VB-1/2 Azon:
AZON ("AZimuth ONly") was one of the world's first smart bombs, deployed by the Allies and contemporary with the German Fritz X.
Officially designated VB-1 ("Vertical Bomb 1"), it was invented by Major Henry J. Rand and Thomas J. O'Donnell during the latter stages of World War II, as the answer to the difficult problem of destroying the narrow wooden bridges that supported much of the Burma Railway.
AZON was essentially a 1,000 lb (450 kg) bomb with an octagonal ring-style radio controlled tail fin design, allowing adjustment of the vertical trajectory in two planes, making basically a guided fall. There were gyroscopes mounted in the bomb to stabilise it, and a radio control system, which had around three minutes of battery life, which was sufficient to guide the weapon from a 5,000 foot (1,500 m) drop height to the target. Situated on the tail of the bomb was a 600,000 candela flare, to enable the pilot to observe it from the control aircraft. It was dropped from a modified Consolidated B-24 Liberator. Some ten crews, of the 458th Bombardment Group, based at RAF Horsham St Faith, were trained to drop the device for use in the ETO.
The 493rd Bomb Squadron also dropped Azon bombs in Burma in early 1945 from their B-24s, based at Pandaveswar Airfield, India, with considerable success.
VB-3/4 Razon:
The VB-3 Razon (for range and azimuth) was a standard 1,000-pound general purpose bomb fitted with flight control surfaces. Development of the Razon began in 1942, but it did not see use during World War II.
19th Bomb Group B-29s dropped 489 Razons during the Korean War, the first in August 1950. Razons were not ideal weapons. For instance, the warhead was usually not big enough to drop a bridge (it took on average four Razon hits). Also, about one-third of those dropped did not respond to radio control. Despite these difficulties, B-29 bombardiers destroyed 15 bridges with Razon bombs.
VB-5:
The VB-5 was a 450 kg (1000 lb) bomb, which used the same tandem octagonal control shroud arrangement as the VB-3/VB-4 Razon. However, the VB-5 was not command guided but used an autonomous light contrast seeker. This bomb did not go into production, presumably because the guidance mechanism didn't work as planned.
VB-6 Felix:
The VB-6 Felix was a precision guided munition developed by the United States during World War II. It was one of the precursors of modern anti-ship missiles.
Created by the National Defense Research Committee, Felix relied on infrared to detect and home on targets, in clear weather, especially ships at sea at night. It was this property which earned the weapon its name, after the ability of cats to see in the dark.
Felix was a 1000 pound (454 kg) general purpose (GP) bomb with an infrared seeker in the nose and octagonal guidance fins in the tail. Unlike other weapons, such as the German Fritz X, Felix was autonomous (what a later generation would call fire-and-forget), though there was a flare in the tail for tracking.
Successful trials led to Felix being put in production in 1945, but the Pacific War ended before it entered combat.
Douglas VB-9/VB-10/VB-11/VB-12 Roc:
The Roc series of guided bombs was developed by Douglas, the MIT and the NDRC (National Defense Research Committee). The VB-9 model was a 450 kg (1000 lb) bomb with cruciform wings and fins and a radar seeker in the nose. The radar image was transmitted to the bombardier who could use it to direct the bomb's path by radio commands. However, the radar was often useless because of ground clutter, and the VB-9 program was terminated in early 1945.
VB-13 Tarzon:
The ASM-A-1 Tarzon, also known as VB-13, was a guided bomb developed by the United States Army Air Forces during the late 1940s. Mating the guidance system of the earlier Razon radio-controlled weapon with a British Tallboy 12,000-pound (5,400 kg) bomb, the ASM-A-1 saw brief operational service in the Korean War before, as a result of safety and cost issues, being withdrawn from service in 1951.
The VB-13 was a combination of a radio-command guidance system as used on the smaller VB-3 Razon ('Range And azimuth only') guided bomb with the British-developed Tallboy 12,000-pound (5,400 kg) "earthquake" bomb, known to the USAAF as M112.
VB-1/2/3/4/13 are guided like the Fritz-X
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Topic: US built guided bombs (Read 5128 times)
