"Cub Driver" wrote in message
...

Reading what appears to be a solid history of FDR and espionage.
Author makes the flat statement that in 1940 someone in the Norden
plant smuggled out the plans, which went to Germany. From these, the
Germans "developed their own bombsight," presumably based on the
Norden. The author points out the irony that at this point we still
wouldn't give Britain the bombsight (we did later).


The Germans did indeed have a complete set of plans
for the Norden bombsight courtesy of the efforts
of an employee named Hermann Lang, a naturalised
German immigrant who worked for Norden in Manhattan

Any truth to this? What part if any of the Norden sight did the
Germans utilize?


The German Lofte 7 bombsight was developed by people
who had access to the data from Norden and while
not a copy of the Norden design its likely they
learned a lot from it.

As to the US not offering the Nordern to the RAF it was
just as much a factor that the RAF did not consider that
tachometric bombsights such as the Norden, and British
ABS Mk 2 were suitable for night bombing from medium
altitudes. As a result the main BS used bu bomber command
would be the Blackett (MK XIV) which was simpler
and did not require as long a run up as the Norden

Keith