Title: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: Lawnmower Man on February 18, 2006, 01:26:04 am
I'm a bit supprised no one seems to have noticed this.
http://www.lemans.org/sport/sport/actu/2006_01_10_bombe_gb.html
May be I'll take it a bit easier with the Mower. :)
t.
http://www.lemans.org/sport/sport/actu/2006_01_10_bombe_gb.html
May be I'll take it a bit easier with the Mower. :)
t.
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: smokie on February 18, 2006, 01:30:24 am
Nordic mentioned it here http://www.clubarnage.com/forum/index.php?topic=4435.45 but other than that...not a peep.
Boom Boom. ::)
Boom Boom. ::)
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: Dave H on February 18, 2006, 02:05:26 am
I always wondered what I'd done with that. Wasn't sure if I'd lost it at Le Mans or Sebring.
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: amazing 1 on February 18, 2006, 03:09:43 am
Now I get it,that was a 250lb.bomb in your pants.And the whole time I thought you were just glad to see me. ::)
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: Rhino on February 19, 2006, 01:22:19 am
The susprising thing is they have now found unexploded bombs at dunlop curve, the esses and the old terte rouge. Bearing in mind they have modefied the circuit on three places there are three unexploded bombs. There must be bombs about evey 10meters :o :o :o :o :o :o
Anyone else worried?
Anyone else worried?
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: Bob U on February 19, 2006, 02:11:47 pm
No need to worry, they're probably our bombs anyway
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: knetter on February 19, 2006, 04:19:14 pm
The susprising thing is they have now found unexploded bombs at dunlop curve, the esses and the old terte rouge. Bearing in mind they have modefied the circuit on three places there are three unexploded bombs. There must be bombs about evey 10meters :o :o :o :o :o :o
Anyone else worried?
Anyone else worried?
Hmmmm, I guess we will have to keep the levels of our bass speakers down then, to minimise vibrations!! ;D
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: Lorry on February 19, 2006, 06:46:35 pm
This is on another thread. There's a link to a wonderful aerial picture during/just after the USAAF raid. They didn't have precision munitions in those days. Sod the bass, its tent pegs that are dangerous.
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: Steve Pyro on February 19, 2006, 08:17:32 pm
Just be careful when you're hammering in your tent pegs!
(http://judicial-inc.biz/Leb_bomb_crater.jpg)
(http://judicial-inc.biz/Leb_bomb_crater.jpg)
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: garystout on February 19, 2006, 10:51:34 pm
Bit of sheeting, and you have got a ready made pool there ;D
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: amazing 1 on February 20, 2006, 12:35:09 am
This is on another thread. There's a link to a wonderful aerial picture during/just after the USAAF raid. They didn't have precision munitions in those days. Sod the bass, its tent pegs that are dangerous.
Can I have a link?
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: DelBoy on February 20, 2006, 02:15:17 am
Can I have a link?
See Smokie's Reply No 1 to this thread
Del
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: Barry on February 20, 2006, 11:23:53 am
No need to worry, they're probably our bombs anyway
If one goes off and you are injured, it would have to go down as 'friendly fire' (or blue on blue).
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: Fax on February 20, 2006, 04:55:41 pm
You guys might find this interesting given the thread.
A friend sent this to me after the last bomb finding discussion.
Fax
Berlin still uncovering WWII-era bombs
Full story: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002769210_berlinbombs29.html
By Matthew Schofield
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BERLIN -- World War II ended 60 years ago, but it doesn't always feel that way to the people of Berlin, whose lives are disrupted regularly by bombs left over from that conflict.
Take, for example, what happened just a few weeks ago at the packed Christmas market along Unter den Linden, Berlin's most famous boulevard.
Thousands of people were bustling along the street when a backhoe operator at a construction site heard his machine scrape metal. As the clay fell away, the machine's scoop revealed a rusty, cigar-shaped tube as wide and tall as a human torso.
The worker called for help. A police officer called the office of Dirk Wegener, who heads Berlin's bomb-disposal squad. "We think we have something for you," he said. "A bomb. A big bomb."
No surprise
For Wegener, who's worked in the bomb-disposal unit for 18 years, it wasn't a surprise. His office receives 10,000 such calls a year.
