He-111, why carrying bombs the way they did?
A Can of Man
Je suis aware
All I can find is the He-111 had in wing bomb bays.
AussieNick
Forum Digger
Do you mean upside down as in fin end pointing downwards, and fuse end pointing upwards?
AussieNick
Forum Digger
Fair enough. In that case I have no idea why they store them like that. Perhaps they had a fuse system in which they became armed once the pointy end was down.... just a thought.
AussieNick
Forum Digger
Also a good possibility. I guess we'll need to wait for an aircraft expert to answer that one.
implicature
Active member
physics: i am not by any means an air/bomb expert but it is probably for safety reasons. if you put the bomb upside down then it was less of a chance of dropping on its fuse. once the bomb is let loose gravity automatically pulls the heavy end down.
but like i said i am not expert by any stretch of the means
but like i said i am not expert by any stretch of the means
redcoat
Active member
Its all to do with the size of the bomb-bay.
The He 111 started out on the drawing board as a civil airliner, so the bomb bay had to be added on to the original design at a later date, but due to this, the bomb bay was quite small.
In an effort to get around this, they carried the bombs in 8 cells on their ends in order to fit more in.
When the He 111 started to carry larger heavier bombs these had to be fitted on pylons under the wing roots.
ps, most bombs in WW2 were fused by a small rotating fin on either the tail or nose of the bomb after they left the aircraft.
Before then, a crash or any other type of shock wouldn't (normally) set them off.
The He 111 started out on the drawing board as a civil airliner, so the bomb bay had to be added on to the original design at a later date, but due to this, the bomb bay was quite small.
In an effort to get around this, they carried the bombs in 8 cells on their ends in order to fit more in.
When the He 111 started to carry larger heavier bombs these had to be fitted on pylons under the wing roots.
ps, most bombs in WW2 were fused by a small rotating fin on either the tail or nose of the bomb after they left the aircraft.
Before then, a crash or any other type of shock wouldn't (normally) set them off.
E
EOD
Guest
Just to explain German WWII aircraft bombs.
They used bombs with electronic fuzes fitted into side wells (with bombs heavier than 50 kg), nose fuzes were not used (beside in some cluster bombs). The fuzes consisted basically of two capacitors. The first would have been loaded right before dropping the bomb. When the bomb was dropped and disconnected from the circuit of the plane the first (and loaded) capacitor started to load the second capacitor (connected to the firing circuit), while this happened time went by and the aircraft moved away into a safe distance (important for low altitude attacks). When the bomb finally hit a target small spring shaped contacts in the firing circuit were moved by inertia and touched each other and closed the firing circuit.
There was an extreme wide range of fuzes for those bombs and many specialties were built in like anti disturbance and anti withdrawal features and in the end even anti ''render safe" features which were of different nature.
German aircraft bombs had a lifting lug in their nose section for lifting and mounting them into horizontal bomb bays. Of course they had lifting lugs on their sides as well to hang them horizontally.
They used bombs with electronic fuzes fitted into side wells (with bombs heavier than 50 kg), nose fuzes were not used (beside in some cluster bombs). The fuzes consisted basically of two capacitors. The first would have been loaded right before dropping the bomb. When the bomb was dropped and disconnected from the circuit of the plane the first (and loaded) capacitor started to load the second capacitor (connected to the firing circuit), while this happened time went by and the aircraft moved away into a safe distance (important for low altitude attacks). When the bomb finally hit a target small spring shaped contacts in the firing circuit were moved by inertia and touched each other and closed the firing circuit.
There was an extreme wide range of fuzes for those bombs and many specialties were built in like anti disturbance and anti withdrawal features and in the end even anti ''render safe" features which were of different nature.
German aircraft bombs had a lifting lug in their nose section for lifting and mounting them into horizontal bomb bays. Of course they had lifting lugs on their sides as well to hang them horizontally.