Two American WW2 aerial bombs found in my city

Now this isn't that big of a deal around here where so much explosives are found every year, most of it grenades, mortar shells, mines, etc, and most of it unreported by the mass media, except the really big ones.

But it's the first time I have ever witnesses such a thing myself so close to my vicinity, so I took the opportunity to share such an event happening right now, to possibly get some of the opinions or stories about these bombs over here if there's a bomb expert flying in DCS :)

Two such big-ones were found one after another in 2 days respectively last weekend, but these two, while practically inside the city, posed less danger than the one (which I didn't mention here) that was found much further outside the city in 2017 which had a chemical fuse and was unlike any other found before in my country, I may do a separate post on that one later.

https://english.sta.si/2692181/two-wwii-bombs-found-in-maribor-to-be-defused-this-week

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The first bomb is on the southern side of the river, near the railway bridge, where a new shopping store is being constructed, right beside a big shopping center.

As of a few hours ago, first bomb got deactivated.

You live on a beautiful country, in May I had the pleasure of passing trough Liubliana during a trip from Trieste to Zagreb and it looked really nice .. pity that I didnt had the time to spend a day or two there :(

Thanks for the news, on my country we have a similar problem, but rather than bombs they are land-mines that were placed by the army many years ago but that the rains have displaced them over the years and now can surface anywhere .. here I have an article where a map shows the approximate location (in spanish only, sorry):

https://www.vice.com/es/article/z4zbj8/chile-contina-lleno-de-las-minas-antipersonales-que-puso-el-dictador-pinochet

Greetings.

In Germany, they literally find another bomb every time they excavate somewhere... I stopped counting how often that happened in my vicinity long ago

Great post.

We get quite a few in the UK.

I have taken my family on holiday to Slovenia twice in the last few tears. Skiing for 2 weeks and a walking holiday taking in Lake Bled. It's a beautiful country and we were made to feel so welcome everywhere we went.

Can't wait to go back.

In Germany, they literally find another bomb every time they excavate somewhere... I stopped counting how often that happened in my vicinity long ago

Yeah, it's indeed pretty common here. About 5,500 UXOs (unexploded ordonance, most of them being WW2 bombs) are being discovered and disarmed/removed per year in Germany. Sometimes entire city districts have to be evacuted because of this. They suspect there are still about 100,000 UXOs left undiscovered in Germany.

You'd think many of those would be way past their "explode by date". How dangerous are they really?

You'd think many of those would be way past their "explode by date". How dangerous are they really?

Not sure. My brother who moved to the UK 15 or so years ago found one when he was excavating some land to build a add on to his house. he left it in place and just covered it up with soil and paving stones. His thinking is it didn't go off in over 70 years there is no chance in hell it's going to go off now.

You'd think many of those would be way past their "explode by date". How dangerous are they really?

From just a few months ago: https://www.dw.com/en/wwii-bomb-self-detonates-in-german-field-leaves-crater/a-49331435

I hope that answers your question :music_whistling:

You'd think many of those would be way past their "explode by date". How dangerous are they really?

They get more dangerous the older they get. Especially those with chemical (delay) fuses which become more and more unpredictable over time.

The explosives as such don't go bad, afaik, as long as it is contained in the bomb shell and doesn't get in contact with air or water or so.

Reading through this thread makes me think, WAR IS AN UGLY BUSINESS.

500,000 bombs still underground? Looks like the sky was raining bombs in that war.

A war that ended decades ago still have potent weapons in places today.

Thank goodness for technology that discovers and safely excavate this bombs.

Are there ways to make modern bomb self-deactivate after some years?

Reading through this thread makes me think, WAR IS AN UGLY BUSINESS.

+1

Thank goodness for technology that discovers and safely excavate this bombs.

Uhm, well, usually the technology to find them is something like this:

Are there ways to make modern bomb self-deactivate after some years?

No. They either go up some day or they won't. But they never really become "safe" without digging them up and getting rid of them.

In germany, a lot of effort it put into finding them before someone accidentally digs them up, though. Aerial photographs from WWII are analyzed to find duds that might still be in the ground. I think, it is a mandatory prerequisite in many places/cities to have that be done before you are allowed to build a house on your own property in germany.

edit: oh, ok, sorry. You were asking about modern bombs. Yes, there are attempts to make them safer. For example the bomblets of a CBU-97 are supposed to deactivate themselfs if they neither found a target nor went off when hitting the ground. Dumb cluster amunitions are said to have a rather high number of duds (like 20+%?), causing problems for decades (hence the attempts to ban CBUs). The CBU-97 is supposed to yield only 3%? 5%? of dud submunitions ...

+1

 

 

 

 

Uhm, well, usually the technology to find them is something like this:

 

 

No. They either go up some day or they won't. But they never really become "safe" without digging them up and getting rid of them.

 

 

In germany, a lot of effort it put into finding them before someone accidentally digs them up, though. Aerial photographs from WWII are analyzed to find duds that might still be in the ground. I think, it is a mandatory prerequisite in many places/cities to have that be done before you are allowed to build a house on your own property in germany.

 

 

edit: oh, ok, sorry. You were asking about modern bombs. Yes, there are attempts to make them safer. For example the bomblets of a CBU-97 are supposed to deactivate themselfs if they neither found a target nor went off when hitting the ground. Dumb cluster amunitions are said to have a rather high number of duds (like 20+%?), causing problems for decades (hence the attempts to ban CBUs). The CBU-97 is supposed to yield only 3%? 5%? of dud submunitions ...

