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As an EMS chief, I had to respond to another bomb defusing at a former US-Airfield. We already had +150 defusing over there

The Airfield main road with police car


Me and the ambulance blocking the street


The US 500lbs bomb after defusing


The 15 feet deep hole where they found the bomb


You can still read the printing on the bomb, even after 70 years under the earth


The (naval) ignitors, means this was actualy a bomb to hunt submarines

As the US was short in supply, they threw everything on us...

Me and the bomb

Very interesting pics. Glad the disposal went well too! Do you think these weapons were dropped during training and forgotten with time?

cavguy wrote: Do you think these weapons were dropped during training and forgotten with time?

No, these are "leftovers" of the air raids of WW2. That airfield was a German Luftwaffe airfield where the ME262 took off.
Here you can see (and read in German) the history of that airfield and see Hitler visiting that place

Glad you are still with us housil! I do recall that during the 1970s the U.S. stored chemical munitions, including GB and VX bombs, mines, and artillery shells and rockets in West Germany and I've heard stories of those things being discovered from time to time. That must be a pretty hair-raising experience for EOD, considering they have to deal with the filler as well as the explosive content.

This year in our State capitol Minuch, they couldn´t defuse a WW2 bombe due to it´s chemical long term ignitor. So "Plan B" is usually to use a little bit of explosive and blow just the ignitor off - NOT the whole bomb. This is a little (nice) booooom and every thing is fine.
See what happens if the bomb has a different opinion about that...

Very intersting video, I know the EOD folks don't get paid enough for what they have to do. Just curious housil, have you ever seen cold-war era chemical bombs being dealt with by EOD, and can you say procedures involved? I'm thinking that since a chemical munition has one obvious difference from a regular high explosive bomb, the major factor would be to evacuate folks to an area up-wind of the site, if there's enough time. Then of course there is the de-contamination issue if anything has leaked; alot of the chemical weapons have/had a very acidic component and they were known to occasionally eat through their outer casing. Still that's why there is so much training.

I cant speak of how they do this in Germany but I know some Army Tech Escort units have whats called a Mobile Munitions
Assessment Systems Unit, it has X-ray capability and also has a large "vacuum" like storage tank that can store the munition until it can be safely disposed of. I don't know how it really works but if the weapon were to explode it is supposed to contain the explosion and the agent...

rationtin440 wrote: Just curious housil, have you ever seen cold-war era chemical bombs being dealt with by EOD, and can you say procedures involved?

Thx to God - not.
We didn´t had any chemical weapons in use, not in cold war nor in WW2. I know former WW1 places where the EOD have to deal with WW1 chemical shells etc.

I don't know how it really works but if the weapon were to explode it is supposed to contain the explosion and the agent...

The problem with the long term chemical ignitors is not the agent, but it´s they still work even after 70 years. They were made to explode not at the impact but any time "later".
Inside is a glas ampul that contains acetone. When the bomb hit´s the ground, the glas ampule breaks, letting the aceton out. The aceton dissolve some "plastic" disc´s that secure the firing pin of the ignitor.
Any movement of the bomb can cause the firing pin to ignite the bomb so they can´t remove the ignitors. These bombs must be blown up at the place. But not the whole bomb, they just "cut off" the ignitor with a shape charge.

See how it looks like that way:


Just a little explosion I was on duty. That´s what the EOD guy explains at the end.

Well here in Spain you would be amazed at how many of our spanish civil war bombs appear on the fields every year. My area was quite lucky during the war and there were no combats here but I remember in a forest fire in the are of Aragon where therer were fierce fascist - anarchists combats 70 yrs ago that some bombs buried in the ground exploded due to the heat of the fire over them. Of course the firemen were scared shitless (sorry for my french ladies) but there wasn`t so much they could do.

On the ironic side a few years ago a teacher asked their five-six yrs old students to bring next day something old to school. To his surprise a boy turned up with a spanish civil war hand grenade (defused). The student was quite shocked. "What`s the problem, teacher? this grenade is very old, isn`t?"

All the best, people

Luis

Yes thank God indeed housil! With all of the nerve agent rounds and bombs and rockets we had stored in Europe during the cold war it is amazing that there were never any accidents that involved a release of that stuff.