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GB-4
GB-4 (Glide Bomb No.4) was a precision guided munition developed by the United States during World War II. GB-4s used a television guidance system with the weapon being steered by a TV bombardier operating a joystick in the launch aircraft. The first GB-4s (then known as MX-607s) were tested at Eglin Air Force Base during August of 1943. During testing the GB-4's circular error probable accuracy was found to be . The type was ordered into production on the 15 January 1944. Although approved for operational use, the typed suffered from reliability problems throughout testing. The GB-4 was briefly used in combat by the 388th Bomber Group, based in eastern England, but its performance was deemed unsatisfactory. 1,200 GB-4's were delivered to the USAAF however poor combat results lead to a decision to halt further deliveries in February 1945. See also * Fritz X * GB-1 * Azon * VB-6 Felix The VB-6 Felix was a precision-guided munition developed by the United States during W ...
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Precision Guided Munition
A precision-guided munition (PGM, smart weapon, smart munition, smart bomb) is a guided munition intended to precisely hit a specific target, to minimize collateral damage and increase lethality against intended targets. During the First Gulf War guided munitions accounted for only 9% of weapons fired, but accounted for 75% of all successful hits. Despite guided weapons generally being used on more difficult targets, they were still 35 times more likely to destroy their targets per weapon dropped. Because the damage effects of explosive weapons decrease with distance due to an inverse cube law, even modest improvements in accuracy (hence reduction in miss distance) enable a target to be attacked with fewer or smaller bombs. Thus, even if some guided bombs miss, fewer air crews are put at risk and the harm to civilians and the amount of collateral damage may be reduced. The advent of precision-guided munitions resulted in the renaming of older, low-technology, bombs as "unguid ...
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Fritz X
Fritz X was the most common name for a German guided anti-ship glide bomb used during World War II. ''Fritz X'' was the world's first precision guided weapon deployed in combat and the first to sink a ship in combat. ''Fritz X'' was a nickname used both by Allied and ''Luftwaffe'' personnel. Alternative names include Ruhrstahl SD 1400 X, Kramer X-1, PC 1400X or FX 1400 (the latter, along with the unguided PC 1400 ''Fritz'' nickname, is the origin for the name "Fritz X"). History ''Fritz X'' was a further development of the PC 1400 (''Panzersprengbombe, Cylindrisch'' 1,400 kg) German Wikipedia's WW II PC-series bomb specifications, German for "armor-piercing bomb, cylindrical". armour-piercing high-explosive bomb, itself bearing the nickname ''Fritz''. It was a penetration weapon intended to be used against armored targets such as heavy cruisers and battleships. It was given a more aerodynamic nose, four stub wings, and a box-shaped tail unit consisting of a roughly 12-sid ...
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Glide Bomb
A glide bomb or stand-off bomb is a standoff weapon with flight control surfaces to give it a flatter, gliding flight path than that of a conventional bomb without such surfaces. This allows it to be released at a distance from the target rather than right over it, allowing a successful attack without the aircraft needing to survive until reaching the target. World War II-era glide bombs like the German Fritz X and Henschel Hs 293 pioneered the use of remote control systems, allowing the controlling aircraft to direct the bomb to a pinpoint target as a pioneering form of precision-guided munition. Modern systems are generally self-guided or semi-automated, using GPS or laser designators to hit their target. The term " glide bombing" does not refer to the use of glide bombs, but a style of shallow-angle dive bombing. Early efforts German designs World War I In October 1914 Wilhelm von Siemens suggested what became known as the Siemens torpedo glider, a wire-guided flying ...
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VB-6 Felix
The VB-6 Felix was a precision-guided munition developed by the United States during World War II. It used an infrared seeker to attack targets like blast furnaces or the metal roofs of large factories. The war ended before it could be used operationally. History Created by the National Defense Research Committee, Felix relied on infrared to detect and home on heat-emitting targets in clear weather;Ordway and Wakeford 1960, p.124. blast furnaces were considered a particularly practical target for such a weapon, as were the reflective metal roofs of factory buildings. It was this property which earned the weapon its name, after the ability of cats to see in the dark; Felix the Cat was an extremely popular cartoon character at the time. Felix was a 1000-pound (454 kg) general purpose (GP) bomb with an infrared seeker in the nose and octagonal guidance fins in the tail. Unlike other weapons, such as the German Fritz X, Felix was autonomous once launched, although there was a fl ...
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Guided Bomb
A guided bomb (also known as a smart bomb, guided bomb unit, or GBU) is a precision-guided munition designed to achieve a smaller circular error probable (CEP). The creation of precision-guided munitions resulted in the retroactive renaming of older bombs as unguided bombs or "dumb bombs". Guidance Guided bombs carry a guidance system which is usually monitored and controlled from an external device. A guided bomb of a given weight must carry fewer explosives to accommodate the guidance mechanisms. Radio The Germans were first to introduce Precision Guided Munitions (PGMs) in combat, using the 1,400-kg (3,100 lb) MCLOS-guidance Fritz X to successfully attack the Italian battleship Italian battleship Roma (1940), ''Roma'' in September 1943. The closest Allies of World War II, Allied equivalents were the 1,000-lb (454 kg) AZON (AZimuth ONly), used in both Europe and the China Burma India Theater, CBI Theater, and the United States Navy, US Navy's Bat (guided bom ...
