Even prior to the outbreak of World War I, the race was on to design and produce aircraft specifically tasked with carrying and dropping bombs on distant targets.
The first true bomber to be used in the Great War was the French Voisin 5 which bombed the Zeppelin hangers at Metz-Frascaty on 14 August 1914. Yet it was the nation least advanced in aeronautics, Czarist Russia, that produced the first giants of the air. The world's first four engine plane was Russia's Ilya Mourometz bomber.
Below is a table of some of the best known bombers of World War I and the year they entered service. |
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