Thanks

Fortunately these two are with double mehanic fuses. The one with a chemical fuse was the one from 2017, some 13 kilometers away to the east.

The story of that is most unusual. There is a half destroyed castle on top of the Vurberk hill, and there lives a family nearby which was playing "treasure hunting" and the father actually had a real metal detector, after they found the bomb he loaded it into his pickup truck, drove into the front yard of their house some distance away, but on top of the hill pretty much in the vicinity, only then they called the police. He has also been charged with "public endangerment" by moving the bomb to the residential area, if convicted it's a 5 year prison sentence and I actually didn't check yet what happened with that case.

They used the pulley system to move the bomb some distance away down the backway road into a prepared hole to direct the potential blast into the forrest.

We're still finding civil war ordnance from the 1860's.

A few years ago a guy was restoring a 75 pound ball he thought was enert when it blew up. :doh:

Dangerous stuff.

We get quite a few in the UK.

Guess Mr. Trump had a point about the rebel army taking those airfields back in 1777. ;)

But on the more serious notes:

The technology of finding them goes a bit beyond just digging in the earth at random. Obviously that's how it happens when you just stumble upon a surprise dud bomb from WW2, but a whole lot of them were (and still are) found rather deliberately. This process starts with simply knowing what the whole area looked like back then. Was there an industrial area nearby then? What did it produce? This gives a good hint. Depending on the area the locals might actually remember whether or not an air raid had taken place. That doesn't help in the larger cities, though, with too many attacks to really remember the details.

A building I'm working in now and then was built in the early 2000s and when digging they had to stop for explosives almost every yard. Looks like people had forgotten that the area - quite built up today - housed a small airfield back in the day.

Another thing the EOD folks do is study the recce photos. Both British and American HQs often sent photographic reconnaissance flights both to get a general picture of what's going on but also to assess bomb damage. On many of those photographs you can actually see the location of unexploded bombs, as they left an impression in the ground but no 'proper' explosion crater. It all is a science.

As far as I know modern bombs, while obviously still a danger, are slightly less chaos because most manufacturers stopped using chemical long-term fuses, among other reasons thanks to being faced with this very problem. The point back then was to have an alternate fuse that would go off if the first one failed - having the bomb explode days after the attack and thus causing more chaos and destruction during rebuilding efforts was considered a bit of a bonus. At the most basic design they are just a vial of acid slowly eating its way through a seal. Of course somebody figured that some of those bombs would be stockpiled for weeks or months, so they tried to play it safe, make those seals a little thicker and not worry about the whole warehouse blowing up one day. If I'm not mistaken the RAF still used some leftover WW2 vintage iron bombs in the 1980s... So, today's bombs usually don't have that particular extra danger, but then handling them is obviously dangerous business anyway.

There are many of them buried along rail road tracks leading to the WWII western front, right where I live. Those tracks and railroad stations got heavily bombed in the last phase of WWII.

There are places around here where you can hop from crater to crater. If you then come to a spot where the crater is missing, don't dig ;)

Did all sides use chemical fuses or just the germans ? Those I heard are the most nasty ones you can encounter afaik, but I am total noob with those things. I just know there are plenty still buried in my larger area around Kaiserslautern and Kusel, where one of the last intact tracks went west.

My Grandma had a dud in front of her door when she and my dad came out of the bunker one night during WWII. Luckily the Wehrmacht had specialists ready and nearby and a few hours later they were allowed to go into their home. She said when that thing had detonated the house would have been blown away.

It's a sad thing with those dud's.

They still regularly find duds in Austria as well. Few years ago they found a rather big one on a construction site near the railroad station in Graz. IIRC they couldn't defuse it successfully so it had to be detonated on site.

The resulting shock wave even blew the digits off the station clock.

Been to Vietnam last summer. Seen maps how many ordnance there has been dropped during the Vietnam war and the country was about 75% covered in bomb colors...

The whole world is one big bomb if your really think about it. The amount of nukes and ordnance stored and saved for a rainy day is sick.

They still regularly find duds in Austria as well. Few years ago they found a rather big one on a construction site near the railroad station in Graz. IIRC they couldn't defuse it successfully so it had to be detonated on site.

 

The resulting shock wave even blew the digits off the station clock.

In Munich they had to blow one up in the middle of the city. They "padded" the surrounding buidlings/area with hay bales, iirc, to dampen the blast and to protect from debris (would not help much against actual shrapnell, but I don't really know). Well, turns out that hay and explosives/fire do not go together too well ...

This is the most hardcore easter egg hunt in history.

Been to Vietnam last summer. Seen maps how many ordnance there has been dropped during the Vietnam war and the country was about 75% covered in bomb colors...

 

 

 

The whole world is one big bomb if your really think about it. The amount of nukes and ordnance stored and saved for a rainy day is sick.

At least a couple of years ago metalworking was one of Vietnam's most prominent exports. In a country with hardly any ore mines. Many people there literally make a living from bomb shell fragments.

At least a couple of years ago metalworking was one of Vietnam's most prominent exports. In a country with hardly any ore mines. Many people there literally make a living from bomb shell fragments.

Gives a new perspective to minecraft :lol: