What are photo flash bombs?

[Retracting Head Ter Ter]

Armament: Two 20mm cannons in tail; 8,044 lbs. of photo flash bombs

Found this line in a description on the Real life RB-66.

They meant to illuminate the place for photo taking? Or to blind the enemy?

[JsARCLIGHT]

Photo flash bombs were old school tech used, as you think, to illuminate things at night to take aerial recon photos. The armed forces abandonded them a while back, not because of the new tech of night vision and such but because supposedly the darned things had a super high "dud" rate when used.

[Opus]

It's for night photography.

http://www.harringtonmuseum.org.uk/M46Photoflash.htm

[JsARCLIGHT]

Holy cats I knew those things had some power on them but 500,000,000 candlepower will burn through your eyeballs into the back of your skull!

Edited March 31, 2004 by JsARCLIGHT

[VF19]

500,000,000 candlepower would give you a hawaii tan in 10 seconds, flat.

[Akilae]

For a description of how they *might* be used, read the beginning of the Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton.

[Southcross]

For a description of how they *might* be used, read the beginning of the Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton.

hrmmm... wish I still had the book... 'cause that doesn't ring a bell

[David Hingtgen]

Yup, a recon plane's only weapon at times: use ALL the flashbombs at once, and just blind your enemy. And if you're lucky and you've got an RF-4C or maybe an RF-8U with the right load-out (a double-load of the high-power ones), you can get several billion candlepower going. According to one pilot who did just that: "I think that after all these years, there still might be VC wandering around the jungle blinking".

[Retracting Head Ter Ter]

Is there a pic or two on the net of these suckers going off?

If the Luftwaffe had these in WW2 it would have been nuts if dropped into a B-17 group.

[KingNor]

Is there a pic or two on the net of these suckers going off?

If the Luftwaffe had these in WW2 it would have been nuts if dropped into a B-17 group.

the british did soemthing like this durning the africa campaign actually.. (i think i got that right)

anyway, to confuse german bombers and "hide" a important river. the british hooked up something like 10 of their STRONGEST search lights, i don't know the candle power, and stuck these weird mirror attachments on the ends of them to create 20 pillars of light for each one, and then lined them up at various points near this river.

these then would spin creating a "dazzling light display" that was extreemly confusing. in fact the creator went up in a plane to see how it looked and it was so baffleing to the pilot that they lost control and almost crashed!

alot of reallly uneaque and innovative stuff happened in wwi and ii. its worth researching.

Edited March 31, 2004 by KingNor

[Southcross]

Is there a pic or two on the net of these suckers going off?

If the Luftwaffe had these in WW2 it would have been nuts if dropped into a B-17 group.

the british did soemthing like this durning the africa campaign actually.. (i think i got that right)

anyway, to confuse german bombers and "hide" a important river. the british hooked up something like 10 of their STRONGEST search lights, i don't know the candle power, and stuck these weird mirror attachments on the ends of them to create 20 pillars of light for each one, and then lined them up at various points near this river.

these then would spin creating a "dazzling light display" that was extreemly confusing. in fact the creator went up in a plane to see how it looked and it was so baffleing to the pilot that they lost control and almost crashed!

alot of reallly uneaque and innovative stuff happened in wwi and ii. its worth researching.

I saw that story on the History channel... you got it pretty much right

by far one of the kewlest WWII stories... pretty much it made the airspace around the area unflyable. You would have had to sight your bombs 10 miles back, close your eye... count to 1000 then drop them and hope they hit (a target you couldn't even see 10 miles back)