AB 23
The AB 23 (Abwurfbehälter) was a cluster bomb used by the Luftwaffe during World War II. Design The body of the AB 23 was constructed of mild sheet steel with four fins welded to the rear of the container. The AB 23 was composed of two longitudinal halves and was internally divided by two sheet metal discs held in place by steel rods. The front compartment held six bombs while the rear compartment held seventeen bombs. The two halves of the container were held together by a shear wire which passed through a steel anvil, in the lower part of the fuze pocket. When the fuze was triggered, the wire was sheared by a small exploder under the fuze. The case then opened allowing the bombs to fall out. By removing the sheet metal discs it could also be used to drop strips of metal coated paper for disrupting enemy radars. The AB 23 was painted dark green and there were two longitudinal red stripes running the length of the tail fins. The AB 23 could be configured for two different pay ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cluster Bomb
A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller submunitions. Commonly, this is a cluster bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill personnel and destroy vehicles. Other cluster munitions are designed to destroy runways or electric power transmission lines, disperse chemical or biological weapons, or to scatter land mines. Some submunition-based weapons can disperse non-munitions, such as leaflets. Because cluster bombs release many small bomblets over a wide area, they pose risks to civilians both during attacks and afterwards. Unexploded bomblets can kill or maim civilians and/or unintended targets long after a conflict has ended, and are costly to locate and remove. Cluster munitions are prohibited for those nations that ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions, adopted in Dublin, Ireland, in May 2008. The Convention entered into force and became binding international law upon ratifyi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabteilung'' of the Imperial Navy, had been disbanded in May 1920 in accordance with the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles which banned Germany from having any air force. During the interwar period, German pilots were trained secretly in violation of the treaty at Lipetsk Air Base in the Soviet Union. With the rise of the Nazi Party and the repudiation of the Versailles Treaty, the ''Luftwaffe''s existence was publicly acknowledged on 26 February 1935, just over two weeks before open defiance of the Versailles Treaty through German rearmament and conscription would be announced on 16 March. The Condor Legion, a ''Luftwaffe'' detachment sent to aid Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War, provided the force with a valuable testing grou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cluster Munition
A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller submunitions. Commonly, this is a cluster bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill personnel and destroy vehicles. Other cluster munitions are designed to destroy runways or electric power transmission lines, disperse chemical or biological weapons, or to scatter land mines. Some submunition-based weapons can disperse non-munitions, such as leaflets. Because cluster bombs release many small bomblets over a wide area, they pose risks to civilians both during attacks and afterwards. Unexploded bomblets can kill or maim civilians and/or unintended targets long after a conflict has ended, and are costly to locate and remove. Cluster munitions are prohibited for those nations that ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions, adopted in Dublin, Ireland, in May 2008. The Convention entered into force and became binding international law upon ratifyi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Butterfly Bomb
A Butterfly Bomb (or ''Sprengbombe Dickwandig 2 kg'' or SD 2) was a German anti-personnel submunition used by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War. It was so named because the thin cylindrical metal outer shell which hinged open when the bomblet deployed gave it the superficial appearance of a large butterfly. The design was very distinctive and easy to recognise. SD 2 bomblets were not dropped individually, but were packed into containers holding between 6 and 108 submunitions e.g. the AB 23 SD 2 and AB 250-3 submunition dispensers. The SD 2 submunitions were released after the container was released from the aircraft and had burst open. Because SD 2s were always dropped in groups (never individually) the discovery of one unexploded SD 2 was a reliable indication that others had been dropped nearby. This bomb type was one of the first cluster bombs ever used in combat and it proved to be a highly effective weapon. The bomb containers that carried the SD 2 bomblets and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chaff (countermeasure)
Chaff, originally called Window by the British and ''Düppel'' by the Second World War era German Luftwaffe (from the Berlin suburb where it was first developed), is a radar countermeasure in which aircraft or other targets spread a cloud of small, thin pieces of aluminium, metallized glass fibre or plastic, which either appears as a cluster of primary targets on radar screens or swamps the screen with multiple returns, in order to confuse and distract. Modern armed forces use chaff (in naval applications, for instance, using short-range SRBOC rockets) to distract radar-guided missiles from their targets. Most military aircraft and warships have chaff dispensing systems for self-defense. An intercontinental ballistic missile may release in its midcourse phase several independent warheads as well as penetration aids such as decoy balloons and chaff. Modern radar systems can distinguish chaff from target objects by measuring the Doppler shift; chaff quickly loses speed compared ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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List Of Weapons Of Military Aircraft Of Germany During World War II
During World War II, the Luftwaffe (German air force) equipped their aircraft with the most modern weaponry available until resources grew scarce later in the war. Machine guns (Maschinengewehr) * MG 15 * MG 17 * MG 81 & 81Z * MG 131 Autocannon (Maschinenkanone and related types) * MG FF and FF/M /sup> * MG 151, /15 or /20 /sup> * MK 101 * MK 103 * MK 108 /sup> The official designation for ''MG FF'' and ''MG 151'' was ''Maschinengewehr'' but they are cannon. Heavy aircraft cannon (''Bordkanone'') * BK 3.7 * BK 5 * BK 7.5 (based on Rheinmetall's 7.5 cm Pak 40 with self-contained twelve-round magazine) Rockets and Missiles * Kramer Rk 344, air-to-air missile (liquid-fuel, rocket-powered) * Henschel Hs 293, guided anti-ship, boost-glide missile * R4M rocket * Werfer-Granate 21 heavy-calibre air-to-air unguided rocket Bombs High explosive "Sprengcylindrisch"' (high-explosive) * SC 50 * SC 250 * SC 500 * SC 1000 "Hermann" * SC 1200 * SC 1800 "Satan" * SC 2000 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |