Today in Technology History
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March 14
If you've been following the news this week, you may have heard about the "superbomb" just tested by the U.S. military. The new 21,000-pound bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), is the biggest conventional (that is, non-nuclear) bomb in the U.S. arsenal. But even so, it's not the biggest conventional bomb in history: there was one that was bigger.
During World War II, Britain's heaviest bombs were designed by Sir Barnes Wallis (1887-1979), an engineer who had also designed aircraft. In 1943, Dr. Wallis designed an 8,600-pound bomb for use against German dams. He then outdid himself by building the "Tall Boy" bomb, which weighed 12,000 pounds. This heavy bomb was used against targets on both land and sea.
Finally, Wallis enlarged Tall Boy to make the 22,000-pound Grand Slam bomb. The Grand Slam was so big that it could only be carried one at a time by strong four-engine bomber planes -- which had to be specially refitted for the purpose.
On March 14, 1945, the 617 Squadron of Britain's Royal Air Force (nicknamed the "Dambusters") attacked the Bielefeld railway viaduct in Germany. One plane, flown by RAF pilot C.C. Calder, carried the first Grand Slam -- a bomb which had never been tested. The tremendous force of that Grand Slam (and the Tall Boys carried by the rest of the squadron) successfully destroyed the viaduct and caused a mini-earthquake.
Grand Slam bombs were used 40 more times during the war.
Although atomic bombs are much more powerful than these conventional bombs, they actually weigh less. (The bomb used on Hiroshima, for example, weighed only 9,000 pounds but "had more than 2,000 times the blast power of the British 'Grand Slam,'" according to President Truman.) Fifty-eight years after its first use, the Grand Slam remains history's heaviest bomb. But perhaps not for long: according to news reports, the U.S. may be readying a 30,000-pound bomb for use in Iraq.
Related links:
Click here to read about and see pictures of Wallis and his big bombs.
Click here to read about the new MOAB bomb and how it compares to the biggest bombs of WWII.
Click here to read about all the other conventional bombs currently in the U.S. arsenal.
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