"Evacuate the area, and we'll be there as soon as we can," he said.
Allied bombs first crashed into Berlin in 1941. But it wasn't until the autumn of 1943 -- when Nazi forces had overextended themselves by fighting in northern Africa, Europe and the Soviet Union -- that they started falling like rain.
The Allies dropped about 50,000 tons of bombs on Berlin during that time; Wegener says that averaged out to more than 1,000 a day for about 18 months.
Many of them -- German estimates say 10 percent -- didn't explode. At the end of the war, Germans guessed there were 50,000 large, unexploded bombs throughout Berlin.
There were hundreds of thousands more smaller explosives. There's still enough work for six full-time jobs dedicated to old bombs.
Behind Wegener's desk in a cluttered office surrounded by a 10-foot-high earthen berm in Berlin's Grunewald forest is a large map of Berlin.
A colored pin marks where every major bomb has been found, from a 2,000-pounder in May 2002 to a cluster of 25 pins in the Muggelsee neighborhood marking bombs dropped there by Luftwaffe pilots defending Berlin from Russian troops.
Outside the office are rusted artillery shells stacked like cordwood, waist-high boxes of hand grenades -- Nazi, Soviet, British, American -- and a smattering of mines.
Explosives smaller than 100 pounds don't merit pins, Wegener said. "We call those hand bombs; things we can pick up with our hands and move," he said.
Of the bombs found around Berlin last year, only eight were large enough to merit colored pins. One was on the grounds of Tegel International Airport, next to the runway that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was scheduled to leave on. He moved up his departure to avoid being around at detonation.
Movie-scene fiction
Wegener laughs at bomb-detonation scenes in the movies, in which an actor screws down a thick cover and detonates a bomb or a hero cuts the wires and saves the day. In reality, a metal cover would become extra shrapnel, and World War II-vintage bombs don't have wires.
The secret to bomb disposal, Wegener said, is figuring out how to separate the fuse from the explosives it was meant to set off.
That proved to be a challenge with the bomb on Unter den Linden.
The first bomb technician on the scene, Detlef Jaab, recognized that the bomb in the pit was either British or American, and big -- at least 1,000 pounds. If it went off, it not only would destroy the statue of Friedrich the Great just beyond the pit but also would shatter windows blocks away and perhaps topple buildings on either side of the street. He called Wegener for help.
By the time Wegener arrived, Jaab had identified the bomb as a British-made GP 1000, made up of 500 pounds of explosives -- half the weight of the bomb -- and a chemical-detonation switch. The switch consisted of a glass ampule of acid designed to dissolve a plastic disk that was holding back a bolt. When the disk is gone, the bolt slams into 3 pounds of explosives that then trigger the bomb.
This bomb had lasted 60 years, Wegener said, because it had landed point up, meaning the acid hadn't been tipped onto the plastic. Had the backhoe operator accidentally tipped the bomb, he and the rest of the construction crew probably would have been vaporized.
Wegener decided it would be too dangerous to move the bomb; he'd have to defuse it where it lay. Since 1945, at least two bomb-squad members a year have died defusing similar bombs in Germany.
Wegener and his team members fetched their toolboxes and crawled into the pit. Wegener took out a power drill and a specially hardened drill bit. Picking a spot about a foot from the bottom of the bomb, just above the fuse, he drilled through the inch-thick outer shell and 6 inches into the bomb's explosives.
Into this hole he slipped a tiny amount -- 1.2 grams -- of high-grade explosives.
His plan was that when this bit of explosives went off, it would create enough force to pop the fuse out of the back of the bomb but not enough to set off the bomb.
It's his favorite method and he's never lost a man using it, partly because he and his crew can be safely away from the bomb when the small charge goes off.
The fuse popped out just as planned, and the explosives -- not so dangerous without a fuse ready to ignite them -- were hoisted onto a waiting truck and taken back to the berm in the forest.
Wegener estimated that another 2,000 to 3,000 such bombs remain in Berlin.
"I like to tell people that every time you turn a spade in the garden, you can uncover a bomb," he said. "I know that for most people, the war has been over for a long time. But here, and especially for me, it's a part of daily life."
