Posted on 01/03/2014 1:14:02 PM PST by Dave346
Edited on 01/03/2014 2:19:43 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
A bulldozer struck what authorities believe was a World War II-era bomb in a western German town Friday afternoon, causing a blast that killed the bulldozer driver, injured 13 other people and damaged homes, police said.
The blast occurred at a rubble storage site in Euskirchen, Germany, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) southeast of Cologne, police spokesman Helmut Conrads said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Build them fast and in huge quantities. It didn’t matter if 10-15% didn’t go off.....................right away...............
Clarification, the title is "Danger UXB" and was broadcast on BBC in 1979 and on PBS' "Masterpiece Theater" in 1981. As I recall, it was a very well done series and highlighted the cat & mouse game between the German Bomb makers and the British Bomb Disposal units. At first, these were simply unexploded bombs (UXB) but as the Germans realized the terror factor value, specific bombs were dropped with time and other fusing to make them ever more dangerous. To my limited knowledge, this is not something that any of the Allied nations ever did!
Farmers in France are stlll being injured by shells fired during World War I.
A practice was to have bombs that did NOT go off and I’m sure there were some genuine duds . The enemy clean operations come around and “BOOM” more enemy are killed. It was done a lot in Southeast Asia with cluster bombs and is still practiced today. War sucks.
I found an unexploded shell once and hid it under my parent's house. One of my younger siblings ratted me out, and it was removed by the squad one day. I remember getting off the school bus and seeing their trucks parked at my house. I knew right then that I'd been found out.
I still don't know why Dad didn't give me one of his famous Tennessee butt whuppings for that. I should ask him.
Now that’s just cruel .. LOL
Heck, a friend of mine recently found a very rusty, but still loaded, 1851 Colt Navy cap 'n ball revolver from the Indian wars in the 1860s here in north-eastern California.
1 2 3 Not It! (Says the U.S.)
The tv news said the number was around 700 per year.
Never rendered safe a uxo with a dozer ...... Used an excavator or two on old M56 4000 pounders, lots of aerial butterfly’s in farmers fields, old grenades and many many forms of uxo from mines to artillery here and there..... Crazy how heat shock and friction can rear its ugly head 70 years or so later....
My guess as to what exact nomenclature was / is .....
http://www.303rdbg.com/bombs.html
Stay safe !!!
There are many variables that can lead to a bomb not exploding when it hits, manufacturing defects, armorer didn’t do the fuzing correctly, or the bomb landed in mud or soft ground and it didn’t explode. I remember walking the woods around Elsenborn Ridge in Belgium, near Malmedy, and finding a German 75mm shell laying on the ground. I just left it there. I did pick up the partly rusted spare barrel carrier for an MG 34 and brought it home as a souvenir.
Thanks for the ping. It may have had a secondary fuse.
Blown up, Sir!
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