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Old 17th Oct 2020, 07:18
  #72 (permalink)  
Mr Mac
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
Age: 63
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Originally Posted by Beamr
Take a look at this, apparently they succeeded: https://www.britishpathe.com/video/V.../query/GERMANY

Seems like the tail section and detonators are already removed. I wouldn't want to do that for a living.

While working on a project in Munich in the mid 80,s a 4000lb RAF Blast bomb was found on site. It looked like a water tank or immersion heater but was identified as a bomb by German Project Manager who called out local German bomb disposal unit, who turned out to be very matter of fact about the thing, as it was not unusual back then, and indeed is still not that unusual today. Talking to them later, they explained the failure rate on allied bombs was quite high, I think it was 15% from memory, but it was a while ago so it could be more, or indeed less. The reason they said was that allied bombs when being developed were typically dropped onto harder ground than that which covers most of Germany, and many bombs just literally sank into the loam. I am not sure if that is correct, but it would seem logical, or it was just poor manufacturing. They said Berlin was the worst place for unexploded ordnance of all types due to the extensive street fighting as well as the heavy bombing, the next worst unsurprisingly was the Ruhr valley cities.
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