Toss bombing (sometimes known as loft bombing, and by the U.S. Air Force as the Low Altitude Bombing System, or LABS) is a method of bombing where the attacking aircraft pulls upward when releasing its bomb load, giving the bomb additional time of flight by starting its ballistic path with an upward vector.
The purpose of toss bombing is to compensate for the gravity drop of the bomb in flight, and allow an aircraft to bomb a target without flying directly over it. This is to avoid overflying a heavily defended target, or to distance the attacking aircraft from the blast effects of a nuclear (or conventional) bomb.[1]
- ^ Cochrane, Rexmond C. (1966). "The Radio Proximity Fuze". A History of the National Bureau of Standards (PDF). Measures For Progress. U.S. Dept of Commerce. p. 397.