The first air-dropped bombs were hand grenades nicknamed ballerinas
On 1 November 1911, over Libya, Italian second lieutenant Giulio Gavotti leaned out of a plane never meant for bombing and dropped four specially made grenades on Ottoman positions. Fabric ribbons fluttered from the steel spheres, earning them the nickname ballerinas. The damage was slight, but aerial bombing had begun.
The same Italo-Turkish War produced another first: lacking anti-aircraft guns, Ottoman troops brought down an aeroplane with rifle fire, and Lieutenant Piero Manzini's aircraft, shot down on 25 August 1912, became the first to crash in war. Weeks later, in the First Balkan War, the Bulgarian observer Prodan Tarakchiev dropped two bombs on a railway station near besieged Edirne, often counted as the first use of an aircraft as a true bomber.
Purpose-built bombers followed in 1913, with Italy's Caproni Ca 30 and Britain's Bristol T.B.8. The single-engined Bristol biplane had a bombsight in the front cockpit and a cylindrical carrier holding twelve bombs of about 4.5 kilograms, which could be released one at a time or all together. Under Charles Rumney Samson, T.B.8s attacked German gun batteries at Middelkerke in Belgium in November 1914. Meanwhile Germany fitted Zeppelin airships to carry bombs over long distances, making them the first long-range strategic bombers, though they proved vulnerable to attack, engine trouble and navigation errors.
Bombers split into two broad families. Heavy strategic bombers fly long missions against factories, shipyards, bridges and cities to undermine an enemy's ability to keep fighting; tactical bombers work closer to the front, supporting troops or striking ships, a role that blurs into dive bombers, fighter-bombers and attack aircraft. In the Second World War, limited engine power pushed designers to tailor each type to a specific task.
Early in the Cold War, bombers were the only way to deliver nuclear weapons, making them central to deterrence. Guided missiles forced them to fly higher and faster to avoid interception, and intercontinental ballistic missiles later shifted attention toward close support and, for strategic bombers, stealth.
Source: Bomber
