Luftwaffe Parachute Mine.

[skull181]

The Parachute mine displayed at the Maritme Museum, Liverpool.

It's huge and I can't even imagine the devastation it caused when it landed.

Don't know why it's painted gloss black, and I couldn't see any markings or stamps on it...

I'd love to own one of these!

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/

 

[millsbomber]

There was one in the IWM London, Massive things, if you want one there's loads still in the sea, just learn to scuba, the best thing is there free and no one wants them,,,,,, Dave

 

[skull181]

I might just do that!

 

[kahu1]

It might be painted black as a Drill or training aid,seemed to be the colour of choice in the '40s-50s.

 

[Rockteer]

My guess would be the gloss black to to stop it corroding, looks like some of it might have suffered from salt water corrosion. Things out of the sea have a habit of keep corroding back, they do settle down eventually.

 

[skull181]

I would agree with that, I wonder if it came from the Mersey? loads were dropped over Liverpool and most landed in the River Mersey...

Don't recall any ships being sunk though... :hmpf:

 

[waffenamt]

Hey Skully,

They were also dropped on towns because they caused great blast damage that tore off roofs. usually followed up by an incendiary raid.

waffy

 

[skull181]

My nan actually saw one floating down on the end of a Parachute, she heard the "flapping" of the 'chute and scarpered pretty quick to the shelter in Tiverton St, Wavertree, Liverpool. After the raid, half of Heygreen Rd. was missing, and you can still see the "new" houses that replaced those blown up in the explosion all those years ago.

 

[skull181]

I have found out that at least two ships were sunk on the River Mersey, 13 March 1941, by these Parachute mines:

Tacoma City (Reardon Smith Company) Four crew killed.

Ullapool (Sir R. Ropner & Sons Ltd.) 15 crew killed

 

[Dreamk]

One of the most annoying thing is the disinformation created by museum searching to make attractive displays. The above described mine was indeed a parachute air dropped mine, BUT without this tail - this tail was exclusive to the version dropped by boats of the Kriegsmarine (the presence of fins does not imply "air-dropped"). I'll try to post later the original documentation about it. The origin of this confusion is the lack of clarity in the text of a US publication of 1946 describing this mine (something not uncommon in this same publication) . The tail was serrated by a number of bolts and obviously not made to be discarded in mid air. The bomb was shortened by comparison with the Air-dropped LMB due to the suppression of the parachute compartment.


This phenomenon is not uncommon - even in "respectable" places like the IWM or the RAF museum at Hendon. Same kind of misconception prevails for instance for the various "bouncing bombs" presented in various museum - always painted in dull black, as if they were naval mines (it indeed looks similar) although these bombs were used operationally only once, for the Rurh Dambuster raid, and from German EOD reports (they found one of these bombs was unexploded after the raid) we know that they were in fact painted red (minium anti-rust paint) with white lettering. This was a common practice for "experimental" weapons - another example being the 2800lb "Ppink Pansy" (a 4000lb HC bomb casing filled with incendiary matter and used as a target indicator marker) that was initially painted with red anti-rust paint, hastily covered with the classic industrial grey paint (often use by itself for its own anti-rust properties). Such an example was recovered unexploded by German EODs. Only later this bomb was painted black as other RAF markers.

 

[Rockteer]

I didn't realise there was any difference from the mines dropped by the Luftwaffe compared to the ones used by the Kriegsmarine?? that always made sense to me as the ones dropped by the Luftwaffe still had the magnetic element fitted which would not be needed as a blast weapon on land.

 

[Dreamk]

The use of naval mines as blast bombs by the Luftwaffe was an improvisation during the London Blitz e to their lack of heavy bombs. Thence the high percent of duds with these mines when dropped over English cities. Another similar improvisation later in war was, on the Eastern front, to use the tail version of the BM-1000 as a heavy bomb (and even as a demolition charge) once again for the same reasons.

 

[butterfly]

I dont think the piece you refer to was exclusive to the naval mine - take a look at this video -( it is worth looking at from the beginning, but for the purposes of this discussion I have started it near the end) if you let it run it will continue into part 5 but it shows the removal of an outer sheet of casing which is held in place by bolts (you will see from the video what I mean)

https://youtu.be/NKi_EI05kX4?t=9m32s

this is of course a air dropped parachute naval mine. the one in the video is the first one discovered I believe.
I know once they started using the mines for land targets they were painted a blue-grey colour.

