Why 100-pound bombs do not rescue the Midway Devastators

What happens if the TBD Devastators at Midway carry 100-pound high-explosive bombs for low-level attacks?

They achieve little or no useful damage because the bombs are much too light for the intended targets.

The panel answers that 100-pound bombs would cause essentially no useful damage in this carrier attack. It suspects the question may have intended 1,000-pound weapons instead. A 100-pound bomb is characterized as an anti-submarine weapon rather than a suitable anti-ship load for this scenario. Even in that anti-submarine role, British assessments did not regard so small a bomb as particularly effective.