Precision bombing is the attempted aerial bombing of a target with some degree of accuracy, with the aim of maximising target damage or limiting
collateral damage
"Collateral damage" is a term for any incidental and undesired death, injury or other damage inflicted, especially on civilians, as the result of an activity. Originally coined to describe military operations, it is now also used in non-milit ...
. Its strategic counterpart is
carpet bombing
Carpet bombing, also known as saturation bombing, is a large area bombardment done in a progressive manner to inflict damage in every part of a selected area of land. The phrase evokes the image of explosions completely covering an area, in t ...
. An example would be destroying a single building in a built up area causing minimal damage to the surroundings. Precision bombing was initially tried by both the
Allied and
Central Powers
The Central Powers, also known as the Central Empires,; ; , ; were one of the two main coalitions that fought in World War I (1914–1918). It consisted of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulga ...
during
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, however it was found to be ineffective because the technology did not allow for sufficient accuracy. Therefore, the
air force
An air force in the broadest sense is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army aviati ...
s turned to
area bombardment, which killed civilians. Since the War, the development and adoption of
guided munitions has greatly increased the accuracy of aerial bombing. Because the accuracy achieved in bombing is dependent on the available technology, the "precision" of precision bombing is relative to the time period.
Precision has always been recognized as an important attribute of weapon development. The noted military theorist, strategist, and historian
Major-General J. F. C. Fuller
Major-General John Frederick Charles "Boney" Fuller (1 September 1878 – 10 February 1966) was a senior British Army officer, military historian, and strategist, known as an early theorist of modern armoured warfare, including categorisin ...
, considered "accuracy of aim" one of the five recognizable attributes of weaponry, together with range of action, striking power, volume of fire, and portability.
World War II

In the early days of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, bombers were expected to strike by daylight and deliver accurately in order to avoid civilian casualties. Cloud cover and industrial haze frequently obscured targets so bomb release was made by
dead reckoning
In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating the current position of a moving object by using a previously determined position, or fix, and incorporating estimates of speed, heading (or direction or course), and elapsed time. T ...
from the last navigational "fix"—the bombers dropping their loads according to the
ETA
Eta ( ; uppercase , lowercase ; ''ē̂ta'' or ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel, . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative, , in most dialects of Ancient Greek, it ...
for the target. Some airforces soon found that daylight bombing resulted in heavy losses since fighter interception became easy and switched to night bombing. This allowed the bombers a better chance of survival, but made it much harder to even find the general area of the target, let alone drop bombs precisely.
The Luftwaffe addressed this issue first by using a series of radio beams to direct aircraft and indicate when to drop bombs. Several different techniques were tried, including Knickebein, X-Gerät and
Y-Gerät (Wotan). These provided impressive accuracy—British post-raid analysis showed that the vast majority of the bombs dropped could be placed within 100 yards (91 m) of the midline of the beam, spread along it a few hundred yards around the target point, even in pitch-dark conditions at a range of several hundred miles. But the systems fatally depended on accurate radio reception, and the British invented the first
electronic warfare techniques to successfully counter this weapon in the '
Battle of the Beams'
The RAF later developed their own
beam guidance techniques, such as
GEE and
Oboe
The oboe ( ) is a type of double-reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites.
The most common type of oboe, the soprano oboe pitched in C, ...
. These systems could provide an accuracy of about 100 yards radius, and were supplemented by the downward-looking radar system
H2S. The British development of specialist
'Earthquake' bombs (which needed to be dropped very accurately) led to the development of supporting aiming techniques such as
SABS and the
Pathfinder Force. Specialist units such as
617 squadron
Number 617 Squadron is a Royal Air Force aircraft squadron commonly known as The Dambusters for its actions during Operation Chastise against German dams during the World War II, Second World War, originally based at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire ...
were able to use these and other techniques to achieve remarkable precision, such as the bombing of the
Michelin
Michelin ( , ), in full ("General Company of the Michelin Enterprises P.L.S."), is a French multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes '' région'' of France. It is the second largest t ...
factory at
Clermont-Ferrand
Clermont-Ferrand (, , ; or simply ; ) is a city and Communes of France, commune of France, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regions of France, region, with a population of 147,284 (2020). Its metropolitan area () had 504,157 inhabitants at the 2018 ...
in France, where they were required to destroy the workshops but leave the canteen next to them standing.
By 1941, precision
day bombing had become the dominant doctrine in the
US Army Air Corps
The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical ri ...
. As war with Germany loomed, ''
Air War Plans Division Plan No. 1'' (AWPD-1), a detailed plan for the entire
US Army Air Forces (USAAF), was drafted by four officers who had been proponents of precision bombing at the
Air Corps Tactical School:
Lt. Col. Harold L. George,
Lt. Col. Kenneth N. Walker,
Maj. Haywood S. Hansell Jr., and
Maj. Laurence S. Kuter. AWPD-1 prescribed an emphasis on precision bombing against the German national infrastructure, industry—especially the aircraft industry—and the Luftwaffe.
For the USAAF, daylight bombing was normal based upon box formations for defense from fighters. Bombing was coordinated through a lead aircraft but although still nominally precision bombing (as opposed to the area bombing carried out by
RAF Bomber Command
RAF Bomber Command controlled the Royal Air Force's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. Along with the United States Army Air Forces, it played the central role in the Strategic bombing during World War II#Europe, strategic bombing of Germany in W ...
) the result of bombing from high level was still spread over an area. Before the war on practice ranges, some USAAF crews were able to produce very accurate results, but over Europe with weather and German fighters and anti-aircraft guns and the limited training for new crews this level of accuracy was impossible to reproduce. The US defined the target area as being a radius circle around the target point - for the majority of USAAF attacks only about 20% of the bombs dropped struck in this area. The U.S. daytime bombing raids were more effective in reducing German defences by engaging the German Luftwaffe than destruction of the means of aircraft production.
An example of the difficulties of precision bombing was a raid in the Northern Hemisphere summer of 1944 by 47
B-29
The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is a retired American four-engined Propeller (aeronautics), propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to ...
's on Japan's
Yawata Steel Works from bases in China. Only one plane actually hit the target area, and only with one of its bombs. This single general-purpose bomb represented one quarter of one percent of the 376 bombs dropped over Yawata on that mission. It took 108 B-17 bombers, crewed by 1,080 airmen, dropping 648 bombs to guarantee a 96 percent chance of getting just two hits inside a 400 x German power-generation plant.
See also
*
Surgical strike
*
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 pro ...
*
Precision-guided munition
A precision-guided munition (PGM), also called a smart weapon, smart munition, or smart bomb, is a type of weapon system that integrates advanced guidance and control systems, such as Global Positioning System, GPS, laser guidance, or Infrared ...
*
Revolution in Military Affairs
*
Bomber Mafia
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
*Hastings, Max ''Bomber Command'' Pan (1970)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Precision Bombing
Aerial bombs
Targeting (warfare)