Description

World War II Aircraft Bombers Handbook

The Handbook of aircraft of WWII includes all the aircraft usedby those countries which were at war during WWII from the periodbetween their joining the conflict and the conflict ending forthem.

A bomber is a military aircraft designed to attack ground andsea targets, by dropping bombs on them, firing torpedoes at them,or – in recent years – by launching cruise missiles at them.

With engine power as a major limitation, combined with thedesire for accuracy and other operational factors, bomber designstended to be tailored to specific roles. By the start of the warthis included:
dive - specially strengthened for vertical diving attacks forgreater accuracy.
light, medium and heavy - subjective definitions based onsize.
torpedo - specialized aircraft armed with torpedoes.
ground attack aircraft - used against targets on a battlefield suchas troop or tank concentrations. A further specialized form was theanti-tank aircraft.
night - specially equipped to operate at night when opposingdefences are limited.
maritime patrol - long range bombers that were used against enemyshipping, particularly submarines.
Bombers are not intended to attack other aircraft although mostwere fitted with defensive weapons. WWII saw the beginning of thewidespread use of high speed bombers which dispensed with defensiveweapons to be able to attain higher speed, such as with the deHavilland Mosquito..
Some smaller designs have been used as the basis for nightfighters, and a number of fighters, such as the Hawker Hurricanewere used as ground attack aircraft, replacing earlier conventionallight bombers that proved unable to defend themselves whilecarrying a useful bombload.

Handbook including:
Aero A.100,
Aero A.304,
Blackburn Ripon,
Blackburn Shark,
Breda Ba.64,
Breda Ba.65,
Breguet 19,
Curtiss A-12,
Fairey Battle,
Fairey Fox,
Fairey Gordon,
Fairey III,
Fokker C.V,
Fokker C.X,
Hawker Hart,
Hawker Hind,
Hawker Horsley,
Heinkel He 45,
Heinkel He 50,
Henschel Hs 123,
Henschel Hs 129,
Ilyushin Il-2,
Ilyushin Il-10,
Junkers Ju 87,
Kawasaki Ki-32,
Letov Š-16,
Mitsubishi Ki-30,
Mitsubishi Ki-51,
A-36 Apache,
Northrop A-17,
Polikarpov Po-2,
Polikarpov R-5,
Potez 25,
PZL.23 Karaś,
Reggiane Re.2002,
Rogožarski R-100,
SM.85,
Vildebeest,
Wellesley,
Vultee A-31,
Vultee V-11,
Yakovlev Yak-4,
Aichi B7A,
Aichi D1A,
Aichi D3A,
B-24 Skua,
Brewster SB2A,
TBY Sea Wolf,
Curtiss SB2C,
SBC Helldiver,
Douglas SBD,
TBD Devastator,
Fairey Albacore,
Fairey Barracuda,
Grumman TBF,
Mitsubishi B5M,
Nakajima B5N,
Nakajima B6N,
Yokosuka B4Y,
Yokosuka D4Y