ranked 46th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts. To achieve these aims, the Norden was granted the utmost secrecy well into the war, and was part of a then-unprecedented production effort on the same scale as the Manhattan Project. Both the Navy and the AAF saw this as a means to achieve war aims through high-altitude bombing for instance, destroying an invasion fleet by air long before it could reach US shores. This accuracy allowed direct attacks on ships, factories, and other point targets. Together, these features seemed to promise unprecedented accuracy in day bombing from high altitudes in peacetime testing the Norden demonstrated a circular error probable (CEP) of 23 metres (75 ft), an astonishing performance for the era. The Norden further improved on older designs by using an analog computer that constantly calculated the bomb's impact point based on current flight conditions, and an autopilot that let it react quickly and accurately to changes in the wind or other effects. It was the canonical tachometric design, a system that allowed it to directly measure the aircraft's ground speed and direction, which older bombsights could only measure inaccurately with lengthy in-flight procedures. XV, known as the Norden M series in Army service, was a bombsight used by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) and the United States Navy during World War II, and the United States Air Force in the Korean and the Vietnam Wars. This series of films provides a rare look at the operation of the bombsight as it was presented to bombardiers. A typical training set-up is seen, with the Norden being operated in a hangar, using a piece of equipment as a distant 'target'.ĭuring the entire war the Norden was considered a top secret piece of equipment and normally when it was shown in training films, it was hidden behind a piece of canvas or otherwise 'blacked out'. One of a series of classified films made for training by the Army Air Forces during WWII, this film about the Norden Bombsight focuses on the operation of the device.

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