Bombsight

The bombsight emerged because aerial bombing required solving a physics problem: how to release a falling object from a moving platform so it hits a stationary target. Early aviators dropped bombs by eye, achieving nothing resembling accuracy. The first dedicated bombsights appeared in 1911, simple aiming devices that estimated where a bomb would land based on aircraft altitude and speed.

The adjacent possible aligned as aviation matured beyond novelty into weapon. Fixed-wing aircraft could reach targets unreachable by artillery. But hitting those targets demanded instruments to compensate for aircraft velocity, altitude, wind drift, and bomb ballistics. The bombsight became an exercise in applied physics—calculating the trajectory a bomb would follow from release to impact.

Early bombsights used basic optics and manual calculations. The bombardier estimated ground speed, altitude, and crosswind, then set adjustments on the sight. These required lengthy procedures during the bombing run—time when the aircraft flew straight and level, vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire. Accuracy remained poor.

The breakthrough came through mechanization. Carl Norden, a Dutch engineer who emigrated to America in 1904, began developing an advanced bombsight for the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in 1920. By 1932, the Army Air Corps acquired the Norden bombsight—an electromechanical analog computer that combined optics, a mechanical calculator, and an autopilot.

The Norden directly measured ground speed and direction rather than estimating them. Its analog computer continuously recalculated the bomb impact point as conditions changed. The autopilot maintained precise heading during the bombing run. In prewar testing, it achieved 150-foot circular error probable—astonishing precision for the era.

Combat reality proved harsher. Cloud cover, enemy fighters, and anti-aircraft fire degraded performance dramatically. Studies found as few as 5% of Eighth Air Force bombs fell within 1,000 feet of targets. The Norden became one of history's most expensive disappointments—$1.1 billion spent by war's end, half the Manhattan Project's budget, for accuracy that rarely matched promises.

Yet the bombsight's evolution—from eyeball estimation through mechanical calculation to analog computing—previewed the trajectory of military technology: ever more sophisticated attempts to remove human error from the kill chain. True precision would wait for guided munitions, but the bombsight defined the problem.