HEAVY BOMBS

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 April 1943, Page 2

HEAVY BOMBS

MEASURING L’HE “BLAST”

LONDON, Marrii 17.

On a lonely mooi in Britain’s most desolate district scientists are carrying out one of the strangest, certainly most noisy, experiments of the war to find the answer to the question which is the more effective —one B,ooolb bomb or two 4,0001 b. They exploded 10 100-pounders on different kinds of surface, measuring. the blast. Later they exploded 1,000-| pounders, comparing the results. The; effects of the 100-pounders were; found to depend too much on ‘theground material, while the 1,000-1 pounders were more reliable. They wanted to make experiments with] 4,000 and 8,000 pounders, but could not find an area of waste land big i enough to explode the monsters on. | Nevertheless, much was ascertained by inference. The 8,000pounder has not twice the blast of a 4,000-pounder, but is absolutely reliable and more concentrated. Even if it is only half as powerful again as a 4,000-pounder, maybe it is just that half that makes the difference between damage and annihilation. Hence the 8,000-pounder is the best for a limited target, like Krupps munition works. On the other hand, there is a better chance of hitting with two 4,000-pounders, a bigger spread of the blast, but less whack. Hence 4,000-pounders are recommended for “cascade” raids.