Norden Bombsight

During World War II the United States Army Air Forces and Navy developed a combined gyroscopic stabilization platform and analog computer to allow unprecedentedly accurate bomb targeting from aircraft. This device was known as the Norden bombsight, and you can read more about it here:
Norden bombsight

In testing the Norden bombsight could reliably place bombs within 75 feet of their intended target, allowing targeting of ships and individual buildings from altitude, a remarkable feat for the time. This was accomplished by the combined efforts of a gyroscope faithfully tracking the true direction of up and down, an analog computer which took into account the airplane's airspeed, altitude, attitude, and the winds aloft, and a control system which allowed computer control of the bomber's flight and the bombs' release. The bombsight  was a gem of engineering for the time, and each was equipped with a small thermite package allowing its immediate destruction to keep it out of enemy hands in the event of a forced landing.

In reality the Norden bombsight was never able to achieve what it did in testing. Typical circular error probable for bombs dropped with Norden guidance was more than 1,000 feet, limiting its practical utility for precision bombing. Operating the gadget was a pain, and required meticulous attention to the mechanical and programming needs of the computer. In practice cloudless days in Europe are rare enough to prevent reliable target acquisition, and without clear sighting its computer was stuck in a cycle of garbage-in-garbage-out. Eventually the Army Air Forces gave up on the idea of precision bombing for the time being, and resorted to saturating the cities of Germany and Japan with fire and high explosives. It's a shame good ideas don't always work out.

I'm not Malcolm Gladwell; I just pretend to be him on the internet sometimes. Here's Malcolm Gladwell talking about the Norden bombsight (understanding Gladwell's pronunciations and factual errors is left as an exercise to the reader):