ab3o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Allan Bourdius) (09/14/90)
From: Allan Bourdius <ab3o+@andrew.cmu.edu> Have you ever heard of 617 Squadron, Royal Air Force? In 1943 (it might have been 1942, I'm not exactly sure) they broke the Mohene and the Sorpe dams in the Ruhr Valley in Germany. In addition to the great flood damage that the onrush of millions of gallons of water caused, the dam breaking crippled the German steel industry because the German method of steel making required over three times as much water as the Bessemer Process. The attack was carried out with cylindrical shaped bombs that were sent skipping (yes, skipping) across the surface of the lake to the point right against the face of the dam. The British engineer who designed the bombs, Sir Barnes Wallis, determined that the distance and period of the skip could be controlled so as to place the weapon directly against the face of the dam. Through experiments with scale models, Wallis determined that a only a relatively small charge was needed to break the dam because of the enormous weight of water pushing against the face of the dam. I suppose it would be feasible to attack dams in Iraq, however we would have to explode a bomb (at least a 2000lb, I would assume, probably greater) at the center of the dam at a set depth below the surface. I really don't know how we'd go about guiding the weapon to its target though--laser guidance *might* work, but I'd think there'd be a problem with refraction because of the water. For a better telling of the story of 617 Squadron, read "The Dam Busters" by Paul Brickhill. It's a fantastic tale of ingenuity, heroism, and victory. MIDN 3/C Allan Bourdius Carnegie Mellon University NROTC
g7ahn@cc.imperial.ac.uk (09/24/90)
From: g7ahn@cc.imperial.ac.uk As far as I know, the Dambusters (617 Squadron of R.A.F.) are already in the Gulf area, flying Tornado bombers, having recently converted from Vulcan bombers. Costas Krallis Imperial College London, UK