How could bombing be effective when wartime bomb accuracy was so poor?
Short answerAir forces used large quantities of comparatively cheap bombs to create an area effect, making the raid function like long-range artillery bombardment.
NotesThe panel explains that Second World War bombs were far cheaper than modern precision weapons, allowing air forces to deliver them in very large numbers. Individual misses mattered less when a formation covered an industrial district, rail yard, or other broad target area with repeated impacts. Area bombing is therefore compared with an artillery barrage delivered by aircraft rather than with today's one-weapon, one-target model. The tactic's effectiveness came from aggregate destructive probability, not confidence that any single bomb would hit its aiming point.