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Asked by anon-220323 on 20 Jun 2019.
Question: how do bouncing bombs work?
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Matthew Bareford answered on 20 Jun 2019:
these work by ‘bouncing’ across water to hit the intended target. Think of a stone skimming across the surface of a lake/sea. That is how they are designed to work, but rather than sink on that last bounce, they are designed to hit a target. This requires a great deal of accuracy and almost certainly a stationary target
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David Wilson answered on 20 Jun 2019:
“Bouncing Bombs” were developed specifically to target the Hydro-electric dams during the 2nd World War. The dams were protected by flak canons and torpedo nets so traditional bombing and torpedo attacks were ineffective. The bombs were designed to skip, or bounce, over the water like Matthew said like skimming a stone.
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One of the key features that was required to make the bomb bounce was back spin. Back spin is what causes a golf ball to hang in the air or a tennis ball to slow down when it lands. The back spin did two things; firstly it helped the bomb bounce across the surface of the water to avoid the torpedo nets, secondly, when the bomb struck the dam the back spin meant the bomb rolled down the face of the dam under the water and exploded doing more damage than if it exploded above the water surface. -
Shobhana Nagraj answered on 20 Jun 2019:
I had no idea what these were – have learnt from the other’s comments above! Thanks Guys!
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Kaitlin Wade answered on 20 Jun 2019:
I was going to use the skimming rocks analogy too 🙂 They bounce along usually water to gain more traction and speed to eventually hit their target.
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Nina Rzechorzek answered on 21 Jun 2019:
Here’s some decent coverage from the Barnes Wallis Foundation:
Plus some videos of the bombs being tested:
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Rebecca Moon answered on 21 Jun 2019:
I’m with shobana on this one. I didnt know there were such things. I’m learning so much from doing this!
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