The SC 1200 ( Sprengbombe Cylindrisch) or ''cylindrical explosive bomb'' in English was a

general-purpose bomb A general-purpose bomb is an air-dropped bomb intended as a compromise between blast damage, penetration, and fragmentation in explosive effect. They are designed to be effective against enemy troops, vehicles, and buildings. Characteristics ...

used by the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...

during

World War II 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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Design

It had a drawn steel body with a heavy cast steel nose cap for armor penetration and was similar to the preceding SC 1000 in construction. It was filled with ''Trialen 105'', a mixture of 15%

RDX RDX (abbreviation of "Research Department eXplosive") or hexogen, among other names, is an organic compound with the formula (O2N2CH2)3. It is a white solid without smell or taste, widely used as an explosive. Chemically, it is classified as a ...

, 70% TNT and 15% aluminium powder. A central exploder tube of high grade TNT ran down the center of the explosives to ensure detonation. At the other end was a base plate, just forward of which the magnesium alloy tail was tack welded onto the body, and also bolted to the tail attachment brace. Around the nose of the bomb was a ''kopfring'' - a metal ring, triangular in cross section, designed to prevent ground penetration or to stop forward

momentum In Newtonian mechanics, momentum (more specifically linear momentum or translational momentum) is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. It is a vector quantity, possessing a magnitude and a direction. If is an object's mass ...

when hitting water. The bomb was attached to the aircraft horizontally by an attachment band and hung from a H-type suspension lug. It could be horizontally suspended in a

bomb bay The bomb bay or weapons bay on some military aircraft is a compartment to carry bombs, usually in the aircraft's fuselage, with "bomb bay doors" which open at the bottom. The bomb bay doors are opened and the bombs are dropped when over t ...

or horizontally mounted on a fuselage

hardpoint A hardpoint is an attachment location on a structural frame designed to transfer force and carry an external or internal load. The term is usually used to refer to the mounting points (more formally known as a weapon station or station) on th ...

References

{{WWIIGermanAerialWeapons World War II aerial bombs of Germany