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An aerial bomb is a type of explosive or
incendiary weapon Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices, incendiary munitions, or incendiary bombs are weapons designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using fire (and sometimes used as anti-personnel weaponry), that use materials such as napalm, th ...
intended to travel through the
air The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing f ...
on a predictable
trajectory A trajectory or flight path is the path that an object with mass in motion follows through space as a function of time. In classical mechanics, a trajectory is defined by Hamiltonian mechanics via canonical coordinates; hence, a complete traj ...
. Engineers usually develop such bombs to be dropped from an
aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...
. The use of aerial bombs is termed aerial bombing.


Bomb types

Aerial bombs include a vast range and complexity of designs. These include unguided
gravity bomb An unguided bomb, also known as a free-fall bomb, gravity bomb, dumb bomb, or iron bomb, is a conventional or nuclear aircraft-delivered bomb that does not contain a guidance system and hence simply follows a ballistic trajectory. This describe ...
s, guided bombs, bombs hand-tossed from a
vehicle A vehicle (from la, vehiculum) is a machine that transports people or cargo. Vehicles include wagons, bicycles, motor vehicles (motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, mobility scooters for disabled people), railed vehicles (trains, trams), wa ...
, bombs needing a large specially-built delivery-vehicle, bombs integrated with the vehicle itself (such as a
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 rat ...
), instant-detonation bombs, or
delay-action bomb A delay-action bomb is an aerial bomb designed to explode some time after impact, with the bomb's fuzes set to delay the explosion for times ranging from very brief to several weeks. Short delays are used to allow the bomb to penetrate before explod ...
s. As with other types of
explosive weapon An explosive weapon is a weapon that uses high explosive to project blast and/or fragmentation from a point of detonation. In the common practice of states, explosive weapons are generally the preserve of the military, for use in situations of ...
s, aerial bombs aim to kill and injure people or to destroy
materiel Materiel (; ) refers to supplies, equipment, and weapons in military supply-chain management, and typically supplies and equipment in a commercial supply chain context. In a military context, the term ''materiel'' refers either to the specif ...
through the projection of one or more of blast, fragmentation, radiation or fire outwards from the point of detonation.


Early bombs

The first
bomb A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the Exothermic process, exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-t ...
s delivered to their targets by air were single bombs carried on unmanned
hot air balloons A hot air balloon is a lighter-than-air aircraft consisting of a bag, called an envelope, which contains heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule), which carries p ...
, launched by the Austrians against
Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400  ...
in 1849 during the
First Italian War of Independence The First Italian War of Independence ( it, Prima guerra d'indipendenza italiana), part of the Italian Unification (''Risorgimento''), was fought by the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont) and Italian volunteers against the Austrian Empire and other ...
. The first bombs dropped from a
heavier-than-air An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or by using the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in ...
aircraft were grenades or grenade-like devices. Historically, the first use was by
Giulio Gavotti Giulio Gavotti (17 October 1882 in Genoa–6 October 1939) was an Italian lieutenant and pilot who fought in the Italo-Turkish War. Aerial bombardment On 1 November 1911, he flew his early model Etrich Taube monoplane against Ottoman military i ...
on 1 November 1911, during the
Italo-Turkish War The Italo-Turkish or Turco-Italian War ( tr, Trablusgarp Savaşı, "Tripolitanian War", it, Guerra di Libia, "War of Libya") was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911, to 18 October 1912. As a result o ...
. In 1912, during the
First Balkan War The First Balkan War ( sr, Први балкански рат, ''Prvi balkanski rat''; bg, Балканска война; el, Αʹ Βαλκανικός πόλεμος; tr, Birinci Balkan Savaşı) lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and invo ...
, Bulgarian Air Force
pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...
Christo Toprakchiev suggested the use of aircraft to drop "bombs" (called grenades in the Bulgarian army at this time) on Turkish positions.
Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
Simeon Petrov developed the idea and created several
prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...
s by adapting different types of grenades and increasing their payload.Who was the first to use an aircraft as a bomber?
(in Bulgarian; photographs of 1912 Bulgarian air-dropped bombs)
On 16 October 1912, observer Prodan Tarakchiev dropped two of those bombs on the Turkish railway station of Karağaç (near the besieged
Edirne Edirne (, ), formerly known as Adrianople or Hadrianopolis (Greek: Άδριανούπολις), is a city in Turkey, in the northwestern part of the province of Edirne in Eastern Thrace. Situated from the Greek and from the Bulgarian borders, ...
) from an Albatros F.2 aircraft piloted by Radul Milkov, for the first time in this campaign.


Technical description

Aerial bombs typically use a
contact fuze A contact fuze, impact fuze, percussion fuze or direct-action (D.A.) fuze (''UK'') is the fuze that is placed in the nose of a bomb or shell so that it will detonate on contact with a hard surface. Many impacts are unpredictable: they may involve ...
to detonate the bomb upon impact, or a delayed-action fuze initiated by impact.


Reliability

Not all bombs dropped detonate; failures are common. It was estimated that during the
Second World War 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 opposin ...
about 10% of German bombs failed to detonate, and that
Allied An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
bombs had a failure rate of 15% or 20%, especially if they hit soft soil and used a pistol-type detonating mechanism rather than fuzes. A great many bombs were dropped during the war; thousands of unexploded bombs which may be able to detonate are discovered every year, particularly in Germany, and have to be defused or detonated in a controlled explosion, in some cases requiring evacuation of thousands of people beforehand. Old bombs occasionally detonate when disturbed, or when a faulty time fuze eventually functions, showing that precautions are still essential when dealing with them.


See also

*
Aerial bombing of cities The aerial bombing of cities is an optional element of strategic bombing, which became widespread in warfare during World War I. The bombing of cities grew to a vast scale in World War II, and is still practiced today. The development of ae ...
*
Area bombardment In military aviation, area bombardment (or area bombing) is a type of aerial bombardment in which bombs are dropped over the general area of a target. The term "area bombing" came into prominence during World War II. Area bombing is a form of st ...
*
Bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped ...
*
Explosive weapons An explosive weapon is a weapon that uses high explosive to project blast and/or fragmentation from a point of detonation. In the common practice of states, explosive weapons are generally the preserve of the military, for use in situations of ...
*
Strategic bombing Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale, its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations, or both. It is a systematica ...
*
Tactical bombing Tactical bombing is aerial bombing aimed at targets of immediate military value, such as combatants, military installations, or military equipment. This is in contrast to strategic bombing, or attacking enemy cities and factories to cripple fu ...
;Types of aerial bomb: * Cluster bomb *
Concrete bomb A concrete bomb is an aerial bomb containing dense, inert material (typically concrete) instead of explosive. The target is destroyed using the kinetic energy of the falling bomb. Such weapons can only practically be deployed when configured as ...
*
Earthquake bomb The earthquake bomb, or seismic bomb, was a concept that was invented by the British aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis early in World War II and subsequently developed and used during the war against strategic targets in Europe. A seismic bomb ...
*
Incendiary bomb Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices, incendiary munitions, or incendiary bombs are weapons designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using fire (and sometimes used as anti-personnel weaponry), that use materials such as napalm, t ...
* General-purpose bomb * Gravity (dumb) bomb * Guided (smart) bomb


References


External links


"bomb"
at ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' {{Commons category, Air-dropped bombs Explosive weapons