Building The Bouncing Bomb

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Upkeep
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Re: Building The Bouncing Bomb

Post by Upkeep »

Good stuff John. I can well imagine the Eder approach being hair-raising in a Canberra. I'm wondering how easy it would be to match the (slower ?) speed of the Lanc.

I think I'm right in saying Mickey Martin was actually not Deputy Leader on the Dams raid - that role was filled by Hopgood until he was shot down, and then "Dinghy" Young, as evidenced by the fact that he flew on to the Eder, even though his bomb had already been dropped at the Mohne, while Martin flew home.

Sadly I won't be able to watch the programme tonight. But the video is set ;)
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Re: Building The Bouncing Bomb

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it wasnt brilliant. It was billed as how Barnes Wallis developed his mine (not bomb) and as his original calculations had been lost it had to all be recreated. In fact, they tried to work out stuff and redesign stuff that is so well known to anyone with a moderate interest in the subject. The final speed of the bomb, size of the bomb and speed of the aircraft were nothing like those used on the raid, although the sight of a bouncing bomb hitting a dam in 2010/11 was pretty good.

But I wonder how much it all cost to do, when we learnt absolutely nothing new from it and it ran for two hours.
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Re: Building The Bouncing Bomb

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That was an excellent programme tonight, and how they reproduced Barnes Wallace’s
mine was exceptional. That Canadian pilot really had some bottle to fly that low, and the splash nearly hit the plane on one of the trials. And he actually had a perfect run in when his mock up mine bounced accurately and hit the dam.

The top picture shows a Castle above the entrance to the smaller valley.
The second one with the passenger boat on the right is just beneath the castle,
with the mouth of the smaller valley on the right.Can anyone identify this Castle,because at first I thought is was Waldeck?

Bob
Last edited by Bob Wilton on Tue May 03, 2011 2:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Upkeep
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Re: Building The Bouncing Bomb

Post by Upkeep »

Well, I enjoyed the programme. I thought it was intelligently made, highly entertaining, and for the most part factually accurate (the only major innaccuracy that I noted was the implication that Wallis invented the plywood bombsight, which of course he didn't). Though I agree with Alex that anyone with a serious interest in the subject wouldn't have learned much that was new. For me though, the interview with Wallis's daughter was new and interesting, and I hadn't seen the bomb-bay footage of test Upkeeps (or were they Highballs, Alex ?) dropping.

Bob - I think you may be confusing your dams ! Waldeck Castle is above the Eder, not the Mohne. But the approach is very bit as difficult as you describe.
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Re: Building The Bouncing Bomb

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Upkeep is right Bob, Waldeck is on a hill north of the Eder. The interview with Mary, and the photo album were both interesting, but again not really new. She has published a book of her parents love letters and courtship, and the one she read out has been in print before. The photo of the test in the garden was used in the Windfall documentary we made together about 8 years ago, and I have had a copy ever since. It amazed me that the 'engineering expert' looked at it as if he'd never seen it, yet it was exactly that photo that was the basis for the opening scenes of the film, which he MUST have seen at some point, especially if he's an 'expert in rotating things dropped from the sky'!

The bomb bay footage is pretty well known and taken of a Mosquito during ground trials. The Highball was dropped onto shingle below the aircraft, and if you watch the rest of the film, you can see some of it thrown up as the Highball lands on it and continues to rotate.

The drop was excellent, but although it made great TV, the pilot was a bit of an idiot. There are altimeters available that can read that low, and the crews in 1943 solved the problem by the simple spotlight altimeter, albeit at night. By refusing to add such an item, and the pilot guessing his height, he could have brought down his own aircraft by the splash, killing himself and his co-pilot. This almost happened in 1943 and two aircraft during trials limped back to base - just - I'm amazed they didnt take any precautions as a result.

The programme wasnt so much, lets recreate the dams mine, but lets see if we can make a bouncing bomb. They were also wrong in saying that Wallis tried to design a weapon that blew up the dam. He didnt. He found a weapon that would crack a dam wall with the water doing the rest, and designed a method of delivering it. As such, the explosion at the end to literally blow up the dam, was way, way over the top, and nothing like Wallis intended.

They seemed to struggle with problems over several months, that Wallis designed, solved and made work 70 years ago in a matter of weeks. For example, they kept having problems with the speed of the bomb, and had to use an electric drill to wind it up as they didnt want to install a motor. Havent they heard of a wind turbine? Highball Mosquito's were later fitted with such a device to let the wind revolve the mine, using a governor to control the speed. Just not sure why they spent so much time and money trying to solve problems, often unsuccessfully, that were proved 70 years ago and are well known.
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Re: Building The Bouncing Bomb

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Upkeep wrote:Well, I enjoyed the programme. I thought it was intelligently made, highly entertaining, and for the most part factually accurate (the only major innaccuracy that I noted was the implication that Wallis invented the plywood bombsight, which of course he didn't). Though I agree with Alex that anyone with a serious interest in the subject wouldn't have learned much that was new. For me though, the interview with Wallis's daughter was new and interesting, and I hadn't seen the bomb-bay footage of test Upkeeps (or were they Highballs, Alex ?) dropping.

Bob - I think you may be confusing your dams ! Waldeck Castle is above the Eder, not the Mohne. But the approach is very bit as difficult as you describe.

You are right,as I have got confused with my Dams! Can you identify which Dam is in the picture below,because it came off the same set of film I took?
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gate1
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Re: Building The Bouncing Bomb

Post by gate1 »

Thats the Mohne, a similar tower just missing to the right.
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Re: Building The Bouncing Bomb

Post by K4KittyCrew »

Gentlemen, most dams to me look quite similar but I have always remembered the Mohne Dam simply because of the two 'towers / huts'.
John
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Re: Building The Bouncing Bomb

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gate1 wrote:Thats the Mohne, a similar tower just missing to the right.
Thanks Gate, now I am wondering what the castle on the hill is called.How I got mixed up with the name Waldeck is that I bought a postcard at the souvenir gift shop at the Mohne Dam of Waldeck Castle,and have always thought it was at Mohne See! It's a lovely area around those parts,and those pine forest's are massive.

Regards

Bob
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Re: Building The Bouncing Bomb

Post by Bob Wilton »

Avro Lancaster aircraft ED825/G, a third prototype of the specially modified "Dam busting" aircraft. Note the cut away belly and the absence of the upper gun turret. This aircraft, after trials at Farnborough and Boscombe Down, arrived at the No. 617 Squadron RAF Base at Scampton a few hours before the famous raid on the Mohne and Eder Dams but did not participate.
Photograph source: The Australian War Memorial.
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