The AZON bomb was studied as part of an investigation into the effects of battle stress on the accur cy of control systems in which a human operator is required to perform a task of tracking and guiding a missile to a target. The AZON rystem provided an example of a single axis (AZimuth ONly) control with acceleration response of low stiffness and long time delay. These features could be easily simulated for the purpose of establishing a basis for comparison with results of experimental studies of human operators. It was conceivable that, if an appreciable loss of accuracy of AZON under battle conditions were observed, it could be attributed to deterioration in the operator's skills under these conditions, and might be compared directly with losses observed in experiments with artificially imposed stresses.It was found that the AZON bombardiers achieved a high degree of proficiency during their training, practically implementing the full capability of the system against the long narrow targets, particularly railway bridges with straight approaches, for which the system was designed.When these bombardiers, and others with similar training, attacked real targets in Italy, Northwest Europe and Burma, their results ranged from close to the training standard down to complete ineffectiveness. On some occasions the poor result was due, at least in part, to the unsuitability of the target but on others the cause is most reasonably attributable to a degradation of control ability presumably due to combat stress. Good results were most frequent in Burma where enemy opposition was slight, less frequent in Europe, and did not occur in Italy where the opposition was strongest, but in all cases the average results in a war theater were inferior to the average results when the same crews were in training.The data collected for the AZON bomb agrees with the results for similar German Systems and is only a small part of the total operational experienced available relating to operator performance under conditions of combat stress, most of which is summarized in the main report under this contract.

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