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Norden Bombsight
The Norden Mk. XV, known as the Norden M series in U.S. Army service, is a bombsight that was used by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) and the United States Navy during World War II, and the United States Air Force in the Korean War, Korean and the Vietnam Wars. It was an early Bombsight#Tachometric bombsights, tachometric design, which combined optics, a mechanical computer, and an autopilot for the first time to not merely identify a target but fly the airplane to it. The bombsight directly measured the aircraft's ground speed and direction, which older types could only estimate with lengthy manual procedures. The Norden further improved on older designs by using an analog computer that continuously recalculated the bomb's impact point based on changing flight conditions, and an autopilot that reacted quickly and accurately to changes in the wind or other effects. Together, these features promised unprecedented accuracy for daytime bombing from high altitudes. During ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norden
Norden is a Scandinavian and German word, directly translated as "the North". It may refer to: Places England * Norden, Basingstoke, a ward of Basingstoke and Deane * Norden, Dorset, a hamlet near Corfe Castle * Norden, Greater Manchester, a village near Rochdale Germany * Norden, Lower Saxony, a town in East Frisia * Norden (Hambach Forest), a former tree-house colony by environmental activists United States * Norden, California, an unincorporated community * Norden, Nebraska, an unincorporated community * Norden Township, Minnesota Businesses * D/S Norden, a Danish shipping company * Coop Norden, a joint Scandinavian co-operative retail chain * Norden Systems, an American electronics manufacturer People Given name * Norden Hartman (1921–1989), South African archivist and herald * Norden E. Huang (born 1937), Taiwanese-American engineer * Norden Tenzing Bhutia (1950–2019), musician, composer and singer of classic Nepali pop songs Surname * Norden (surname), a list of peop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whiz Kids (Department Of Defense)
Whiz Kids was a name given to a group of experts from RAND Corporation with which Robert McNamara surrounded himself, in order to turn around the management of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) in the 1960s. The purpose was to shape a modern defense strategy in the Nuclear Age, by bringing in economic analysis, operations research, game theory, computing, as well as implementing modern management system A management system is a set of policy, policies, business process, processes and procedures used by an organization to ensure that it can fulfill the tasks required to achieve its objectives. These objectives cover many aspects of the organizati ...s to coordinate the huge dimension of operations of the DoD, with methods such as the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System ( PPBS). They were called the Whiz Kids, recalling the group at Ford Motor Company that McNamara was part of in the 1940s and 1950s. Personnel The group included, among others * Harold ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sperry Gyroscope
Sperry may refer to: Places In the United States: * Sperry, Iowa, community in Des Moines County * Sperry, Missouri * Sperry, Oklahoma, town in Tulsa County * Sperry Chalet, historic backcountry chalet, Glacier National Park, Montana * Sperry Glacier, located in Glacier National Park in the state of Montana * William Miller Sperry Observatory or Sperry Observatory, an astronomical observatory owned by Union County College and operated by Amateur Astronomers, Incorporated on Union County College on their Cranford, New Jersey campus Sperry Corporation *Sperry Corporation, a former American equipment and electronics manufacturer (1910–1986) ** Sperry Gyroscope Company (1910–1933), founded by Elmer Ambrose Sperry ***Lawrence Sperry Aircraft Company (1918–1924), founded by Lawrence Sperry **Sperry Corporation, 1933–1955 **Sperry Rand, 1955–1978 **Sperry Corporation, 1978–1986 *'' Honeywell v. Sperry Rand'', a landmark U.S. federal court case that in April 1973 invalidated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is geographically divided among the Swiss Plateau, the Swiss Alps, Alps and the Jura Mountains, Jura; the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, whereas most of the country's Demographics of Switzerland, 9 million people are concentrated on the plateau, which hosts List of cities in Switzerland, its largest cities and economic centres, including Zurich, Geneva, and Lausanne. Switzerland is a federal republic composed of Cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons, with federal authorities based in Bern. It has four main linguistic and cultural regions: German, French, Italian and Romansh language, Romansh. Although most Swiss are German-speaking, national identity is fairly cohesive, being rooted in a common historical background, shared ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Norden
Carl Lucas Norden (April 23, 1880 – June 14, 1965), born Carel Lucas van Norden, was a Dutch-American engineer who invented the Norden bombsight. Biography Norden was born in Semarang, Java. After attending a boarding school in Barneveld, Netherlands, he was educated at the ETH Zürich in Switzerland and then emigrated to the United States in 1904. Along with Elmer Sperry, Norden worked on the first gyrostabilizers for United States ships, and became recognized for his contributions to military hardware. In 1913, he left Sperry to form his own company. In 1920, he began work on the Norden bombsight for the United States Navy. A prototype was available by 1923 and the first bombsight, containing an analog computer, was produced in 1927. Bombardiers were trained in great secrecy on how to use it. The device was used to drop bombs from high-altitude aircraft, accurately enough in practice to hit a 100-foot (30 m) circle from an altitude of 21,000 feet (6,400 m), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ho Chi Minh Trail
