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Yugoslav Bombs

Dreamk

Well-Known Member
I found this exceptional document in the Italian Luce archive - a display of Yugoslav aircraft bombs captured in Dalmatia in 1941.Dalmatia 1941.jpg

No less than 6 different designs of bombs can be seen here:
1) 3 variants of a bomb of the type dropped during the Yugoslavian air raid on Graz in 1941 - see posts http://www.bocn.co.uk/vbforum/threads/99488-Yugoslavian-bomb?highlight=yugoslav and http://www.bocn.co.uk/vbforum/threads/100405-ID-needed?highlight=french+bomb
The variation are in the fins: unreinforced / circular band reinforcement / square band reinforecement (makes remember of the successive versions of the French 100kg bomb)
Type 1.jpg Pancer Division alongside unexploded bombs thrown at the attack of Yugoslav Royal Air Force jhg2.jpg Type 1 suspected rep.jpg Type 1 suspected bomba.jpg

dimensions (based on the remnants found by al'saad in an exhibition house: overall length approx 138cm, body length approx 58cm, dia approx 25cm

2) in the rear a slender bomb seen also on the following photo of a Croatian Breguet 19
Type 2.gif Type 2 Breguet 19.jpg
3) on the left 2 versions of a bomb with 6 fins and a circular reinforcing band, seen also quite frequently on photos of Yugoslavian Blenheims and Croatian planes, and apprently the same as seen in crates at the Mostar airport in 1941
Type 3.gif Type 3bis.gif 19072 2.jpg

Sadly no data for these bombs - neither weights nor exact dimensions, not even their appellations.

If we add the 12kg STankovich, the 106kg Stankovich and the large (200kg?) bomb shown in a hangar at Mostar airport, the range of Yugoslavian designed bombs is quite impressive.
11.jpg Bombe STankovic 106Kg on Yugoslav do17k-bomb.jpg Deposito di bombe serbe abbandonato a Mostar nella primavera 1941 19985 (1).jpg
 
Italian 140 kg bomb is the only one I found so far which body can be compared to the unknown bomb used by Yugoslav Royal Air Force. Only the tail assembly is totally different.
 

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The 4-fins bombs seem to have much in common with the bombs made by the French and the Soviet in the 1920s and early 1930s by reconverting artillery shells into aircraft bombs.
 
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By long analysis unknown bomb might be Stankovitch 200kg bomb. Unfortunately there is no drawings preserved from Valjevo factory to confirm but...I will try to arrange with museum to try to put my preserved Stankovitch fuze in the bomb in order to confirm the origin.
 
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