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A blockbuster bomb or cookie was one of several of the largest conventional bombs used in World War II by the Royal Air Force (RAF). The term blockbuster was originally a name coined by the press and referred to a bomb which had enough explosive power to destroy an entire street or large building through the effects of blast in conjunction with ...
The bomb was originally called Tallboy Large until the term Tallboy got into the press and the code name was replaced by "Grand Slam". The bomb was similar to a large version of the Tallboy bomb but a new design and closer to the size that its inventor, Barnes Wallis, had envisaged when he developed the idea of an earthquake bomb. It was the ...
Barrel bomb: Improvised unguided aerial bomb made from a barrel or barrel-shaped container filled with explosives. They can sometimes be filled with chemicals, shrapnel and oil. 1948 Israel: Blockbuster bomb "High capacity" bomb for maximum blast effect, only used during World War II. April 1941 United Kingdom: Bouncing bomb
During World War II, it was designed to divert Allied airstrikes from the actual production site of the arms factory. Operation Hydra of August 1943 sought to destroy German work on long-range rockets but only delayed it by a few months.
The explosive filling of tritonal 80/20 is stencilled on the side, inside the chalked "O" of "Adolf" A 750 lb (340 kg) M117 bomb. The explosive filling of tritonal is stencilled on the nose. Tritonal is a mixture of 80% TNT and 20% aluminium powder, used in several types of ordnance such as air-dropped bombs.
The Luftwaffe did have some blockbuster weight-class (two short tons/4,000 lb) ordnance designs ready for use: the largest bomb in use at this time was the SC1800. It weighed 1,767–1,879 kg (3,896–4,142 lb) of which 1,000 to 1,100 kg (2,200 to 2,400 lb) was high explosive detonated by an electrical impact fuse.
The T-12 (also known as Cloudmaker) earthquake bomb was developed by the United States from 1944 to 1948 and deployed until the withdrawal of the Convair B-36 Peacemaker bomber aircraft in 1958. It was one of a small class of bombs designed to attack targets invulnerable to conventional "soft" bombs, such as bunkers and viaducts.
The use of high explosive bombs and air-mines (blockbuster bombs) coupled with thousands of incendiary bombs intended to set the city ablaze in a firestorm. In the Allied raids later in the war, 500 or more heavy four-engine bombers all delivered their 3,000–6,000 lb (1,400–2,700 kg) bomb loads in a concentrated wave lasting only a few minutes.