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īoth types of target were already of great interest to the British military when Wallis wrote his paper, which itself was not his first on the subject: German hydro-electric dams had been identified as important bombing targets before the outbreak of World War II, but existing bombs and bombing methods had little effect on them, torpedo nets protected them from attack by conventional torpedoes, and a practical means of destroying them had yet to be devised and, in 1942, the British were seeking a means of destroying the German battleship Tirpitz, which posed a threat to Allied shipping in the North Atlantic, had already survived a number of British attempts to destroy it, and for much of the time was being kept safe from attack by being moored in Norwegian fjords, where nonetheless it had the effect of a " fleet in being". Bouncing it across the surface would allow it to be aimed directly at its target, while avoiding underwater defences, as well as some above the surface, and such a weapon would take advantage of the "bubble pulse" effect typical of underwater explosions, greatly increasing its effectiveness: Wallis's paper identified suitable targets as hydro-electric dams "and floating vessels moored in calm waters such as the Norwegian fjords". Remains of a Highball test prototype recovered from Reculver in 1997, now at Herne Bay Museumīarnes Wallis's April 1942 paper "Spherical Bomb - Surface Torpedo" described a method of attack in which a weapon would be bounced across water until it struck its target, then sinking to explode underwater, much like a depth charge. The inventor of the first such bomb was the British engineer Barnes Wallis, whose "Upkeep" bouncing bomb was used in the RAF's Operation Chastise of May 1943 to bounce into German dams and explode underwater, with effect similar to the underground detonation of the Grand Slam and Tallboy earthquake bombs, both of which he also invented.īritish bouncing bombs File:Barnes Wallis.jpg Hydrostatic fuze (depth of 30 feet (9.1 m)) with backup chemical time fuze.Ī bouncing bomb is a bomb designed specifically to bounce to a target across water in a calculated manner to avoid obstacles such as torpedo nets, and to allow both the bomb's speed on arrival at the target and the timing of its detonation to be pre-determined, in a similar fashion to a regular naval depth charge. Highball spherical bouncing bomb, inert training bombs
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Upkeep bouncing bomb at the Imperial War Museum Duxford