Talk:Tallboy bomb

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Whidbey the first sentence in the History section does not complete the thought.

"Barnes Wallis had considered the strategic use of bombs to destroy the enemy's capacity to wage war by hitting its infrastructure and manufacturing bases and to this end developed improved bomb designs based on large single bombs early in the war."

What did Wallis consider about the strategic use of bombs? As being a better use of them then on the battlefield or dropped on citzens to induce fear, or as the solution to the winning the war?

The terminal velocity mentioned in the article can not be acchieved when the bomb is dropped form a Lancaster bomber. If dropped from 6100m, the terminal velocity is about the speed of sound, bot only if you ignore drag. $\mbox{speed in } m/s = \sqrt{\frac{2 * 6100m}{9.81m/s^2}} 9.81 m/s^2= 346 m/s$

Roland

1 Tirpitz
2 tailfin size
3 Impact velocity
4 Albert Henry Midgley
5 Relative size in image?

[edit] Tirpitz

Tirpitz was not tranferred to Tromso for reparation. It schould serve as a floatig coastal battery.--WerWil 13:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The bombing of 'The eagles nest' is well footnoted as 'apeared to have been effective' from a proper historical source... but it's questionable how effective it really was, the building is still standing, and it's own history page claims to have never been bombed. (both the wikipedia entry, and the official website) 65.49.176.158 13:51, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I thought that on the day that 617 Squadron tried to find the Eagle's Nest it was covered in clouds, so that instead they bombed the SS garrison's quarters. Darkmind1970 16:53, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] tailfin size

The text says that the tail was about half the length of the bomb, but it's obviously much shorter than this. Is the picture of an earlier design or is the text talking about the "tail" as in the non-explosive part, and not just the fins? It should be clarified. KarlM 02:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Karl

Have a look at the pictures of the Grand Slam which is simply a scaled up version of Tallboy, and you can see clearly how long the tail is. I have prepared these bombs (both sizes) and the tail, which is all one piece, really is around half the length of the bomb 84.71.178.213 (talk) 06:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Not logged in. Sorry Laurie53 (talk) 06:59, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Impact velocity

For the sake of ending edits like [1], here’s a quick calculation of the speed at impact without air resistance. From high school physics, for constant $g$ we have

$v = \int g dt = gt$

and hence

$y = \int v dt = \frac{g}{2}t^2$

from which we get

$v(y) = g\sqrt{\frac{2y}{g}} = \sqrt{2gy}$ .

For the altitudes given in the article, $v (7700 m) = 390 m / s$ and $v (12200 m) = 490 m / s$ . Solving for $v (y) = 330 m / s$ (the speed of sound; it varies with air density, but we only want an estimate anyway), $y = 5600 m$ . This does not actually give any estimate of the terminal velocity, but should be enough to refute that edit. —xyzzy_n 15:53, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi xyzzy, I have a serious problem with this sentence: "It was ballistically perfect and in consequence had a very high terminal velocity, variously estimated at 3,600 and 3,700 feet per second (1,100–1,130 m/s or about 2,500 mph / 4,022 km/h), which was, of course, a good deal faster than sound so that, as with the V-2 rocket, the noise of its fall would be heard after that of the explosion." This seems to imply that the bomb is reaching a velocity of 1,100–1,130 m/s. This is wrong!!!! The maximum velocity the bomb hit the ground with (in WWII) is much, much lower - see my edit above. Regards, Greg

[edit] Albert Henry Midgley

A H Midgley was my great grandfather. He designed the fuse for the Tall-Boy and the W Bomb and, although I'm yet to confirm it on the internet, the Bouncing Bomb. He was a British inventor who specialised in valve switches, having previously designed a number of switches for organs, cookers, cars etc. At the time of designing the fuse for the Tall-Boy he worked through h Midgley Harmer Ltd in Middlesex.

86.131.64.72 (talk) 00:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC) Andrew Lloyd Midgley andymidgey@mac.com

Tallboy (and its big brother Grand Slam) did not have a fuze (with a z) but a pistol. A fuze contained its own little explosive charge to initiate the main charge. A pistol was an inert mechanical device (easier to store and handle) which simply triggered, normally by impact, a separate detonator. Laurie53 (talk) 07:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Relative size in image?

It'd be helpful if we could get the relative size of the bomb (compared to a human) in the image. Any pictures which show personale and the bomb at the same time? Oberiko (talk) 20:51, 21 May 2008 (UTC)