Romanian Bombs WW2

[Irod7]

I managed to find another interesting photo that shows ground technicians mounting fuzes to American style bombs. One seems to be the 50kg/100lb M30 pattern and the other one i think is the 9kg/20lb as the size is way smaller and they are painted in a different, much lighter color. Does it look familiar to you? It does not exactly resemble any of the designs you posted.

 

[Dreamk]

Fantastic documents! and if you look carefully the slender whitish bomb with colored band in the middle indeed corresponds to the drawing of the 25lb chemical bomb , I posted earlier, from the Greek Cartidge Co catalogue.
Very exceptional finding. Thanks a lot!

 

[wingsofwrath]

Speaking or Romanian aircraft bombs, I think I might be in possession of a gaine/adaptor for one such bomb. I got it from a digger in Odesa in 2011, but other than he found it nearby I have no information about it, since he spoke very little English.

it looks very much like a French "gaine-relais" for the Mle.1900 HE shell from the 75mm Mle.1897 field gun, including having a vertical hole for a locking pin, but other than having the same top diameter - 31mm and the same height of 14mm the similarities stop there. The bottom diameter is larger - 53mm instead of 47mm - and both the inside and outside threads are coarser, so it will not fit French 24/31 fuzes nor will it fit in a shell body.

The piece is in remarkably good condition, including a lot of original khaki paint, which is why I thought it might come from an aircraft bomb, because Romanian HE shells of the era were all painted yellow. Another possibility that I thought of was it came from a Russian shell, since one French produced HE variant for the 76.2 mm divisional gun model 1902 also had a similar gaine/adaptor to the French shell, but not only that was threaded to use the same 24/31 French fuzes and had the same dimensions at the French adaptor, it was also never painted khaki either in Russian or Romanian use (we painted it yellow, the Russians kept it unpainted or painted it blue-grey)

As for what bomb it might have come from, well, that's where we hit a snag, because even though the French bombs we also used had similar adaptors so it could have come from one of them, according to the 1932 "Manuel de Munitions" available on Gallica, the French aerial bomb fuzes had the same thread as the 24/31 shell fuzes. So I'm guessing the bomb this comes from is probably a uniquely Romanian design.

Finally, there are also some bombs exhibited at the Bucharest Military Museum with this type of adaptor (Picture by Irod7) , but they seem to be mostly trench mortar bombs repurposed to be dropped from aircraft so their adaptors should also be threaded for standard 24/31. Besides, the aviation section is currently closed for renovation, so I don't have access.

 

[Dreamk]

Very interesting finding!
Well, French bombs were widely used by the Romanians - mostly the 50kg and 100kg but also the 500kg and 10kg
This picture from ebay shows such an unexploded 500kg French bomb Mle 1930 (in the center) found by German sappers in the mud of Sevastopol - Some Romanian JRS79 were fitted with external bomb racks to take a pair of such bombs, that could also be carried by the Romanian Bloch 210.
Maybe MINENAZ16 or YODAMASTER can enlighten us on the subject of this threading gaine.

Another possibility is Polish bombs - also widely used by the Romanians but I could not find in the Popiel details of the gaines/threading of the various models.

Romanian bomb colours is an unresolved issue - as the museum examples have been overpainted and cannot be trusted.
From sampel findings such as the one which clour photograph was uploaded by Irod earlier in this thread, we can confirm that Romanian produced bombs were indeed painted overall khaki green but B&W photographs show the American bombs were definitively of a very light color corresponding to the original American yellow. French bomb also appear in a light color so may have also remained in the original French yellow. Polish bombs appear in darker shade so may have remained in teh original Polish khaki-green

 

[Dreamk]

BTW I have not succeeded to find the export license of the US bombs to Romania in the 1930-39 period but I found mention of a 24lb incendiary bomb produced by Federal Laboratories

 

[wingsofwrath]

Now that is a very good photo.

The bombs in front are clearly French 150mm Mle.1917 trench mortar bombs repurposed to be dropped out of aircraft, the same as exhibited at the Bucharest Military Museum (photo also by Irod7) and, between them, what looks like an 81mm mortar bomb (not sure if thrown from an aircraft or just shot by a regular mortar and just happenend to be in the area).

The big one looks like a Polish 200kg WZ.39 bomb we got alongside the PZL.37 Łoś when we allowed the Polish Army to escape through our territory in 1939 but kept their equipment. You'll note the shape of the adaptors at both ends of the bomb as present in this plan - especially the rear one looks very close to the mystery gaine, but since I don't have any close up photos, I'll leave this here for now until I can find more information about it.

Finally, the one in the back looks like a French 50kg D.T.-2, which is also very good contender for the source of our mystery gaine, because I realised there is one exhibited at the Bucharest Military Museum and Irod7 was kind enough to give me the photos he took of it in 2021.
And, lo and behold, it turns out this type of bomb has a rear fuze adaptor as well which is a much closer match to the mystery gaine - it has the right shape, it has the locking pin hole (and in this case, like on mine, it actually lacks the pin but it's covered by khaki paint) and the rear No 3bis fuze has a different thread than the nose fuzes.

 

[MINENAZ16]

I think your gaine is a French 47/55 model 1915B for 105mm and 120mm and 145mm HE shells

 

[Dreamk]

The big one looks like a Polish 200kg WZ.39 bomb we got alongside the PZL.37 Łoś when we allowed the Polish Army to escape through our territory in 1939 but kept their equipment. You'll note the shape of the adaptors at both ends of the bomb as present in this plan - especially the rear one looks very close to the mystery gaine, but since I don't have any close up photos, I'll leave this here for now until I can find more information about it.

