There is a book called Air Power by Budiansky=20 http://www.amazon.com/Air-Power-Machines-Ideas-Revolutionized/dp/0670032859= =20 that looked at the accuracy of bombing and the absolutely abysmal=20 accuracy they had. There was a lot of talk about precision bombing but that was more about=20 politics and funding rather than performance. Throughout the war and=20 for many decades later if they could just hit part of the city they were=20 doing as well as they could. Trying to hit a factory was just shear=20 luck rather than skill. It is only in recent years that they have had some success in high=20 altitude bombing using various guiding methods. Regards, Gordon Williams On 14-07-07 09:25 AM, alan.b.pearce@stfc.ac.uk wrote: >> ...a reasonable chance of getting a significant % of the bombs from one = raid >> within say 100's of metres of the target... >> >> In daylight, good weather, unopposed, perhaps. The CEP of an >> >> Allied AF bomb in WW2 was 5 . >> >> That's roughly 8300 metres, for those unfamiliar with this unit. :) > Early on the war this was so, but after about 18 months or so as they wor= ked through some of the reasons why bombs were going so far off target, the= y were a lot more accurate, especially after the use of Mosquitos for dropp= ing markers. Early marking was done by Lancasters I believe. > > --=20 http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .