ASM-A-1 Tarzon

Development of the VB-13 Tarzon began in February 1945, with Bell Aircraft being awarded a contract by the United States Army Air Forces for the development of a very large guided bomb. The VB-13 was a combination of a radio-command guidance system as used on the smaller VB-3 Razon ('Range And azimuth only') guided bomb with the British-developed Tallboy "earthquake" bomb, known to the USAAF as M112. The 'Tarzon' name was a portmanteau, combining Tallboy, range and azimuth only, describing the weapon and guidance system; and was pronounced similarly to that of "Tarzan", the popular "ape-man" fictional character. The VB-13, redesignated ASM-A-1 in 1948, It had an annular wing around the midsection of its body, mounted near the weapon's center of gravity. command link transmitter on the B-29 and an AN/URW-2 [Joint Army Navy, Utility, Radio, Automatic Flight or Remote Control] receiver on the Tarzon to provide manual command guidance of range and azimuth. This was done with visual tracking of the bomb's course, aided by a flare mounted in the tail of the weapon. Gyroscopes on board the ASM-A-1 aided in stabilisation, while a pneumatic system drove the bomb's control surfaces. The guidance system was considered effective; Tarzon proved in testing to have an accuracy of . In addition to the nominal weight of the Tallboy it was based on, the annular wing and control surfaces boosted the weight of Tarzon by an additional . This made the ASM-A-1 too large and heavy to fit inside the bomb bay of a Superfortress; instead, the weapon was carried in a semi-recessed mounting, half the weapon being exposed to the airstream. This increased drag on the carrying aircraft, and caused turbulent airflow that could affect the handling of the B-29. ==Operational history==

Although the VB-13 project had not reached the testing stage by the end of World War II, it avoided being cancelled, proceeding as a low-priority project. Tarzon saw its first combat use in December 1950, Used solely by the 19th Bomb Group, which had previously conducted the Razon's combat missions, March 3, 1951, a new shipment of Tarzon bombs arrived in the Far East, allowing FEAF to resume raids, suspended since Jan. 17, with the large guided weapons. On March 29, 1951, however, a Tarzon strike against Sinuiju went awry; the group commander's aircraft was destroyed as a result of the premature detonation of the bomb when, the aircraft suffering mechanical difficulties, the weapon was jettisoned in preparation for ditching. The thirtieth, and as it proved final, mission, three weeks following the Sinuiju mission, also suffered an unintentional detonation of a jettisoned, "safed" bomb, although this time without the loss of the aircraft. increased maintenance costs compared to conventional bombs, the fact that the bomb's guidance system required clear-day use only, rendering the bombers vulnerable to enemy fighters, and required that the weapon be released at a prime altitude for the aircraft to be in danger from enemy flak. These combined with the weapon's poor reliability – only six of twenty-eight bombs dropped successfully destroyed their targets – to result in the production order being canceled by the USAF; following this, the Tarzon program as a whole was terminated in August 1951. ==See also==