Weapons Systems Tech.Discuss What Kind of Bombs Are These? in the Technical forums; I was at the National Archives in College Park MD today researching my Grandfathers bomber squadron and I came across ...
I was at the National Archives in College Park MD today researching my Grandfathers bomber squadron and I came across these pics. Actually, I found A LOT of pics but this one stood out. (OK, actually A LOT of them stood out!) These look a bit longer than a conventional 500 pounder plus they have a more blunted nose. Can anyone tell us what they are?:
Conventional 500 pounders dropped from a different ship in this photo. The B-24's bomb load was normally 10 500 pound gravity bombs:
These pics were taken on November 5th 1944 on a mission over Vienna Austria. The top photo was taken from a B-24 from the 455th Bomb Group, 740th Squadron, tail number #951. The bottom pic was taken from a B-24 from the 455th Bomb Group, 742nd Squadron, tail #105.
These are not from my Grandfathers bird though. He was on a mission over Mitrovica, Yugoslavia that same day but unfortunately there were no pictures taken. I do have pics of bombs dropped from his plane on different missions though. He was with the 455th BG, 741st Squadron "Vulgar Vultures" and from what I can tell from records, flew the B-24 on at least 37 missions out of San Giovanni Italy.
I'm pretty sure these pics have never been published and they are de-classified.
They might be Small Bomb Containers or whatever they were called in the USAAF. SBC contained 4 pound magnesium incendiary bombs originally the SBC stayed with the bomber and dropped the incendiaries from the bomb bay but a development was a dropped version that was fitted with a barometric fuse or time fuse set to about 7 to 10 thousand feet. A small charge opened the container and dropped the incendiaries. This was done to make sure the incendiaries dropped in a small dense cluster and had a greater effect than incendiaries dropped from the bombing height and getting spread out too far
Last edited by fastmongrel; 09-19-2010 at 06:38 AM.
I worked for an aluminum company many years ago. A magnesium "anode" was developed for black iron gas line leading from the meter to the house. An anode is a sacrificial piece, something that would corrode first. Most water heaters have an anode inside that will corrode Before the liner dose. We made a little coining press that would press these mag anodes to the black iron pipe. The magnesium was about 8 inches long, 2-1/2" across the flats and a hole just big enough to slide over the end of the 3/4" pipe. I understand this is about the size of the incendiary pieces.
Just to confirm, the first photo shows M17 500lb Aimable Incendiary Cluster Bombs, each containing 110 seperate M50 4lb magnesium incendiary bombs which were discharged at a set time after release.
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