Re:An interactive map showing every German bomb dropped on L...
by olavk on Wednesday May 27, 2015 @12:24PM
(#9612446)
Part of the Copenhagen story is that the first planes hit the Gestapo HQ with the bombs, but one of the planes hit a tower, dropped the bombs over a random street and then crashed into a girls school. The following planes then bombed the crash-site (the school) since they saw the smoke and thought it was the target. Precision bombing was incredible risky.
Re:An interactive map showing every German bomb dropped on L...
by Crito on Wednesday May 27, 2015 @11:59AM
(#9612264)
Bridges have been known to take quite a beating: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanh_H%C3%B3a_Bridge#Operation...
That's a bit of an exceptional case, but still, it isn't trivial.
Re:An interactive map showing every German bomb dropped on L...
by JoeAltmaier on Wednesday May 27, 2015 @11:14AM
(#9611937)
But cruise missiles fly low for the express purpose of being harder to shoot down! I know, radar and anti-aircraft measures are different now. But flying low means antiaircraft measures have only hundreds milliseconds to spot you, aim and fire, before you pass over.
Re:An interactive map showing every German bomb dropped on L...
by Crito on Wednesday May 27, 2015 @12:18PM
(#9612412)
Flying low and fast means that the heavy AA can't hit you, but it leaves you vulnerable to light AA. If you're low and fast enough, then they won't have much warning and your angular velocity will be pretty high, making you harder to hit. At the same time, light AA rounds get to the target faster. That means they are shooting at you, rather than where they think you are going to be. That light AA also has a better rate of fire.
Low and fast was safer in many scenarios, but it wasn't without drawbacks.
As for the targeting: you have to go really low. British bombers attacked the gestapo hq in Copenhagen by going so low that their bombs were dropped into the sides of the building (consequently, although that wasn't the plan, a number of prisoners who had been housed in cells in the top floor managed to escape).
Of course you can only do something like that if you are willing to paint a huge target on yourself because you will be very easy to shoot down.