Norden Bombsight

The Norden bombsight was the standard-issue bombsight during most of World War II (and well afterward). Army brass liked to brag that, using the Norden, crews could "drop their bombs in a pickle barrel from 20,000 feet," although I imagine that they needed very favorable winds for this sort of accuracy :-)

For additional information about the Norden, see the Norden Bombsite Web Page (including their Nomenclature and Operation page, which includes scanned pages from the Bombardier's Information File (BIF), which was intended to be a quick reference guide to the bombsight. Also see Loyd Searle's article, "The Bombsight War: Norden vs. Sperry" for additional information and the politics regarding on the bombsight's development and standardization.