A friend sent this to me after the last bomb finding discussion.
Fax
Berlin still uncovering WWII-era bombs
Full story: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002769210_berlinbombs29.html
By Matthew Schofield
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BERLIN -- World War II ended 60 years ago, but it doesn't always feel that way to the people of Berlin, whose lives are disrupted regularly by bombs left over from that conflict.
Take, for example, what happened just a few weeks ago at the packed Christmas market along Unter den Linden, Berlin's most famous boulevard.
Thousands of people were bustling along the street when a backhoe operator at a construction site heard his machine scrape metal. As the clay fell away, the machine's scoop revealed a rusty, cigar-shaped tube as wide and tall as a human torso.
The worker called for help. A police officer called the office of Dirk Wegener, who heads Berlin's bomb-disposal squad. "We think we have something for you," he said. "A bomb. A big bomb."
No surprise
For Wegener, who's worked in the bomb-disposal unit for 18 years, it wasn't a surprise. His office receives 10,000 such calls a year.
"Evacuate the area, and we'll be there as soon as we can," he said.
Allied bombs first crashed into Berlin in 1941. But it wasn't until the autumn of 1943 -- when Nazi forces had overextended themselves by fighting in northern Africa, Europe and the Soviet Union -- that they started falling like rain.
The Allies dropped about 50,000 tons of bombs on Berlin during that time; Wegener says that averaged out to more than 1,000 a day for about 18 months.
Many of them -- German estimates say 10 percent -- didn't explode. At the end of the war, Germans guessed there were 50,000 large, unexploded bombs throughout Berlin.
There were hundreds of thousands more smaller explosives. There's still enough work for six full-time jobs dedicated to old bombs.
Behind Wegener's desk in a cluttered office surrounded by a 10-foot-high earthen berm in Berlin's Grunewald forest is a large map of Berlin.
A colored pin marks where every major bomb has been found, from a 2,000-pounder in May 2002 to a cluster of 25 pins in the Muggelsee neighborhood marking bombs dropped there by Luftwaffe pilots defending Berlin from Russian troops.
Outside the office are rusted artillery shells stacked like cordwood, waist-high boxes of hand grenades -- Nazi, Soviet, British, American -- and a smattering of mines.
Explosives smaller than 100 pounds don't merit pins, Wegener said. "We call those hand bombs; things we can pick up with our hands and move," he said.
Of the bombs found around Berlin last year, only eight were large enough to merit colored pins. One was on the grounds of Tegel International Airport, next to the runway that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was scheduled to leave on. He moved up his departure to avoid being around at detonation.
Movie-scene fiction
Wegener laughs at bomb-detonation scenes in the movies, in which an actor screws down a thick cover and detonates a bomb or a hero cuts the wires and saves the day. In reality, a metal cover would become extra shrapnel, and World War II-vintage bombs don't have wires.
The secret to bomb disposal, Wegener said, is figuring out how to separate the fuse from the explosives it was meant to set off.
That proved to be a challenge with the bomb on Unter den Linden.
The first bomb technician on the scene, Detlef Jaab, recognized that the bomb in the pit was either British or American, and big -- at least 1,000 pounds. If it went off, it not only would destroy the statue of Friedrich the Great just beyond the pit but also would shatter windows blocks away and perhaps topple buildings on either side of the street. He called Wegener for help.
By the time Wegener arrived, Jaab had identified the bomb as a British-made GP 1000, made up of 500 pounds of explosives -- half the weight of the bomb -- and a chemical-detonation switch. The switch consisted of a glass ampule of acid designed to dissolve a plastic disk that was holding back a bolt. When the disk is gone, the bolt slams into 3 pounds of explosives that then trigger the bomb.
This bomb had lasted 60 years, Wegener said, because it had landed point up, meaning the acid hadn't been tipped onto the plastic. Had the backhoe operator accidentally tipped the bomb, he and the rest of the construction crew probably would have been vaporized.
Wegener decided it would be too dangerous to move the bomb; he'd have to defuse it where it lay. Since 1945, at least two bomb-squad members a year have died defusing similar bombs in Germany.
