Norden bombsight
The Norden bombsight is a fascinating example of the way the promise of technology can run far ahead of the reality.<p>It&#x27;s not an exaggeration to say that the U.S. military, when it entered World War 2, considered the Norden a war-winning weapon. The entire strategic bombing doctrine of the Army Air Forces was designed around it, emphasizing daylight raids on &quot;pinpoint&quot; targets to best capitalize on the Norden&#x27;s accuracy.<p>The RAF advised against such a strategy, having tried the same type of raids themselves before American entry into the war; they found it impossible under combat conditions to achieve the degree of accuracy needed to knock such targets out. The British had switched to the doctrine of night area bombing, abandoning accuracy altogether to reduce their own casualties, and urged the Americans to do the same. But the AAF was confident that they would succeed where the British had failed, because American bombers were equipped with the Norden bombsight.<p>Which turned out to not make any difference whatsoever; in the stress of combat, buffeted by wind and flak and fighter attack, the bombardiers of the AAF ended up having just as hard a time hitting the target as the RAF&#x27;s had. The Norden bombsight was a dud. And because it had led the AAF to organize its raids during the day, when its bombers were easy for German fighter pilots to find and shoot down, casualties in the bomber force during 1942 and 1943 were shockingly high; in one raid alone, the October 14, 1943 attack on the ball-bearing plants at Schweinfurt (see <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Second_Raid_on_Schweinfurt" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Second_Raid_on_Schweinfurt</a>), 26% of the attacking bombers were shot down. Even worse, the casualties were taken to no practical purpose; the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;anesi.com&#x2F;ussbs02.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;anesi.com&#x2F;ussbs02.htm</a>), a post-war review of the efficacy of the war&#x27;s bombing campaigns, found that &quot;there is no evidence that the attacks on the ball-bearing industry had any measurable effect on essential war production.&quot;<p>In the end the AAF&#x27;s daylight raids did help win the war, but not in any way where the Norden bombsight contributed. As fighters were developed with the range to accompany the bombers all the way to the target, the AAF changed to a strategy of essentially using the bombers as bait, luring Luftwaffe fighters into the air where the AAF&#x27;s could engage and destroy them. Here America&#x27;s greater fighter production and better pilot training gave them the edge, with the result that by the time D-Day arrived in June 1944 the Allies had won uncontested command of the air, a dominant position they would never give up. But when the bombers were just bait, the accuracy of their bombing didn&#x27;t matter at all; they could have gone up with any old bombsight, or no bombsight at all. Which is a sad verdict on the legendary Norden, which just three years before had been thought able to win the war all by itself.