Saturday, May 5, 2018

How eccentric inventor Barnes Wallis created the Dambusters bouncing bomb with marbles and a catapult

Via David

The Lancaster was ideal for an attack on the dams  because of its huge bomb bay, great loading capacity and because it was highly manoeuvrable

The British Government had long been aware of the strategic importance of the dams in the Ruhr region of north west Germany, particularly in providing water and energy.

As early as 1937, the Air Ministry drew up a list of targets which included three of the largest: the Mohne, the Eder and the Sorpe — all massively reinforced with steel and concrete.

The Ministry recognised that if these key dams could be breached, then devastation of almost Biblical proportions could be inflicted on the Ruhr.

2 comments:

  1. damn shame the British government did not put an emphasis on Europes electrical power generation and distribution systems and high voltage transmission network. any electrical network can be taken down by targeted attacks on the critical nodes of those networks and power generators. they were all in the open and vulnerable.

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