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World War II Weapons Of The United States
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique while others talk of a "plurality of worlds". Some treat the world as one simple object while others analyze the world as a complex made up of many parts. In '' scientific cosmology'' the world or universe is commonly defined as " e totality of all space and time; all that is, has been, and will be". '' Theories of modality'', on the other hand, talk of possible worlds as complete and consistent ways how things could have been. ''Phenomenology'', starting from the horizon of co-given objects present in the periphery of every experience, defines the world as the biggest horizon or the "horizon of all horizons". In ''philosophy of mind'', the world is commonly contrasted with the mind as that which is represented by the mind. ''T ...
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World War II Aerial Bombs Of The United States
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique while others talk of a "plurality of worlds". Some treat the world as one simple object while others analyze the world as a complex made up of many parts. In ''scientific cosmology'' the world or universe is commonly defined as " e totality of all space and time; all that is, has been, and will be". '' Theories of modality'', on the other hand, talk of possible worlds as complete and consistent ways how things could have been. ''Phenomenology'', starting from the horizon of co-given objects present in the periphery of every experience, defines the world as the biggest horizon or the "horizon of all horizons". In ''philosophy of mind'', the world is commonly contrasted with the mind as that which is represented by the mind. ''Th ...
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Azon
AZON (or Azon), from "azimuth only", was one of the world's first guided weapons, deployed by the Allies and contemporary with the German Fritz X. Officially designated VB-1 ("Vertical Bomb 1"), it was invented by Major Henry J. Rand and Thomas J. O'Donnell during the latter stages of World War II as the answer to the difficult problem of destroying the narrow wooden bridges that supported much of the Burma Railway. AZON was essentially a general-purpose AN-M65 bomb with a quadrilateral 4-fin style radio controlled tail fin design as part of a "tail package" to give the desired guidance capability, allowing adjustment of the vertical trajectory in the yaw axis, giving the Azon unit a lateral steering capability (meaning it could only steer left and right, and could not alter its pitch or rate of fall). This lack of any pitch control meant that the bombardier still had to accurately release it with a bombsight to ensure it could not fall short of or beyond the target. The "ta ...
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GB-1
} The GB-1, also known as the "Grapefruit bomb" and as XM-108,379th 2000 p.39. was a glide bomb produced by Aeronca Aircraft for the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Intended to allow bombers to release bombs from outside the range of enemy defenses, over one thousand GB-1s were used in combat before the end of the war. Design and development The U.S. Army Air Corps – which would later become the U.S. Army Air Forces – initiated development of a glide bomb design in March 1941.Ordway and Wakeford 1960, p.119. Intended to allow bombers to stand off outside the range of enemy flak while releasing their bombload, while also potentially allowing for more precise targeting due to the shallow glide path the bomb would follow, the design resulted in three prototypes; one developed by Aeronca designated GB-1; a design by Bellanca designated GB-2, and the Timm Aircraft-designed GB-3.Parsch 2003 The GB-1 mated a wing and twin-tail empennage of conventional small-ai ...
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388th Operations Group
The 388th Operations Group (388 OG) is the flying component of the 388th Fighter Wing, assigned to the Air Combat Command Twelfth Air Force. The group is stationed at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. During World War II, its predecessor unit, the 388th Bombardment Group (Heavy) was an Eighth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortress unit in England, stationed at RAF Knettishall (Station 136). The group earned four Distinguished Unit Citations, flying over 300 combat missions (17 August 1943 – Regensburg; 26 June 1943 – Hanover; 12 May 1944 – Brux and 21 June 1944 on a shuttle mission to Russia). It also conducted Aphroditie radio-controlled B-24 Liberators as test guided bombs. Overview The 388th Operations Group is responsible for the readiness of a combat-capable fleet of 5th Generation F-35A Lightning II. Operations squadrons of the group (Tail Code: HL) are: * 4th Fighter Squadron * 34th Fighter Squadron * 421st Fighter Squadron * 388th Operations Support Squadron History : ''F ...
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USAAF
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II (1941–1945). It was created on 20 June 1941 as successor to the previous United States Army Air Corps and is the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force, today one of the six armed forces of the United States. The AAF was a component of the United States Army, which on 2 March 1942 was divided functionally by executive order into three autonomous forces: the Army Ground Forces, the United States Army Services of Supply (which in 1943 became the Army Service Forces), and the Army Air Forces. Each of these forces had a commanding general who reported directly to the Army Chief of Staff. The AAF administered all parts of military aviation formerly distributed among the Air Corps, General Headquarters Air Force, and the ground ...
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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 ...
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