I saw an interview with an RAF bomber navigator and as an experiment he did the astronavigation thing, on the ground while stationary. Sextants in the aircraft astrodome, the full procedure.
He couldn't get within 5 miles of where he actually was, at the airfield 🤔
That was under ideal conditions though.
At night in a moving aircraft, while your being bumped by turbulence or Triple A, then the error margins will be even larger.
That could be a totally different city in the cockpit window.
This is why Germany and the Allies spent a lot of time on electric navigations aids very early on in WWII. And countermeasures for the same.
Vibe navigation really isn't a thing 😉
@simonzerafa @thegrugq oh good heavens no. and yes that's why things like Knickebein were developed, but even with all that, frequently it WAS a totally different city outside the cockpit window.
I grew up reading the memoirs of bomber pilots. Especially the UK night bombing missions, with radio guidance, people got lost all the time. Sometimes, crazy lost. And bombs fell where they were dropped -- what was it, half the munitions dropped on germany were dropped on coordinates without visual contact?
You're absolutely right that trying to use a sextant and a chronometer to gauge your exact lat and long coordinates in the middle of a bumpy aircraft ride that has presumably seen the navigation equipment shot up, would be nightmarish, and indeed I don't think I ever heard of such a thing. Even if they did have all that stuff, the difficulty of taking accurate readings would make them most likely decide to go with compass headings, charts and landmarks instead.
But they'd be going from point to point, worrying more about getting back to the English coastline and then going from there, than trying to nail the perfect heading from their starting point over enemy territory. So if for whatever dippy reason someone HAD hauled up that kit in their bomber, even getting within 25 miles of their airfield would probably be enough once they were over land again.
They tried the celestial navigation thing early on and realised it was fairly hopeless. Maybe they would have done better with dead reckoning and landmarks.
The very old TV series "Secret War" covers lot of this in some detail. Thankfully H2S Radar was developed and they actually helped bomb the correct city.
Fun fact: H2S was basically the system in use during the Falklands War to bomb the runway at Port Stanley.
"They tried the celestial navigation thing early on and realised it was fairly hopeless. Maybe they would have done better with dead reckoning and landmarks. "
Indeed, i don't think it was until computing power was readily available in airframes that it stopped being hopeless and they started putting it on spy planes. I think it was in Ben Rich's memoir about the Skunk Works where they talk about the systems locking onto nail holes in the hangar roofs, thinking they were stars.
Then we ended up with AIRS for the MX program which was an utterly bonkers inertial navigation system.
8 meters accuracy over intercontinental distances with a fully self contained inertial navigation system.
You don't need Megaton class warheads with that accuracy level, which I guess is a bonus.
@simonzerafa @resonancewright highly recommended:
Yes, His Lordship is always worth a watch.
I think I've watched that episode, but I'll double-check 🙂
This 5 hour marathon series from the BBC in the 1970's is also worth a watch.
Low quality but lots of useful information and interviews with the people who were there during WWII 🙂
Simon Zerafa
supernal resonance
maxsec-2022
the grugq