#cool weapons

• British Bouncing Bomb

A bouncing bomb is a bomb designed to bounce to a target across water in a calculated manner to avoid obstacles such as torpedo nets, and to allow both the bomb's speed on arrival at the target and the timing of its detonation to be pre-determined, in a similar fashion to a regular naval depth charge.

Barnes Wallis' April 1942 paper "Spherical Bomb – Surface Torpedo" described a method of attack in which a weapon would be bounced across water until it struck its target, then sink to explode under water, much like a depth charge. Bouncing it across the surface would allow it to be aimed directly at its target, while avoiding underwater defences, as well as some above the surface, and such a weapon would take advantage of the "bubble pulse" effect typical of underwater explosions, greatly increasing its effectiveness: Wallis's paper identified suitable targets as hydro-electric dams "and floating vessels moored in calm waters such as the Norwegian fjords". Both types of target were already of great interest to the British military when Wallis wrote his paper (which itself was not his first on the subject); German hydro-electric dams had been identified as important bombing targets before the outbreak of World War II, but existing bombs and bombing methods had little effect on them, as torpedo nets protected them from attack by conventional torpedoes and a practical means of destroying them had yet to be devised. In 1942, the British were seeking a means of destroying the German battleship Tirpitz, which posed a threat to Allied shipping in the North Atlantic and had already survived a number of British attempts to destroy it. During this time, the Tirpitz was being kept safe from attack by being moored in Norwegian fjords, where it had the effect of a "fleet in being". Consequently, Wallis's proposed weapon attracted attention and underwent active testing and development.

On July 24th, 1942, a "spectacularly successful" demonstration of such a weapon's potential occurred when a redundant dam at Nant-y-Gro, near Rhayader, in Wales, was destroyed by a mine containing 279 pounds (127 kg) of explosive: this was detonated against the dam's side, under water, in a test undertaken by A.R. Collins, a scientific officer from the Road Research Laboratory, which was then based at Harmondsworth, Middlesex. A.R. Collins was among a large number of other people besides Barnes Wallis who made wide-ranging contributions to the development of a bouncing bomb and its method of delivery to a target, to the extent that, in a paper published in 1982, Collins himself made it evident that Wallis "did not play an all-important role in the development of this project and in particular, that very significant contributions were made by, for example, Sir William Glanville, Dr. G. Charlesworth, Dr. A.R. Collins and others of the Road Research Laboratory". However, the modification of a Vickers Wellington bomber, the design of which Wallis himself had contributed to, for work in early testing of his proposed weapon, has been cited as an example of how Wallis "would have been the first to acknowledge" the contributions of others. Also, in the words of Eric Allwright, who worked in the Drawing Office for Vickers Armstrongs at the time, "Wallis was trying to do his ordinary job [for Vickers Armstrongs] as well as all this – he was out at the Ministry and down to Fort Halstead and everywhere"; Wallis's pressing of his papers, ideas and ongoing developments on relevant authorities helped ensure that development continued; Wallis was principal designer of the models, prototypes and "live" versions of the weapon; and, perhaps most significantly, it was Wallis who explained the weapon in the final briefing for RAF crews before they set off on Operation Chastise, to use one of his designs in action.

A distinctive feature of the weapon, added in the course of development, was back-spin, which improved the height and stability of its flight and its ability to bounce, and helped the weapon to remain in contact with, or at least close proximity to, its target on arrival. Back-spin is a normal feature in the flight of golf balls, owing to the manner in which they are struck by the club, and it is perhaps for this reason that all forms of the weapon which were developed were known generically as "Golf mines", and some of the spherical prototypes featured dimples. It was decided in November 1942 to devise a larger version of Wallis's weapon for use against dams, and a smaller one for use against ships: these were code-named "Upkeep" and "Highball" respectively. Though each version derived from what was originally envisaged as a spherical bomb, early prototypes for both Upkeep and Highball consisted of a cylindrical bomb within a spherical casing. Development, testing and use of Upkeep and Highball were to be undertaken simultaneously, since it was important to retain the element of surprise: if one were to be used against a target independently, it was feared that German defences for similar targets would be strengthened, rendering the other useless. However, Upkeep was developed against a deadline, since its maximum effectiveness depended on target dams being as full as possible from seasonal rainfall, and the latest date for this was set at May 26th, 1943. In the event, as this date approached, Highball remained in development, whereas development of Upkeep had completed, and the decision was taken to deploy Upkeep independently.

