Browsing: Science & Technology

A Brief History On September 21, 1942, the first Boeing B-29 Superfortress made its first flight.  This sleek bomber would become the highest technology piston engine powered bomber of all time, as well as the mightiest bomber of World War II.  On top of that, it would also become the first nuclear bomber in history. Digging Deeper Needing a longer range bomber than the B-17 and B-24 “heavy” bombers already in service, especially in case Britain fell to the Nazi’s, American engineers feverishly worked on a new design that could fly farther and carry heavier loads than existing bombers.  The…

A Brief History On September 18, 1944, the British submarine, HMS Tradewinds, torpedoed and sank the Jun’yo Maru, a Japanese cargo ship transformed to carry prisoners.  Over 5000 people died in the tragedy, of which 1377 were Dutch prisoners of war, another 64 victims were British and Australian prisoners of war, and 8 were American prisoners of war.  Most of the rest of the victims were Javanese slave laborers, around 4200 of them. Digging Deeper Obviously, the skipper of the Tradewinds did not know the targeted ship was carrying prisoners, as the Japanese did not mark POW ships in any…

A Brief History On September 14, 1954, the Cold War warmed up a little when the Soviet Air Force dropped a 40-kiloton atomic bomb from a Tupolev Tu-4, a nearly exact copy of the U.S. Boeing B-29 Superfortress. Digging Deeper The Soviets often relied on technology from the West to further their own development of products and weapons.  Joseph Stalin jealously craved a modern heavy bomber of his own, so, when U.S. B-29 bombers made emergency landings on Soviet soil, the bombers were interned by the USSR in spite of American demands that they be promptly returned. Reverse engineering to simple…

A Brief History On September 11, 2007, the Russian military tested the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in history, a weapon they called “The Father of All Bombs.”  Actually designated “Aviation Thermobaric Bomb of Increased Power,” or ATBIP, this 15,650 lb bomb has the explosive equivalence of around 44 tons of TNT. Digging Deeper Trumping the US “Massive Ordnance Air Blast” also known as “The Mother of All Bombs,” the FOAB was designed to take the place of smaller nuclear weapons, thus giving the Russian military an alternative to nuclear escalation. Consisting of a mixture of high explosives and powdered aluminum…

A Brief History On September 7, 1776, American patriot Ezra Lee made the first attack by a submarine against a surface warship in history against the HMS Eagle in New York Harbor.  The attack failed when the screw designed to attach an explosive mine to the side of the Eagle failed to penetrate the ship’s hull, allowing the bomb to float away and explode harmlessly.  Last year on this date we list 10 Underperforming Weapons, weapons and weapon systems that did not live up to expectations though they may have had some level of limited success.  Also see our articles…