steve gallacci wrote:

BackToNormal wrote:

William Hughes wrote:

On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 15:20:05 +1200, in rec.aviation.military
(BackToNormal) wrote:

Was half paying attention to a TV doco on the Dambusters a few mins ago
and thought I heard the narrator say the Earthquake bomb designed by
Barnes Wallis broke the sound barrie on its way down.
Comments anyone?

Methinks you may have misinterpereted something.

Nope. It was on the National Geographic channel in a prog called
"Dambusters".

Iron bombs have the same
terminal velocity as everything else, about 135 mph, IIRC.

Not really, but my ears pricked up at the sound barrier ref. By luck, my
vcr was running for the first part of the show, and here's the relevant
bit.

"In the Spring of 1941, he (Barnes Wallis) was ready to unveil a bomb
which was as unique as it was powerful, the 10 ton earthquake bomb. An
aerodynamic masterpiece, it would break the sound barrier on its
descent, while its offset tailfins would make it spin like a giant
dart".

There was no a/c capable of carrying it, so he had already designed a
six engined bomber which never eventuated because the Lancaster was on
the way, and the earthquake bomb design never saw fruition. The program
was a fascinating story on development of the cylindrical bombs which
breached the Ruhr dams, but that sound barrier reference had me
thinking. Responses (some) from other posters indicate it was/is
possible.

Actually the 12,- 22,- 44,000lb "earthquake" bombs were built, and the
12,- and 22,000 lb weapons were used in combat, dropped from
Landcasters.

True. Where I wrote "never saw fruition" I should have written "was
sidelined". Instead, he designed the spherical bomb and refined that
into the cylindrical bomb used to breach the dams.

The Barnes Wallis Trust site quotes Wallis -- "After the dams had been
burst (1943) , Sir Wilfred Freeman, the Chief Executive at the Ministry
of Aircraft Production, asked me if I remembered my mad idea of a 10-ton
bomb which I had put up in 1939. I said 'Yes, indeed, Sir Wilfred, I
do'. 'Well', he said, 'how soon could you let me have one?' I said
'June, July, August, September, October, five months if I have all the
labour available in Sheffield'".

In 1944 the RAF got its first 'earthquake' bomb, the Tallboy, which at
12,000lbs was a scaled down version of the 10 tonner. 854 Tallboys were
dropped by Bomber Command Lancasters. The 10 ton Grand Slam bomb
followed in 1945.

ronh

--
"People do not make decisions on facts, rather,
how they feel about the facts" Robert Consedine