It would of course be true that this outer casing was not neccessary if launched from a boat as all it does is streamline the mine with the additional parachute and end cap.

[ The Naval version of the magnetic mine had the gimbaled switch unit in the tail section held by springs, the parachute launched version had a rubber diaphragm instead to absorb shock, not springs. Of course the parachute version was only intended as a different method of laying the mines, unfortunately this was its downfall as parachute launched weapons were not accurate and wind affected where they landed. Hence the first mine discovered was accidentally dropped above low water mark, not a mistake a ship or submarine would make.
It is also true that the mines dropped on land still had the magnetic switches fitted, so maybe they could still be used as naval mines?]

Dreamk, could you tell me the arrangement for the parachute and rear outer casing of the land dropped mines if the item you refer to was not fitted to these.......I would like to understand the difference?

Kev

screenshot from above link for discussion purposes....

 

[Dreamk]

Kev, what you have here ion the movie is a different model of mine - it's the LMA, the first one to have been dropped upon Britain. As the air dropped LMB it had no tail, but a rear cap that was discarded when the bomb was dropped in order to allow for the parachute contained in the rear compartment of the bomb to deploy - see teh following drawing of a LMB and a LMA.
with a better photo of the mine you see in this movie and a period drawing of this same mine
Now here is a LMB open and a photo of a dud LMB with parachute still attached
You can see now how the parachute was attached - not on outside lugs (if present they were used for manipulation of the mine aboard boats, as the lugs found on depth charges) but fixed to attachments inside the chute compartment.

Concerning the tail with fins of the LMB III, it can be plausibly supposed that initially the Germans may have tried to develop a non-parachute version of the air dropped LMB (The first LMB used by the Kriegsmarine were similar to the LMB III, with a similar screwed end cover but without the fins) - however, except with the BM250 these trials were constantly failures (and we must keep in mind that the BM250 was in fact a body of SC250 bomb with an influence mechanism) - only in late ww2 appeared a version of the BM-1000 (the BM1000IV) that was similar to a regular bomb, but with additions of shroud and nose "bumper" ina similar way to the late US MkXIII torpedo. Another possible explanations given for the fins is that these bombs were indeed designed to be launched from S-boats at speed, though I'm not convinced.
Here you have an opened air-dropped LMB and under it the early version used by the Kriegsmarine.

 

[butterfly]

Ok, I see my confusion, you are talking about what the british BD referred to as the type C mine. The one shown in the video link, first one found was a type A. To be honest I have never really studied the parachute compartment and its differences. I just remembered seeing the one in the video and it being used in a parachute launched mine.

thanks for the clarification

regards Kev

 

[skull181]

Dreamk, what is the Mine type I posted from Liverpool Martime Museum?

I love the info' on these mines, many thanks mate.. :top:

 

[Dreamk]

The German denomination for it is the LMBIII. It was the only mine with such a fin.

The other air-dropped mines with fins were the BM250 Wasserbombe (based upon a Flambombe 250, itself a variant of the SC250) and the BM1000IV

Wasserbomb 250


BM1000IV with cap false nose and tail (the upper one in the drawing )


The appellation of these mines is quite a mess - teh British were of course unaware of the German denomination of the objects that "landed" on their soil and gave then a denimitaion GA, GB, GC etc. BUT corrected sometimes afterwards this denomination, when they understood that some mines having received different appellations were as a matter of fact versions of the same mine. The US afterwar documenattion made the issue more messy by introducing their own denomination according to the influence system used to detonate the bomb (Bm1000 J, M etc...)...and making mistakes upon British denominations for these mines in some of the documents they published. If you add to that, that the German denomination is not always very clear by itself....

 

[skull181]

So, I take it that it is a Kriegsmarine version, LMBIII??

 

[Dreamk]

Yes, though it cannot be excluded that initially it was developed to be air-dropped (without parachute) - these attempts were generally unsuccessful.

 

[Fusse2004]

Here's more on this subject.