A glide bomb or stand-off bomb is an aerial bomb with aerodynamic surfaces to give it a flatter, gliding, flight path than that of a conventional bomb without such surfaces. This allows the bomb to be released at a distance from the target rather than right over it, allowing a successful attack without the aircraft needing to survive intact until reaching the target. World War II era glide bombs like the German Fritz X and Henschel Hs 293 pioneered the use of remote control systems, allowing the controlling aircraft to direct the bomb to a pinpoint target as a pioneering form of precision-guided munition.
Note that glide bombing, confusingly, does not refer to the use of glide bombs, but a style of shallow-angle dive bombing.
Read more about Glide Bomb: Post-war Developments
Famous quotes containing the words glide and/or bomb:
“All things change, nothing is extinguished.... There is nothing in the whole world which is permanent. Everything flows onward; all things are brought into being with a changing nature; the ages themselves glide by in constant movement.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
“No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.”
—Charles De Gaulle (1890–1970)