Testing of Upkeep prototypes with inert filling was carried out at Chesil Beach, Dorset, flying from RAF Warmwell in December 1942, and at Reculver, Kent, flying from RAF Manston in April and May 1943, at first using a Vickers Wellington bomber. However, the dimensions and weight of the full-size Upkeep were such that it could only be carried by the largest British bomber available at the time, the Avro Lancaster, and even that had to undergo considerable modification in order to carry it. In testing, it was found that Upkeep's spherical casing would shatter on impact with water, but that the inner cylinder containing the bomb would continue across the surface of the water much as intended. As a result, Upkeep's spherical casing was eliminated from the design. Development and testing concluded on May 13th, 1943 with the dropping of a live, cylindrical Upkeep bomb 5 miles (8 km) out to sea from Broadstairs, Kent, by which time Wallis had specified that the bomb must be dropped at "precisely" 60 feet (18 m) above the water and 232 miles per hour (373 km/h) groundspeed, with back-spin at 500 rpm: the bomb "bounced seven times over some 800 yards, sank and detonated". In the operational version of Upkeep, known by its manufacturer as "Vickers Type 464", the explosive charge was Torpex, originally designed for use as a torpedo explosive, to provide a longer explosive pulse for greater effect against underwater targets; the principal means of detonation was by three hydrostatic pistols, as used in depth charges, set to fire at a depth of 30 feet (9 m); and its overall weight was 9,250 pounds (4,200 kg), of which 6,600 pounds (3,000 kg) was Torpex. Provision was also made for "self-destruct" detonation by a fuze, armed automatically as the bomb was dropped from the aircraft, and timed to fire after 90 seconds. Height was checked by a pair of intersecting spotlight beams, which, when converging on the surface of the water, indicated the correct height for the aircraft – a method devised for the raid by Benjamin Lockspeiser of MAP, and distance from the target by a simple, hand-held, triangular device: with one corner held up to the eye, projections on the other two corners would line up with pre-determined points on the target when it was at the correct distance for bomb release. In practice, this could prove awkward to handle, and some aircrews replaced it with their own arrangements, fixed within the aircraft itself, and involving chinagraph and string. On the night of May 17th 1943, Operation Chastise attacked dams in Germany's Ruhr Valley, using Upkeep. Two dams were breached, causing widespread flooding, damage, and loss of life. The significance of this attack upon the progress of the war is debated. British losses during the operation were heavy; eight of the 19 attacking aircraft failed to return, along with 53 of 113 RAF aircrew. Upkeep was not used again operationally. By the time the war ended, the remaining operational Upkeep bombs had started to deteriorate and were dumped into the North Sea without their detonation devices.

In April 1942, Wallis himself had described his proposed weapon as "essentially a weapon for the Fleet Air Arm". This naval aspect was later to be pressed by a minute issued by British prime minister Winston Churchill, in February 1943, asking "Have you given up all plans for doing anything to Tirpitz while she is in Trondheim? ... It is a terrible thing that this prize should be waiting and no one be able to think of a way of winning it." However, Highball was ultimately developed as an RAF weapon for use against various targets, including Tirpitz. From November 1942, development and testing for Highball continued alongside that of Upkeep, including the dropping of prototypes at both Chesil Beach and Reculver. While early prototypes dropped at Chesil Beach in December 1942 were forerunners for both versions of the bomb, those dropped at Chesil Beach in January and February 1943 and at Reculver in April 1943 included Highball prototypes. They were dropped by the modified Wellington bomber and at Reculver by a modified de Havilland Mosquito B Mk IV, one of two assigned to Vickers Armstrong for the purpose. By early February 1943, Wallis envisaged Highball as "comprising a 500 lb (230 kg) charge in a cylinder contained in a 35 in (89 cm) sphere with (an overall weight) of 950 lb (430 kg)", and a modified Mosquito could carry two such weapons. Further testing was carried out by three modified Mosquitoes flying from RAF Turnberry, north of Girvan, on the west coast of Scotland, against a target ship, the former French battleship Courbet, which had been moored for the purpose in Loch Striven. This series of tests was hampered by a number of errors: buoys intended to mark a point 1,200 yards (1,097 m) from Courbet, where the prototypes were to be dropped, were found to be too close to the ship by 400 yards (366 m), and, according to Wallis, other errors were due to "Variations in dimensions of [prototypes] after filling and [dimensionally incorrect] jigs for setting up the [caliper] arms". Because of these errors, the prototypes hit the target too fast and too hard, and two aircraft failed to release their prototypes, one of which then fell off while the aircraft was turning for a second attempt. By the end of May 1944, problems with releasing Highball had been resolved as had problems with aiming. Aiming Highball required a different method from Upkeep; the problem was solved by Wallis's design of a ring aperture sight fixed to a flying helmet. Highball was now a sphere with flattened poles and the explosive charge was Torpex, enclosed in a cylinder, as in Upkeep; detonation was by a single hydrostatic pistol, set to fire at a depth of 27 feet (8 m), and its weight was 1,280 pounds (581 kg), of which 600 pounds (272 kg) was Torpex. Highball was never used operationally: on 12 November 1944, in Operation Catechism, Lancasters with Tallboy bombs sank its primary target, Tirpitz. Other potential targets had been considered during Highball's development and later. These included the ships of the Italian navy, canals, dry docks, submarine pens, and railway tunnels (for which testing took place in 1943). But Italy surrendered in September 1943, and the other target ideas were dismissed as impracticable.

