Man dies cutting bomb open!

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

Thing is what was he after!

The steel for recycling, fetches a good price.
The explosives is used as a cooking fuel, as it burns evenly and good for starting damp fuel.

Oh the brass can fetch a price, if it can be removed in one peace.

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

theres a reason we blow this stuff up

We blow them up to set off any unstable contents and disrupt the firing chain.

If we know the firing chain is safe, we burn the stuff out.

You get pretty colours.

 

[Wedg1e]

Oh the brass can fetch a price, if it can be removed in one peace.

If you can fetch it down out of that tree, it's yours

One of our customers is a live firing range 'somewhere darn sarf' where they have a concrete bunker equipped with an x-ray set which they use to examine any old bits of ordnance that get churned up by the latest firings. On the shelves are box files full of data on all sorts of rounds going back to pre-WW1 so they can identify what they've unearthed. Usually it's scrap and goes in a bin, sometimes it's a training round, sometimes it's one that didn't go bang when it should have...

 

[Parm]

I've said it before.
You can't fix Stupid.

Nope, they fix themselves

 

[postie jon]

its in there Genes, or its in their neighbours jeans when it goes thuud.

 

[Screwdriver]

This is one of those occasions when my personal mantra would come in handy: "what's the worst that could happen"...

 

[Parm]

You’ll only find out once and it’ll make you an internet celebrity

 

[Screwdriver]

At least he had the good sense to try it in someone else's house.

 

[Keith 66]

A few years back we found a grenade under our house, that got the neigbours curtains twitching when the big white bomb disposal unit lorry rolled up outside. They told us that some munitions had a 30% failure rate.
In WW1 the warring nations fired in the region of 1 1/2 Billion shells & bombs at each other, 30% of that lot explains why there are a lot turning up all the time.
After WW2 munitions were dumped in the sea all round the coast, plus there were the areas mined, this map shows the scale of the problem, https://www.ordtek.com/mine-map/,

 

[cheb]

Just proves that today's yoof are dumber than a house brick.

I've seen a pyrotechnics disposal burn done under strictly controlled conditions and using only kit details in the burn plan. I'm sure the 5litre can of petrol was in case their van ran out.

 

[Shox Dr]

A few years back we found a grenade under our house, that got the neigbours curtains twitching when the big white bomb disposal unit lorry rolled up outside. They told us that some munitions had a 30% failure rate.
In WW1 the warring nations fired in the region of 1 1/2 Billion shells & bombs at each other, 30% of that lot explains why there are a lot turning up all the time.
After WW2 munitions were dumped in the sea all round the coast, plus there were the areas mined, this map shows the scale of the problem, https://www.ordtek.com/mine-map/,

There’s a deep channel off the Ayrshire coast they dumped ordnance down, in heavy storms it gets washed up along the coast. You find the incendiary bombs smouldering away on the high tide line

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

A few years back we found a grenade under our house, that got the neigbours curtains twitching when the big white bomb disposal unit lorry rolled up outside. They told us that some munitions had a 30% failure rate.
In WW1 the warring nations fired in the region of 1 1/2 Billion shells & bombs at each other, 30% of that lot explains why there are a lot turning up all the time.
After WW2 munitions were dumped in the sea all round the coast, plus there were the areas mined, this map shows the scale of the problem, https://www.ordtek.com/mine-map/,

Also in the UK during WW2 when Churchill's secret army was set up. Do much munitions were given out. With out records being kept. So even now there items are being recovered.

If you were a member of the underground you had:
Lee Enfield .303 and 100 rounds.
Or a Sten Gun and 6 magazines.
4 Mills bombs.
4lb of plastic explosive and associated equipment.

As well as what else you could "borrow" for the duration.

In WW2 the RAF were known to have dropped bombs that were designed not to go off. But were for all practical purposes the real thing.
Why?

The logistics of trying up the UXB teams for days, weeks afterwards. Plus the civilian workers who could not go home until it was made safe.
UK records would indicate one 250lb bomb would tie up 20 peaple for 3 days.

The mine map is regularly updated. As more records come to light. They originally were published to allow non combatant ships a way of finding a safe passage.
We layed down many a deep water mine field to combat the U-boat menice.
It worked.

