Heavy bomber

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The B-29 Superfortress, a heavy bomber.

The Tupolev Tu-160, a supersonic heavy bomber

A heavy bomber is a bomber aircraft of the largest size, and typically longest ranges. The term was used primarily prior to and during World War II, when engine power was so scarce that designs had to be carefully tailored to their missions. The heavy bomber was generally considered to be any design that delivered 8,000 pounds (3,600 kg) of bombs or more on distant targets, with medium bombers having loads of 4,000 to 8,000 pounds (1,800 to 3,600 kg), and light bombers 2,000 to 4,000 pounds (910 to 1,800 kg).^{[citation needed]} These distinctions were already disappearing by the middle of WWII, when the average fighter aircraft could now carry a 2,000 pounds (910 kg) load and the "light" designs had now largely taken over the missions formerly filled by "mediums".

Heavy bombers furthermore usually had a very heavy defensive armament. British WWII bomber designs commonly had three gun turrets with a total of 8 guns. US designs, built around formation flying, had upwards of 10 machine guns and / or cannons in both turrets and flexible mounts of lesser arcs to deliver the best curtain of fire. Positions for these guns included tail turrets, side gun ports (often a simple window with a .50 caliber machine gun sticking out of it), dorsal (top-of-aircraft) turrets, and ventral (under-aircraft) gun positions which on American bombers were often ball turrets. All of these machine guns enabled heavy bombers to defend themselves reasonably well after they had passed the maximum range of their fighter escorts. British heavy bombers flew more independently by night and evasive maneuvring (the corkscrew) played as much a part in defence.^{[citation needed]} The manned lower-ball gun turret on the B-17 and B-24 bombers were a marked improvement over the previous remote belly turret; the American innovation of the ventrally-mounted Sperry ball turret, a virtually self-contained defensive "weapons system", rotated a full 360 degrees with an effective 90-degree elevation and a range, with its pair of Browning M2 machine guns, of one thousand yards.

After World War II the term saw some limited use to describe bombers dedicated to the strategic role, but soon these were being referred to as strategic bombers, while every other design became a tactical bomber. The general utility of a manned heavy bomber has been greatly degraded with the introduction of more accurate precision-guided munitions (or "smart bombs"), but the B-52 continues to fill a role when the target requires a massive number of bombs to be dropped. Current in service heavy bombers such as the B-2A "Spirit" also participate in launching cruise missiles, such as the ALCM/CALCM. In some, limited enthusiast circles, the term is coming back into vogue in light of the increasing use of large bomber aircraft in tactical roles (such as in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom) and the perceived obsolescence of such large aircraft in the strategic role, which traditionally entails being limited to the carriage of nuclear arms.^{[citation needed]}

Examples

• Avro Lancaster
• Avro Lincoln
• Avro Manchester
• B-1 Lancer
• B-2 Spirit
• B-17 Flying Fortress
• B-24 Liberator
• B-29 Superfortress
• B-32 Dominator
• B-36 Peacemaker
• B-52 Stratofortress
• Farman F.220
• Handley Page Halifax
• Handley Page Hinaidi
• Handley Page V/1500
• Heinkel He 177
• Petlyakov Pe-8
• Piaggio P.108
• Short Stirling
• Tupolev Tu-4
• Tupolev Tu-95
• Tupolev Tu-160

Notes

References

This article includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (October 2009)

• Ambrose, Stephen E. The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s over Germany. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. 299 pp.
• Johnsen, Frederick A. "Ball Turret: Shattering the Myths." Air Power History 1996 43(2): 14-21. ISSN 1044-016X
• Johnson, Robert E. "Why the Boeing B-29 Bomber, and Why the Wright R-3350 Engine?" American Aviation Historical Society Journal 1988 33(3): 174-189. ISSN 0002-7553
• VanderMeulen, Jacob. Building the B-29. Smithsonian Inst. Press, 1995. 104 pp.