Wegener and his team members fetched their toolboxes and crawled into the pit. Wegener took out a power drill and a specially hardened drill bit. Picking a spot about a foot from the bottom of the bomb, just above the fuse, he drilled through the inch-thick outer shell and 6 inches into the bomb's explosives.
Into this hole he slipped a tiny amount -- 1.2 grams -- of high-grade explosives.
His plan was that when this bit of explosives went off, it would create enough force to pop the fuse out of the back of the bomb but not enough to set off the bomb.
It's his favorite method and he's never lost a man using it, partly because he and his crew can be safely away from the bomb when the small charge goes off.
The fuse popped out just as planned, and the explosives -- not so dangerous without a fuse ready to ignite them -- were hoisted onto a waiting truck and taken back to the berm in the forest.
Wegener estimated that another 2,000 to 3,000 such bombs remain in Berlin.
"I like to tell people that every time you turn a spade in the garden, you can uncover a bomb," he said. "I know that for most people, the war has been over for a long time. But here, and especially for me, it's a part of daily life."
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: Nordic on January 28, 2007, 06:05:52 pm
http://www.lemans.org/24heuresdumans/live/actu/2007-01-22_NC_1258_fr.html
It seems the place is alive with bombs.
Another has turned up, this time in the paddock.
The winter period of work is definitely favourable with this kind of lucky find on the Circuit of Mans. January 10, 2006, it is a bomb of 250 kg, including 125 kg of explosive, which had been exhumed on the level of the tunnel of the Northern entry. January 22, 2007, with the favour of the refittings of the "Park Competitors", in edge of the new Village, it is a new bomb of the second world war, a 1,10 m length, weighing approximately 150 kg, which was unearthed towards 2 p.m. 30. A perimeter of safety was drawn up at once, and the specialized bomb disposal experts of the unit of Caen were to intervene the morning of January 23 to neutralize it. The proximity of the circuit of the "24 Hours" with the aerodrome and, more still, the marshalling yard, explains why this sector of the city was a particular target of the bombardments of war 39/45.
It seems the place is alive with bombs.
Another has turned up, this time in the paddock.
The winter period of work is definitely favourable with this kind of lucky find on the Circuit of Mans. January 10, 2006, it is a bomb of 250 kg, including 125 kg of explosive, which had been exhumed on the level of the tunnel of the Northern entry. January 22, 2007, with the favour of the refittings of the "Park Competitors", in edge of the new Village, it is a new bomb of the second world war, a 1,10 m length, weighing approximately 150 kg, which was unearthed towards 2 p.m. 30. A perimeter of safety was drawn up at once, and the specialized bomb disposal experts of the unit of Caen were to intervene the morning of January 23 to neutralize it. The proximity of the circuit of the "24 Hours" with the aerodrome and, more still, the marshalling yard, explains why this sector of the city was a particular target of the bombardments of war 39/45.
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: termietermite on January 28, 2007, 06:10:27 pm
Wakey, wakey, Nordic
http://www.clubarnage.com/forum/index.php?topic=6116.15
See my post of 23rd Jan ;)
http://www.clubarnage.com/forum/index.php?topic=6116.15
See my post of 23rd Jan ;)
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: Nordic on January 28, 2007, 06:32:03 pm
I thought it odd that it was found on the 22nd and I didnt recal seeing it posted here ;D
I must have been asleep. I remember reading the post before about the motorway access but not that one.
I must have been asleep. I remember reading the post before about the motorway access but not that one.
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: Andy on January 28, 2007, 10:06:24 pm
put a metal detector on the front of the Mower
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: mgmark on January 29, 2007, 09:09:44 am
put a metal detector on the front of the Mower
Or just bolt the front end of a flail tank to the illustrious Commer.........
http://www.d-daytanks.org.uk/articles/flail-tanks.html
After UXB clearance duties, it would be ideal for clearing space in MB.........
MG Mark
Title: Re: Bomb discovered on the Le Mans Circuit.
Post by: Stu on January 29, 2007, 02:58:55 pm
I believe the Beer Mountain site had a rumour on about a German Aircraft Carrier being buried about 3 inches below MB. As demonstrated when trying to get your tent pegs in.
