Bellifortis
Well-Known Member
These last few weeks I have been studying an authoritative treatise on german bomb develoment between 1925 and 1945. There I found a bomb that I have never read about before and like to share with you. In 1943 german fighter planes started using bombs against allied bomber formations using SC 500 and SD 500, because it was not known if blast or shrapnel would be more effective. Experience at the time was, that a 8,8cm AA round detonated at a wing or belly of a "Flying Fortress" without hitting gas tank,pilot or motor, did not bring down the plane with certainty. Tests done on the ground proofed, that the blast of an SC 500 would break off a wing at 20m distance, while the SD 500 did not effect sufficient damage to bring down the plane. The leader of the fighter formations continued frontline tests for 1 year with both bombs fuzed with (69) and (79) fuzes with fixed delays of 7 or 10 sec. Result of the tests was, that shrapnell has more effect than blast. This led to the development of the "Schrapnellbombe 500". It was used nearly only in the east, because in the west fighter protection was too strong. Quite a few planes were brought down by this bomb, towards the end of 1944 some in south-eastern Europe.
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