To me, this is the most insane scene in Chainsawman

• Republic-Ford Jet Bomb (JB-2)

The Republic-Ford JB-2 also known as the KGW and LTV-N-2 Loon, was a United States copy of the German V-1 flying bomb. Developed in 1944, and planned to be used in the United States invasion of Japan, the JB-2 was never used in combat.

The United States had known of the existence of a new German secret weapon since August 22nd, 1942 when a Danish naval officer discovered an early test version of the V-1 that had crashed on the island of Bornholm, in the Baltic Sea between Germany and Sweden. As more intelligence data was obtained through aerial photography and sources inside Germany, it was decided in 1943 for the United States to develop a jet-powered bomb as well. The United States Army Air Forces gave Northrop Aircraft a contract in July 1944 to develop the JB-1 (Jet Bomb 1) turbojet-powered flying bomb under project MX-543.

Northrop designed a flying-wing aircraft with two General Electric B1 turbojets in the center section, and two 900 kg (2000 lb) general-purpose bombs in enclosed "bomb containers" in the wing roots. To test the aerodynamics of the design, one JB-1 was completed as a manned unpowered glider, which was first flown in August 1944. In July 1944, three weeks after German V-1 "Buzz Bombs" first struck England on June 12th and 13th, American engineers at Wright Field fired a working copy of the German Argus As 014 pulse-jet engine, "reverse-engineered" from crashed German V-1s that were brought to the United States from England for analysis. The reverse engineering provided the design of America's first mass-produced guided missile, the JB-2.

By September 8th, the first of thirteen complete JB-2s, reverse engineered from the material received at Wright Field in July was assembled at Republic Aviation. The United States JB-2 was different from the German V-1 in only the smallest of dimensions. The wing span was only 2½ inches wider and the length was extended less than 2 feet (0.61 m). The difference gave the JB-2 60.7 square feet of wing area versus 55 for the V-1.

In December 1944, the first JB-1 was ready for launch. The missile was launched by a rocket-propelled sled along a 150 m (500 ft) long track, but seconds after release the JB-1 pitched up into a stall and crashed. This was caused by an incorrectly calculated elevon setting for take-off, but the JB-1 program was subsequently stopped, mainly because the performance and reliability of the GE B1 turbojet engines were far below expectations. An envisioned 75,000 JB-2s were planned for production. A USAAF launching squadron was formed in anticipation for using the weapons both against Nazi Germany and Japan. However, the end of the European War in May 1945 meant a reduction of the number of JB-2s to be produced, but not the end of the program. Army commanders in Europe had dismissed it as a weapon against Nazi Germany, as the strategic bombing concept was implemented and by 1945 the number of strategic targets in Germany was becoming limited.

However, the JB-2 was envisioned as a weapon to attack Japan. A 180-day massive bombardment of the Japanese Home Islands was being planned prior to the amphibious landing "by the most powerful and sustained pre-invasion bombardment of the war". Included in the assault were the usual naval bombardment and air strikes augmented by rocket-firing aircraft and JB-2s. The official U.S. Air Force Fact Sheet on the JB-2 states just before the end of the war, an aircraft carrier en route to the Pacific took on a load of JB-2s for possible use in the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands; the name of the carrier has never been identified. In addition, according to one Eglin AFB history, an unidentified USAAF unit in the Philippines was preparing to launch JB-2s against Japan. The war's end led to the cancellation of invasion of mainland Japan and the production of JB-2s was terminated on September 15th. A total of 1,391 units were manufactured.