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I believe the CEP (Circular Error Probable - the area near the aiming point the bomb was likely to hit with a 50% probability) was something like 5 miles for night-time high-altitude bombing during WW2.


A cursory search of WW2 airplanes, I am finding plenty of bombers that could operate at 500+mph (probably not when fully laden, but still). Targeting anything when going at that speed by little more than eye is still hugely impressive.


They had a full blown analogue targeting computer. The Norden bombsight was revolutionary [1].

Sadly it was still not accurate enough to hit specific buildings reliably so it didn’t have the impact on the war its designers expected.

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norden_bombsight


They had bomb sights of various complexities, the Norden being the best known US design:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norden_bombsight

Still very difficult.




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