In WW1 so much was fired there are rounds being pulled up. Still with the transportation fuse in place.
Gunner error.
But at the early years the manufacturing was so bad the war ministry had grave concerns we would run out.
But that was sorted with oversea manufacturers getting it together.

In The Info China wars and Vietnam. The American dropped more munitions than in both WW.
They also dropped bombs designed to kill days even weeks after they had impacted.
But the US is not allowing the information on how to disarm them, as they are still classified.
So a few kg of a slow blow plastic explosive is deployed to make the issue go away.

 

[Parm]

There’s a deep channel off the Ayrshire coast they dumped ordnance down, in heavy storms it gets washed up along the coast. You find the incendiary bombs smouldering away on the high tide line

There’s a place I’ve been too up north. It’s where they bring and keep some of these devices.

It’s an interesting place full of lots of strange characters that do some weird and wonderful things

 

[ibrooks]

The runway denial system was one I always thought was cool - in a sort of morbid way. It was a bomb that would blow a hole in a runway but as the main charge went off it blew a bunch of bomblets out the back end. These things were a mixed bag of delay fuses that would go off after a random length of time, vibration charges that would go off if a bulldozer came to fix the damage and dummies that just looked like the other ones. For a relatively minor hole it could take a runway out of action for a long time.

 

[gav0994]

There’s a deep channel off the Ayrshire coast they dumped ordnance down, in heavy storms it gets washed up along the coast. You find the incendiary bombs smouldering away on the high tide line

It's called Beaufort's Dyke and is in the "North Channel" of the Irish Sea between the Galloway Coast and Northern Ireland. Just right in the area Boris wants to build "his" bridge to NI from

 

[moose]

During WW2, germans did drop some wooden bombs, on a decoy site which the germans knew was out of wood, couple of decoy sites near us.

May along the Thamesin the marshes etc used to confuse the german pilots

 

[KemppiFrog]

There was a 22.000lb Grand Slam outside the gates of RAF Manston (617sq) for many years as a 'Gate Gardian'. Sometime in the 60s(?) they decided move it to a museum. Crane strained a bit, couldn't lift it?? Yep, it was still full of explosive. OOOPs

In N.France, along the WW1 trench lines, there are a few of the mines left, where they tunneled under the oppositions positions and pached a space with tons of high exposive. Obviously nobody is interested in digging them up now, far too risky...They just hope one never goes off..The local farmers there are quite used to ploughing up ordanance in the fields.

Then there is the Richard Montgomery in the Thames Estuary off Shoeburyness, packed with exposives and off limites to everybody. I have sailed past it in the past, quite an eary feeling.

 

[8ob]

A lot of bombs were ditched in Kent by German airmen who either didn't want to bomb London or who were afraid of being shot down. Rhody bashing in Kent can be a tad nerve racking when you happen across a bomb crater in the middle of nowhere, there are thousands of them

 

[Cobbler]

In N.France, along the WW1 trench lines, there are a few of the mines left, where they tunneled under the oppositions positions and pached a space with tons of high exposive. Obviously nobody is interested in digging them up now, far too risky...They just hope one never goes off..The local farmers there are quite used to ploughing up ordanance in the fields.

Then there is the Richard Montgomery in the Thames Estuary off Shoeburyness, packed with exposives and off limites to everybody. I have sailed past it in the past, quite an eary feeling.

One of the French trench mines went up in the fifties I think it was, due to a lightening strike. That must have given the locals a shock.

If the SS Richard Montgomery went up, don’t they say it would cause widespread devastation. I know it’s inspected every so often & checked & reckoned safer to leave it there as it’s too dangerous to move.

 

[Shox Dr]

A lot of bombs were ditched in Kent by German airmen who either didn't want to bomb London or who were afraid of being shot down. Rhody bashing in Kent can be a tad nerve racking when you happen across a bomb crater in the middle of nowhere, there are thousands of them

Last time I was in Poland we drove past a perfectly round tapered hole in the middle of the forest, about 10m diameter 3m deep with a mound a 1m high. As I pointed it out, one of the Polish lads says "one of your boys dropped that"

I didn’t have time to take a picture of the crater, but I did when I found this rail. Made hair stand on end