Victory Bomber

The British "Victory Bomber" was a Second World War design proposal by British inventor and aircraft designer Barnes Wallis while at Vickers-Armstrongs for a large strategic bomber. This aircraft was to have performed what Wallis referred to as "anti-civil engineering" bombing missions on targets in Nazi Germany.

Wallis had developed the concept of an "earthquake bomb" that would destroy its targets by exploding beneath them, destroying their foundations and causing them to fall into the resulting cavern. To make this effective, the bomb had to be 22,000 lb (10,000 kg) and dropped from an altitude of 40,000 feet (12 km). There was no aircraft able to lift such a weapon, or operate effectively at those altitudes.

Wallis designed the six-engine Victory Bomber to perform this mission. At the time, Royal Air Force (RAF) bombers were much smaller and had only two engines. The project was studied in detail, the bomber proceeding to wind tunnel testing while the earthquake bomb to equip it was tested on representative models. The Air Ministry chose not to proceed with development of the Victory Bomber, terminating it in May 1941 before prototypes were built.

The Avro Lancaster was later adapted to carry large bombs to carry out similar missions. The Lancaster used Wallis' Tallboy, Grand Slam and bouncing bomb during strategic "anti-civil engineering" missions, such as Operation Chastise, the "Dambusters" mission.