Victory Bomber

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The "Victory Bomber" was a design by Barnes Wallis for a bomber that could carry a single large earth quake bomb.

Wind tunnel model of the Victory Bomber at the Brooklands Museum

The Victory bomber came about because of Barnes Wallis suggestion for single large bombs that could cause massive destruction to strategic infrastructure targets in Germany. His reasoning was that by selectively destroying the German capacity to make armaments their war effort would be stopped. The design for the bomb came out at around 10 long tons which was beyond the capacity of any current or in design Royal Air Force (RAF) bomber. Accordingly Wallis sketched out a bomber that would have to be built for the bomb.

The bomber design was based naturally on geodetic construction in which Wallis was an expert having used it for several aircraft including the Vickers Wellington. His specification was for a 50 ton bomber that could fly at high level, 45,000 feet needed to give the bomb speed in the drop, at 320 mph for 4,000 miles. It would carry a single 10-ton bomb. Defensive armament was minimal; speed and height would be its chief defence with one 4-gun turret in the tail position for any fighter aircraft that did attempt to reach it.

The limitation of the purpose of the aircraft to a single bomb did not endear it to the Air Ministry who required more flexibility of their aircraft and what little support they gave it was dropped in 1942. The earthquake bomb idea continued, initially as the smaller 12,000 lb Tallboy bomb, and then the larger 22,000 lb Grand Slam bomb, the carrying aircraft being the Avro Lancaster whose performance improved during the war to the point where it could manage such a load.