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Smart Bombs
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 ''Roma'' in September 1943. The closest Allied equivalents were the 1,000-lb (454 kg) AZON (AZimuth ONly), used in both Europe and the CBI Theater, and the US Navy's Bat, primarily used in the Pacific Theater of World War II which used autonomous, on-board radar guidance. In additio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Aphrodite
Aphrodite and Anvil were the World War II code names of United States Army Air Forces and United States Navy operations to use Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated PB4Y bombers as precision-guided munitions against bunkers and other hardened/reinforced enemy facilities, such as "Crossbow" operations against German long range missiles. The missions were not generally successful, and the intended targets in Europe were either overrun by the ground advance of Allied troops or disabled by conventional attacks by aircraft. Proposal The plan called for B-17E/Fs that had been taken out of operational service (various nicknames existed such as "robot", "baby", "drone" or "weary Willy") to be loaded to capacity with explosives, and flown by radio control into bomb-resistant fortifications such as German U-boat pens and V-weapon sites. By late 1943, General Henry H. Arnold had directed Brigadier General Grandison Gardner's electronic engineers at Eglin Field, Florida, to outfit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AGM-62 Walleye
The AGM-62 Walleye is a television-guided glide bomb which was produced by Martin Marietta and used by the United States Armed Forces from the 1960s-1990s. Most had a 250 lb (113 kg) high-explosive warhead; some had a nuclear warhead. The designation of the ''Walleye'' as an "air-to-ground missile" is a misnomer, as it is an unpowered bomb with guidance avionics, similar to the more modern GBU-15. The Walleye was superseded by the AGM-65 Maverick. History The Walleye was the first of a family of precision-guided munitions designed to hit targets with minimal collateral damage. This "smart bomb" had no propulsion system, but it could be maneuvered via a television assisted guidance system during its glide from an aircraft to the target. As a pilot dived towards a target, a television camera in the nose of the bomb transmitted images to a monitor in the cockpit. Once the pilot acquired a sharp image of the target on his screen, he designated an aim point and released t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laser-guided Bomb
A laser-guided bomb (LGB) is a guided bomb that uses semi-active laser guidance to strike a designated target with greater accuracy than an unguided bomb. First developed by the United States during the Vietnam War, laser-guided bombs quickly proved their value in precision strikes of difficult point targets. These weapons use on-board electronics to track targets that are designated by laser, typically in the infrared spectrum, and adjust their glide path to accurately strike the target. Since the weapon is tracking a light signature, not the object itself, the target must be illuminated from a separate source, either by ground forces, by a pod on the attacking aircraft, or by a separate support aircraft. Data from the 28,000 laser guided bombs dropped in Vietnam showed that laser-guided bombs achieved direct hits nearly 50% of the time, despite the laser having to be aimed out the side window of the back seat of another aircraft in flight. Unguided bombs had an accuracy rate o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
JSOW
The AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) is a glide bomb that resulted from a joint venture between the United States Navy and Air Force to deploy a standardized medium range precision guided weapon, especially for engagement of defended targets from outside the range of standard anti-aircraft defenses, thereby increasing aircraft survivability and minimizing friendly losses. The designation of the ''Joint Standoff Weapon'' as an "air-to-ground missile" is a misnomer, as it is an unpowered bomb with guidance avionics, similar to the older GBU-15. Development The JSOW is a fire-and-forget weapon that employs a tightly coupled GPS/INS for navigation, and is capable of day/night and adverse weather operations. The JSOW-C adds an infra-red seeker for terminal guidance. Originally the JSOW was developed by Defense Systems & Electronics division of Texas Instruments. After a first flight, funded by the company in April 1991, a joint program between the US Navy and the US Air Force wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
JDAM
The Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) is a guidance kit that converts unguided bombs, or "dumb bombs", into all-weather precision-guided munitions. JDAM-equipped bombs are guided by an integrated inertial guidance system coupled to a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, giving them a published range of up to . JDAM-equipped bombs range from . The JDAM's guidance system was jointly developed by the United States Air Force and United States Navy, hence the "joint" in JDAM. When installed on a bomb, the JDAM kit is given a GBU (Guided Bomb Unit) identifier, superseding the Mark 80 or BLU (Bomb, Live Unit) nomenclature of the bomb to which it is attached. The JDAM is not a stand-alone weapon; rather it is a "bolt-on" guidance package that converts unguided gravity bombs into precision-guided munitions (PGMs). The key components of the system consist of a tail section with aerodynamic control surfaces, a (body) strake kit, and a combined inertial guidance system and GPS guidance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The north was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist states, while the south was United States in the Vietnam War, supported by the United States and other anti-communism, anti-communist Free World Military Forces, allies. The war is widely considered to be a Cold War-era proxy war. It lasted almost 20 years, with direct U.S. involvement ending in 1973. The conflict also spilled over into neighboring states, exacerbating the Laotian Civil War and the Cambodian Civil War, which ended with all three countries becoming communist states by 1975. After the French 1954 Geneva Conference, military withdrawal from Indochina in 1954 – following their defeat in the First Indochina War – the Viet Minh to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
USAF
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the United States Armed Forces in 1947 with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control. The United States Air Force is a military service branch organized within the Department of the Air Force, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense. The Air Force through the Department of the Air Force is headed by the civilian Secretary of the Air For ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camera
A camera is an Optics, optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with a small hole (the aperture) that allows light to pass through in order to capture an image on a light-sensitive surface (usually a Image sensor, digital sensor or photographic film). Cameras have various mechanisms to control how the light falls onto the light-sensitive surface. Lenses focus the light entering the camera, and the aperture can be narrowed or widened. A Shutter (photography), shutter mechanism determines the amount of time the photosensitive surface is exposed to the light. The still image camera is the main instrument in the art of photography. Captured images may be reproduced later as part of the process of photography, digital imaging, or photographic printing. Similar artistic fields in the moving-image camera dom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment, news, and sports. Television became available in crude experimental forms in the late 1920s, but only after several years of further development was the new technology marketed to consumers. After World War II, an improved form of black-and-white television broadcasting became popular in the United Kingdom and the United States, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium for influencing public opinion.Diggs-Brown, Barbara (2011''Strategic Public Relations: Audience Focused Practice''p. 48 In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the U.S. and most other developed countries. The availability of various types of archival st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electro-optical
Electro–optics is a branch of electrical engineering, electronic engineering, materials science, and material physics involving components, electronic devices such as lasers, laser diodes, LEDs, waveguides, etc. which operate by the propagation and interaction of light with various tailored materials. It is closely related to the branch of optics, involving application of generation of photons, called photonics. It is not only concerned with the "electro–optic effect", since it deals with the interaction between the electromagnetic (optical) and the electrical (electronic) states of materials. Electro-optical devices The electro-optic effect is a change in the optical properties of an optically active material due to interaction with light. This interaction usually results in a change in the birefringence, and not simply the refractive index of the medium. In a Kerr cell, the change in birefringence is proportional to the square of the optical electric field, and the mat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