The Ho Chi Minh Trail (), also called Annamite Range Trail () was a Military logistics, logistical network of roads and trails that ran from North Vietnam to South Vietnam through the kingdoms of Kingdom of Laos, Laos and Cambodia (1953–1970), Cambodia. The system provided support, in the form of manpower and materiel, to the Viet Cong (or "VC") and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), during the Vietnam War. Construction for the network began following the North Vietnamese invasion of Laos in July 1959. At the time it was believed to be the main supply route, however it later transpired that the Sihanouk Trail which ran through Cambodia was handling significantly more material. It was named by the U.S. after the North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, Hồ Chí Minh. The origin of the name is presumed to have come from the First Indochina War, when there was a Viet Minh maritime logistics line called the "Route of Ho Chi Minh", and shortly after late 1960, as the present trail d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VO-67
Observation Squadron 67 (VO-67) was a clandestine United States Navy military intelligence aircraft squadron based in Thailand during the Vietnam War. Created in February 1967, the unit was deactivated in July 1968. During its period of activity, the squadron mainly flew missions over the Ho Chi Minh trail in Vietnam and Laos under the MUSCLE SHOALS mission known as Operation Igloo White, deploying electronic sensory devices from their aircraft. These sensors, known as the Air-Delivered Seismic Intrusion Detector (ADSID) and the Acoustic Seismic Intrusion Detector (ACOUSID), which would implant in the ground to detect North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong supply movements along the trail. The squadron flew OP-2E Neptune aircraft, a modification of the P-2E Neptune maritime patrol and antisubmarine warfare aircraft. Three unit aircraft were lost on combat missions with a total of 20 men killed. The unit received the Navy Unit Commendation and, in May 2008, was awarded the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Combat Box
The combat box was a tactical formation used by heavy (strategic) bombers of the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. The combat box was also referred to as a "staggered formation". Its defensive purpose was in massing the firepower of the bombers' guns, while offensively it concentrated the release of bombs on a target. Initially formations were created in keeping with the pre-war Air Corps doctrine that massed bombers could attack and destroy targets in daylight without fighter escort, relying on interlocking fire from their defensive machine guns, almost exclusively the "light barrel" Browning AN/M2 .50 calibre (12.7 mm) gun. However the use of high altitudes by USAAF bombers resulted in factors that demanded a tighter bomb pattern and the combat box continued in use even after the advent of fighter escort largely mitigated the threat of fighter interception. It was especially used over Europe during and after the spring of 1944, with USAAF fighters flying far ahe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skip Bombing
Skip bombing was a low-level bombing technique independently developed by several of the combatant nations in World War II, notably Italy, Australia, Britain, Soviet Union and the United States. It allows an aircraft to attack shipping by skipping the bomb across the water like a stone. Dropped at very low altitudes, the bomb never rises more than about above the surface of the water, ensuring that it will hit the side of the ship as long as it is aimed correctly. As the technique required the aircraft to fly at very low altitudes directly at the ship, it made shooting down the aircraft easier as well. In the immediate pre-war era, there was considerable effort to develop new bombsights that would allow the aircraft to remain at higher altitudes. The most notable was the US Navy's Norden bombsight, which was fitted to most Navy aircraft. In practice, these proved largely useless, and the skip-bombing technique was soon introduced operationally. After Pearl Harbor (December 194 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dive Bombing
A dive bomber is a bomber aircraft that dives directly at its targets in order to provide greater accuracy for the bomb it drops. Diving towards the target simplifies the bomb's trajectory and allows the pilot to keep visual contact throughout the bomb run. This allows attacks on point targets and ships, which were difficult to attack with conventional level bombers, even ''en masse''. Dive bombing was especially effective against vehicles when integrated into early instances of Blitzkrieg. After World War II, the rise of precision-guided munitions and improved anti-aircraft defences—both fixed gunnery positions and fighter interception—led to a fundamental change in dive bombing. New weapons, such as rockets, allowed for better accuracy from smaller dive angles and from greater distances. They could be fitted to almost any aircraft, including fighters, improving their effectiveness without the inherent vulnerabilities of dive bombers, which needed air superiority to o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lotfernrohr 7
The Carl Zeiss ''Lotfernrohr'' 7 (''Lot'' meant "Vertical" and ''Fernrohr'' meant "Telescope"), or ''Lotfe'' 7, was the primary series of bombsights used in most Luftwaffe level bombers, similar to the United States' Norden bombsight, but much simpler to operate and maintain. Several models were produced and eventually completely replaced the simpler ''Lotfernrohr'' 3 and BZG 2 bombsights. The ''Lotfe'' 7C, appearing in January 1941, was the first one to have gyroscopic stabilization. Design In spite of the security precautions, the entire Norden system had been passed to the Germans before the war started. A member of the German Duquesne Spy Ring, Herman W. Lang, who had been employed by the Carl L. Norden Corporation (manufacturers of the Norden bombsight), was able to provide vital details of the new bombsight to the Abwehr. During a visit to Germany in 1938, Lang conferred with German military authorities (''Oberst'' Nikolaus Ritter of the Abwehr) and reconstructed sketches a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
