SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Disclaimer: no dams were actually busted in the making of the video below. But that doesn’t mean that a scale-model homage to the WWII Dam Busters and their “Bouncing Bombs” isn’t worth doing, of course.
In a war filled with hacks, [Barnes Wallis]’ Bouncing Bomb concept might just be the hackiest. In the video below, [Tom Stanton] explains that [Wallis] came up with the idea of skipping a bomb across the surface of a lake to destroy enemy infrastructure after skipping marbles across the water.
[...] [Tom] teamed up with R/C builder [James Whomsley], who came up with a wonderful foam-board Lancaster bomber, just like RAF No. 617 Squadron used. With a calm day and smooth water on the lake they chose for testing, the R/C Lanc made a few test runs before releasing the first barrel bomb. The first run was a bit too steep, causing the bomb to just dive into the water without skipping. Technical problems and a crash landing foiled the second run, but the third run was perfect – the bomb skipped thrice while the plane banked gracefully away. [Tom] also tried a heavy-lift quadcopter run with the bomb rig, something [Barnes Wallis] couldn’t even have dreamed of back in the day.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 28 2019, @11:54PM (5 children)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday November 29 2019, @01:13AM (4 children)
A/C might be saying that bombing the Ruhr dams was a war crime, because civilians were killed, which there might be an argument for, but not from me.
My mother's partner flew as a gunner in Hudson and Wellington bombers from 1942 to 1945 and was on a couple of the raids that fire bombed Dresden, which he felt bad about.
There might be an argument that those raids were war crimes, but Britain was in an existential fight, so the gloves were off.
I have similar feelings about the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for similar reasons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 29 2019, @03:50AM (3 children)
> but Britain was in an existential fight
I've seen this (new?) usage for "existential" a few times lately. My internal definition matches this one:
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/existential [vocabulary.com]
For the usage of parent, I'd be likely to write, "but Britain was in a fight for its existence"
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Friday November 29 2019, @04:08AM (2 children)
So the dictionary does indeed agree with this particular use of "existential".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 29 2019, @05:55PM (1 child)
Correct. As I wrote, I copied the definition that agreed with my internal definition, about philosophy.
Mostly wondering if it's just me, or if the "concrete" definition is commonly used?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 29 2019, @07:14PM
I see the "concrete" definition more often than the philosophical version FWIW.