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In 1944, the U.S. military faced a sudden need for a really, really big bomb.
Instead of developing the bombs, the U.S. Army Air Forces decided to turn B-17 bombers into guided bombs.
The program was meant to counter Hitler’s V-series of superweapons.
The United States produced so many weapons during World War II that it was nicknamed “The Arsenal of Democracy.” One weapon it didn t make, however, was a really, really big bomb.
Faced with the sudden need for a conventional, high-explosive bomb, the U.S. Army Air Forces (AAF) came up with a creative solution: take old, nearly worn-out B-17 bombers and turn them into flying bombs, as seen in the short video below.