Allow me to disagree. This is definitively a French 500kg No2 - the shape and the sturts are charachteristic - the Polish Wz39 bombs had, among other details, rigged struts and a cylindrical body mot a semi-ogival body as here.












The bomb in the left is most probably a French 100kg byt identification is difficult as the rear part of the fins and the struts are badly seen
Here are some drawings and shots of the French 100kg


a modern replica of this bomb (teh body is original the fin is a replica)


Interestingly teh romanians seem to have used both models of the French 100kg - teh one with teh square struts reinforcement, like here, and the more modern one with the cylindrical struts reinforcement. It is too big for a 50kg DT2 - on teh photograph its size is almost as tall as the size of the soldiers, while a DT2 would arrive to only to their waist:

 

[wingsofwrath]

I think your gaine is a French 47/55 model 1915B for 105mm and 120mm and 145mm HE shells

Hello, do you perchance have the proper dimensions for one of those so I can compare? Because I haven't been able to find them. I know that particular gaine is used, for example, on the "Obus de 105mm Mle.1914", but I've never seen one up close.

I took another look at the thread and it seems I was wrong, the reason it didn't fit the fuzes was because the thread was gunked up in the inside but you couln't see it unless you looked reeealy closely with a dentist's mirror and a flashlight. I cleaned it a bit and yes, now it will fit them, albeit with difficulty and only part-way, but I confirmed that yes, that is a French fuze thread.

However that does not explain the olive paint, unless, of course, French bomb makers decided to fit their bombs with pre-existing hardware to save on costs and R&D time like using an off-the-shelf 47/55 Mle.1915B for the nose and/or the back of their bombs, which is entirely possible.
Which means I still want to measure the bomb from the museum.

 

[wingsofwrath]

Allow me to disagree. This is definitively a French 500kg No2 - the shape and the sturts are charachteristic - the Polish Wz39 bombs had, among other details, rigged struts and a cylindrical body mot a semi-ogival body as here.

The bomb in the left is most probably a French 100kg byt identification is difficult as the rear part of the fins and the struts are badly seen

I think you're right - hadn't seen that plan of the 500kg bomb until now and I also had no sense of scale for the 50kg bomb from the museum (the fact they are very similar in shape and only different in size doesn't help matters), but now that I do I agree that the one behind is, most likely an 100kg and the big one looks like a 500kg No.2.

 

[Dreamk]

The second bomb may however be a Polish 100kg Wz31 - As I said we do not see clearly the tail of this bomb which was verys similar to the French 100kg
Here's a photo of the 100kg Wz31

 

[wingsofwrath]

Finally, after a bit of work and ruining a perfectly fine dental pick, I got the fuzes to sit - it seems to like the Peuch the best and the RYG and Robin - Lejay don't quite thread all the way, but progress, I guess.

I wonder if th Poles paid any royalties or just copied the French bombs, as they did with the PuW...

Which also raises the question - if they copied the French designs so closely, might they also have copied the French fuze adaptors fitted to them?
Especially since they were definitely making French 105mm shells and, if that indeed is a standard 47/55 Mle.1915B repurposed for use in a bomb as Minenaz16 suggests, then they would have had them in production already, so it would have been a matter of just slapping one on a bomb and calling it a day.

 

[MINENAZ16]

Maybe not difficult to find this gaine in Poland :

120 mm armata wz. 1878/09/31 oraz wz. 1878/10/31 - weu1918-1939.pl

Polskie 120mm wz. 1878/09/31 and wz. 1878/10/31 field guns

derela.pl

 

[Dreamk]

It took me some time but I found the export license of the American Bombs to Romania:
The producer was Lake Erie Chemical Co. from Cleveland, Ohio, through their export subsidiary the US Ordnance Engineers Inc.
The export batch of aerial bombs to Romania was authorised on September 1937, but due to "technical" delays these bombs were finally sent in...February 1939. (This of course brings to mind the saga of the export of the Hotchkiss 13.2mm to Romania - paid in...Rumanian tobacco).
The details of these bombs are not mentioned in the license as the US Ordnance Engineers Inc. furnished a full information files, including drawings to the US Authorities to get export clearance under the Military Secrets Act, and this file is not available digitally.

 

[Dreamk]

I found in CAT UXO a is a photogarph of the 30lbs version of the "chemical bomb" seen in the photographs earlier in this thread which show the slender 24lbs version (apparently, in accordance to the practice of the period, a 50lbs order version also existed) - The diameter of this bomb looks indeed to be equal to the with of the fins, while on the photographs the diameter appears smaller than witdth.
Its official name is the T-1 30lbs (a name that does not mean nothing beyond the fact that it is an experiental model not yet accepted officially by the US military)
No other details are known.
I would not trust thr colors or markings on this photographied sample.

 

[Irod7]

Not exactly a bomb, but very closely related.

Thanks to @Dreamk `s post in another topic I managed to ID a device i have seen in a photo from my collection, namely a Romanian IAR-Potez 25 B2. It is an aerial smoke dispenser made by Federal Laboratories called "X-4 Apparatus" and was introduced some time around 1933 (when the catalog is published).

 

[Dreamk]

Great identification Irod!
They seem to have used also another model of smoke emitter, but I have no idea of its origin - (I thought initially that is was French but the French Mle 1930 was quite different):