Name: The strange tale of the Norden bombsight
Uploaded: 2011-10-26T15:21:28Z
Duration: 14 min 43 s
Description: Master storyteller Malcolm Gladwell tells the tale of the Norden bombsight, a groundbreaking piece of World War II technology with a deeply unexpected result.

Master storyteller Malcolm Gladwell tells the tale of the Norden bombsight, a groundbreaking piece of World War II technology with a deeply unexpected result.

The strange tale of the Norden bombsight

The Norden bombsight promised to revolutionize warfare by letting pilots drop bombs with pinpoint accuracy, but on the battlefield, reality proved more complicated. Despite $1.5 billion invested and 90,000 devices built, only 10 percent of bombs hit a massive German chemical plant, and many failed to detonate. Even as modern weapons have grown even more precise, conflicts like Afghanistan and Iraq reveal that knowing where to strike matters far more than technological accuracy. Human complexity often renders our most impressive inventions powerless to deliver on their grandest promises.