There was a huge explosion and the carrier lifted and rocked violently - the plane's
bombload had gone up.
No pilots thought to check their own
bombload, and they dropped the bombs from too low an altitude.
The Il-2's 1,323-lb
bombload was not much more than half of what could be carried by the much faster Petlyakov Pe-2 dive-bomber or by the American-built Douglas A--20 supplied through Lend Lease.
The Air Force wanted to use the B-52 Stratofortress against 94 targets throughout North Vietnam because of its all-weather capability, large
bombload and radar, and could have attacked in early 1965 without being hampered by clouds or surface-to-air missiles.
She was still 25 miles from Berlin, still carrying her
bombload and almost certainly on fire.
In reality even the largest bombers available in the First World War lacked the
bombload and accuracy to interdict the supply of munitions to the front line, though air raids on cities had a considerable effect on civilian morale: as for Douhet, he spent part of the war in a military prison for being too free with the circulation of his memos.
Details of the operational requirement have not been published, but it is believed that AMX had to be able to deliver a 6000 lb (2720 kg)
bombload over a LO-LO radius of 200 nm (370 km), using only internal fuel and carrying two AIM-9 Sidewinders for self-defence.
The aircraft required a 2,400-mile cruising range and a 2,000-pound
bombload and yet needed to be small enough so that a "reasonable" number of them could fit on the back half of an aircraft carrier.
The Stato Maggiore dell' Aeronautica responded that the round trip from Sicily to Alexandria and back, nearly 2000 miles, could not be flown with a useful
bombload. (10) In fact the only major units capable of managing the distance, even with a negligible
bombload, were the Cant Z.1007feis stormi in northern Italy.
While the latter, carrying only 500kg (1,1021b) of bombs, was to be used almost exclusively for relatively short-ranged airfield attacks and battlefield interdiction, the Heinkel, with three-times the
bombload, was intended for much deeper interdiction (rail ways, seaports, other logistics choke points) and strategic bombardment with a
bombload almost identical to the "Ural Bomber's".
The Henschel Hs 126 had one fixed and one manually aimed machine gun, a
bombload of 100 lb and a top speed of 221 m.p.h., the Potez 63.11 had three (sometimes up to seven) forward firing machine guns, one (sometimes three) fixed and one manually operated machine gun firing to the rear, a
bombload of 440 lb and a top speed of 264 m.p.h.