WEAPON OF POWER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 June 1943, Page 4

WEAPON OF POWER

THE BRITISH TYPHOON BOMBER

ENTIRELY NEW TECHNIQUE.

DEVELOPED WITH SUCCESS & EFFECT. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, June 29. Successfully using an entirely new dive-bombing technique against targets in France and the Low Countries, particularly airfields and grounded planes, Typhoon fighter-bombers, escorted by fighters, begin an attack from anything ever 10,000 feet, diving almost vertically on their targets at a speed exceeding 500 miles an hour. Each Typhoon carries two 5001 b bombs, within a thin casing, giving them the blast power of bombs twice their weight. Thus the bomb load of l,ooolbs equals the weight our medium bombers carried in 1939, at half Typhoon speed. The Typhoons release their bombs in vertical dives, thereby pinpointing their targets and obtaining a hitherto unknown degree of accuracy. The pilots release their bombs at a few hundred feet from the ground, flatten out and speed off at 400 miles an hour. This is much more effective than low-level bombing, because the bombs no longer bounce or skid anywhere up to a quarter of a mile from the point of impact. The Typhoons, once their bombs are away, become extremely 'fast and powerful fighter planes, superior to the Germans' best—a vastly different proposition from the comparatively defenceless stuka, which proved the Germans’ best dive-bomber.

The Berlin correspondent of the Stockholm “Social Demokraten” reveals simultaneously that the effect of the tactics adopted by Flying Fortresses, which do not break their formation, is admitted to be terrific. The method has the further advantage of keeping off fighters by forcing them to face a tight formation of planes.