Neat Stuff

[skippy]

More gadgets to satisfy our minds and souls , like i saw a picture of b26's or b24's droppin these little bombs that come down on a parachute for destroying planes n stuff on the ground in the pacific theatre , or even cluster bombs , i've seen pictures of some the germans used it was like 1000kilos of bomblets . pretty good size unit, course we need a german bomber to carry one. another neat thing would be the bombs used by germany that they would drop into bomber formations and air burst .heh can u imagine dropping a few of those over an airbase  

[SpyHawk]

You probably just saw hi-drag bombs. They were designed to be droped low and fast and pop chutes or drag paddles so you could get away before the explosion took you with it.

Something like the modern Mk82 Snakeye in concept.

PS: The russians used cluster bombs too. It also would be neat to have Napalm for the American planes  

[fdiron]

Actually those bombs were White Phosphorus bombs.  They had only a very small explosive charge but they shot out a very very hot substance.  They were mainly used against soft targets such as trucks, troops, planes, wood buildings and other stuff.

[funked]

They're called parafrags.  I believe they were 20 pound bombs.  The B-25's in WarBirds have them as a loadout option.  Since there are few soft targets in WarBirds, they are pretty useless.  The only thing that is vulnerable to them is the AAA, which will kill you if you fly over it low enough to drop a parafrag...

[Toad]

From _Warpath Across The Pacific_ by Lawrence J. Hickey (Story of the 345th Air Apache B-25 Wing).


CONVERSION TO STRAFERS: AUGUST 1-21, 1943 (starts on pg. 36)

pg 38:

"For certain kinds of missions, a new honeycomb-type bomb rack could also be installed. This carried up to 207 23-pound parafrag bombs in three-bomb clusters. These tube-shaped bomblets deployed on small parachutes and burst upon contact into about 1600 fragments. They were particularly effective against aircraft and vehicles."

The 501st used these on just about every mission against an enemy airfield. Fly over at treetop height and drop the parafrags as you go over the field. Intent was to disable the parked aircraft.


[This message has been edited by Toad (edited 07-28-2000).]

[Hamish]

Sounds to me like a great addition for use against vehicles eh? New fear for m-16 mobile ack stations and the poor m-3's ib a field  

Hamish!