Bombsight could put on
target.

