Originally Posted by
langleybaston
It is true that the mid-level winds are usually somewhere within the extremes of the "bombing level" and the surface [vectors, not just speeds] but your met man straight out of training should know if the change of direction with height is veering or backing or indeed virtually steady ......... . . .
However, the total effect of the lowest level winds on a streamlined bomb at near terminal velocity
The treatment of wind was a pretty arcane subject and not a lot we could do about it. The NBS calculated wind based on drift and groundspeed from the DD72M and TAS and temperature from the airspeed servo. Naturally this was wind at height.
As Langley said, the bombs would be falling relatively slowly at release and faster at lower levels such that their time in any given height band would decease as the bomb fell.
I don't believe there was any allowance for the change of wind unless it was factored. A uniform air mass was the ideal medium with dropping from a jet steam or through a strong wind sheer a guarantee of a wide bomb.
Dropping from a lower altitude in the region of 12,000 feet would minimise the wind effect. Now I have no evidence for this but it might be conceivable that knowledge of local winds may well have influenced a decision to bomb or not.