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M42, M46 submunitions

US-Subs

US-Subs

ORDNANCE APPROVED/Premium Member
Ordnance approved
Premium Member
Bombs, I head to the airport in a couple hours, but before I go I took a couple of photos further related to our submunition discussion. The first is a comparison of the M42/M77 body (R) and the M46 body (L). You can clearly see the lack of engraving on the M46.

Secondly, not many know that in the 1980s, when the surge to return the Iowa class battleships back to service was on, we rushed through development a new ICM round for the 16-inch gun, filled with M42/M46s. We did some of the testing at WSMR, here is a photo of the storage compatibility testing. We cut a small hole through the baseplate and inserted an EBW detonator, then detonated the projectile. It was done on the correct plating for the ship's deck material, and at the correct storage distance and configuration with two HE rounds and two other ICM rounds.

Interesting details, the round's explosive weight was only around 40lbs, which should have given us a frag radius of less than 400 meters. Realizing that this doesn't always work for heavy case munitions, we went out to 6000 feet, more than a mile. Fragments (smallest found was around 25lbs) were found out to 7200 feet. Lots of cactus spines once we crawled out from under the trucks.

I was able to salvage and keep the baseplate, some fragments and a piece of the rotating band, if you look closely at the base plate you can see the cut hole in the center and the circles chipped into the steel where the submunitions were pounding away trying to escape during detonation. First time I'd ever seen anything like it.

See you in December, JO

Moderators, why do we have sections for every type of ordnance except submunitions? This smacks of discrimination. Please consider.
 

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smacks of discrimination ??? thats nice,

Im seeing bolo tonight so will have a chat with him about it ,we will have a look through BOCN forums and see how much submunition stuff has been posted and decide if its worth making a new category at present, untill then there is a category called "other" which is for any other ordnance or militaria topics that are not covered elsewhere
 
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Here a pic. of the M483 an M864 where they where used in. These particular projos where made in license by MKEK in turky. Sorry for the poore quality.
 

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BLU-97, a rather interesting way of sectioning, with the staggered sectioned submunitions. Thanks for sharing the photos.
 
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DJ,

I enjoy the WK2 Ammo forum and I know Jeff also views it, and I know that you have a huge number of postings on it with wonderful photos of sectioned rounds, but BOCN seems to be the best and most popular all-English speaking forum. In addition the WW2 ammo forum software overwrites all the photos with their logo, which basically ruins the photos.

Actually, I was wondering why you don't post more of your material here on BOCN? Then we could all have nice photos of your work without logos in the corner.
 
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Wonderful examples guys. Those 16 inch projectiles are incredible and I agree with John about the sectioning of the submunitions in the 155, an excellent way of doing it.

Dave.
 
I'd love to make a 16" with submunitions for my collection . It would make my row "completer":tinysmile_shy_t:
 
Hey DJ, I'm back. In my travels I once saw a cut-away 16-inch, but it was filled with M43 birdie submunitions (rebounding golfballs). I'll see if I can dig up some photos. JO
 
Here it is. Cut-away like this it probably drops the weight down to around 600-700kg. In the previous photos the base plate I have is over 35kg, and the small bit of rotating band about 2kg of copper.
 

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Herea pic of the 100.000.000 produced grenade.
 

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Racefiets,

I understand the reason. The person in question is known in this country as a thief, stealing from tables at gun shows, stealing from collections, etc.
 
The problem isn't only with the thieves. It was long rumoured that a certain person (in one case) paid persons to either take things from museums where they worked or EOD collections where they worked, then resold them at auctions (also rumored to be dirty) for incredibly high prices. Everyone knew of these rumors and discussed them openly for years - while many of the same people participated in the auctions nevertheless. Aberdeen Ordnance Museum was stripped, going from a warehouse of munitions to barely a closet. This was done not by the one individual and his helpers, but by his dozens and dozens of customers as well. While filling their collections they helped steal from all of us.
 
did that include the Picatinny collection Aberdeen Ordnance Museum Aquired when they closed the doors on the public display, Don't tell me that over 1000 ordnance items walked off !!!!
 
Not from Picatinny, as far as I know, though there are indications....

I knew many of the rumours about the theft at Aberdeen, but got more background from the people at Aberdeen and Picatinny while there on one of several trips I made to photograph ordnance in the storage areas. According to people working at Aberdeen, back around 1994 they received a copy of an auction tape (done on VHS pre-E-Bay) in which the first part of the tape was a visit to Aberdeen, showing the seller's visit to the museum, with an additional escorted side-trip to the storage area. Following this the tape continued with the auction of rare and valuable ordnance pieces. What really set off the alarm bells was the fact that the individual holding up rounds and displaying them for the auction, was the same individual that had been escorting the seller through the museum's storage area. The museum was reportedly locked down and an inventory was immediately conducted, but according to the curator it was too late. Not only were hundreds of pieces missing, but the inventory cards were missing as well, making proof of theft impossible.

About a year later I was back at Picatinny, once again allowed in their storage area to photograph some submunitions stuff. Due to a lack of funding and poor support from the base the military museum board had decided to close the museum, and inventory would start the day after I left, in order to move all items to the museum storage area in Pueblo Depot. It wasn't till some years later that I learned that the items never went to Pueblo, they were instead transferred to Aberdeen.

The closure of Picatinny was more than a year after the episode at Aberdeen, the museum system had changed significantly since then. Nevertheless, 3-4 months after the closure I received two separate e-mails from two people, showing new items that they, or friends, had purchased. Both items were extremely rare pieces that I, as an avid collector, researcher, and EOD Tech for 30 years now, had seen only one time, in one location - at Picatinny. I expressed my concerns to each of the people that had sent me the e-mails, the responses I received were strong denials, stating that I had no way of knowing where these items came from, that obviously more than one was made, and that no proof could be made that these items came from the Picatinny collection. I guess my concerns were wrong - must have just been a coincidence.
 
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