What's new
British Ordnance Collectors Network

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Unknown Czech Bomb Fuze

Akon Hi!
Thanks a lot! This is really great informative data.
Am I correct in identifying the following bombs as (from left to right) 50 kg vz. 34, 100 kg vz. 34 and 200 kg vz. 34
Have you more details on these bombs?


obr.jpg 50 kg (1).jpg100 kg.gif200 kg (1).jpg
 
Hi Dreamk
Yes, you have the kg/,,vzor,, okay :)
For interest, where do you get these cutouts of the drawings?
 
Hi Akon

I found these pictures in a Czech military modelling forum: https://www.modelforum.cz/viewtopic.php?f=310&t=57385.
They appeared also (but in quite bad quality) in a Czech/English booklet on Letov (or Avia?) airplanes (I have not these books underhand to check) and the legend attributed their origin to the "S. Mikolas collection"

Would you have more details on these bombs: real weight, nature and weight of explosive, fuse delays?

And details and picture of the 500kg bomb in this series (only a handful were produced)
 
Last edited:
I assess that these are 10kg vz.37 (the reinforcing struts between the fins of the 20kg vz. 34 were wider and had a middle inverted ridge for reinforcement) and but their fuze looks somehow strange - Akon what do you think?
h0889.jpg
 
foto :
These are museum unsuitable dummies that produced a photograph of a suspended plane for visitors. I have met several such traps in various quality and design. We also have bombs under the plane in the military museum and they are very bad dummies. Therefore, you have no problem with identification. ,,10kg tříštivá puma vz.37,, never existed in that be sure. There are a lot of details that do not match. But the first aluminum body of the hood was never .... and the same fuse was never aluminum. The shape of the hood and the strip is also fiction ...
Akon
PS : I will describe the others later. to bombs vz.34 in the next situation around 500 kg of bombs will be described later.
 
Last edited:
Hi Dreamk,
Basic data:

10 kg fragmentation air bomb vz.34
Total weight: 11.7kg
Explosive weight: 1.7kg ,
Fuse vz.34 Delay: 0; 0.4s
Suspension: H / V
Stabilization: 170mm
------------------------------------------
20 kg fragmentation air bomb vz.34
Total weight: 23.4kg
Explosive weight: 4.2 kg
Fuse vz.34 Delay: 0;
Suspension: H / V
Stabilization: 170mm
------------------------------------------
50 kg fragmentation air bombs vz.34
Total weight: 53kg
Explosive weight: 15.25kg
Fuse vz.34
Delay: 0; 0.4s
Suspension: H / V
Stabilization: 357mm
-----------------------------------------
100 kg fragmentation air bomb vz.34
Total weight: 98kg
Explosive weight: 38.5kg
Fuse: vz.34
Delay: 0; 0.4s.
Suspension: H / V
Stabilization: 357mm
--------------------------------------------
200kg fragmentation air bomb vz.34
Total weight: 200kg
Explosive weight: 80.8kg
Fuse: vz.34
Delay: 0.4s
Suspension: H / V
Stabilization 463mm
-------------------------------------------
H-Horizontal , V-.Vertical
Akon
PS: 500 kg later there will be another text later.
 
Last edited:
Yes, this is the drawing from the D. Mikolas collection I spoke in former post - I think it was published in a 2 volumes books on the Letov S-328 published by Jakab editions some years ago but I am not sure of this.

Akon, did you succeed to get details on the 500 kg bomb vz.34? was is of similar shape to the 200 kg vz.34?

There were former, earlier 200kg and 500kg bombs in Czech service. Do you know whether these former bombs were also of Czech design or were they imported from France as part of the MB-200 deal? (I understand that until the introduction of the B-71 bomber in Czech air force, the MB200 was the only aircraft available able to take 500kg bombs)
 
The whole problem is that the author did not cite exactly the sources or the title of the monograph from which he drew drawings, descriptions, etc. ... this is a tradition here in the Czechoslovak Republic :)

500 kg bombs vz.34 never existed and the reasons: the army tested the effectiveness of bombs and found that it is not reasonable to waste bombs and buy expensive bombers capable of holding a reasonable number of heavy bombs. In addition, it had its own solution in the sense that the bombs allowed connection to the bottom of each other, ie especially for 50 kg of bombs.34 and thus the weight of the explosive falling into one place multiplied twice. Furthermore, for better placement of bombs, the variant "inner cell" was chosen and the placement of bombs in the fuselage perpendicular (at 10, 20 kg). bombs in the fuselage had better aircraft range and it was possible, among other things, to control the unlocking of the fuse.
For experiments with 500kg bombs, they had one type of Foker ... which was adapted for this purpose(At a time when the aviation industry was not at the required technical level ... then it was not current to deal with Fokr :)
Bombs made in France :
The bombs were of Czech construction, They bought the planes without bombs, of course.

-----
The General Staff counted on the air assistance of France in the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and for this purpose were prepared airports, ground supplies, ammunition, including bombs for French aicraft machines. The event was called by the code name "Units F". It was planned to adapt the Czech bombs to cells of the French type, D ,, mle 1923 .. and for that there was communication with the French side and a lot of paperwork for that ...
Akon
 
Deeply interesting and clarifying a lot of things that puzzled me for long. Thanks a lot Akon!

The General Staff counted on the air assistance of France in the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and for this purpose were prepared airports, ground supplies, ammunition, including bombs for French aicraft machines. The event was called by the code name "Units F"
This may explain the presence of this French 100kg bomb found some years ago in the Váh river near Trenčín.
The suspension is the original French suspension but the fuze looks somehow strange for such a French bomb (may be a AC10 German fuze or a Czech fuze?)
French 100kg found in Vah river near Trencin Bomba.jpg French 100kg found in Vah river near Trencin P1010061.JPGFrench 100kg found in Vah river near Trencin P1010062.JPG
 
Last edited:
Hi Dreamk
I understand that you do not know the history of the Czechoslovak Republic, there is no reason for that. You mixed pears with apples. After the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic, I fought with Hungary and then with Poland (for simplification, it does not matter what the conflict was called - artillery and air force were used, including bombing). Thus, sometime around 1919, the French Air Squadron operated in Slovakia as part of the Czechoslovak Army. At that time, the Chief of Staff was a Frenchman. So this bomb in the photo is the original French from 1919 ... and not German. As you probably understand, the later planned French date back to 1938 ..
By the way, are you a police officer that you have internal photos of ammunition from the findings?
Akon
 
Last edited:
https://expozice-ralsko.estranky.cz/clanky/odpovedi.html ......details of the finding are in the middle of the page

The suspension is definitively not ww1 but of a type that was introduced in 1924 at the earliest (Alkan & Lesourd deposed their patent for this suspension system in 1924 together with the patents of their new system of bomb racks that were adopted by the French Amee de l'Air).

The bomber component of the French squadron that intervened in Czechoslovakia in 1919 was made of Breguet XIV from Escadrille Bré.590 - and their standard equipment was Michelin bombs - not this kind of 100kg bomb.
Michelin bombs.jpg

Moreover this photograph shows that in fact on the Hungarian front the Breguet used mainly....ex-Austro-Hungarian bombs (here a Carbonit bomb in the hands on the soldier on the left, and a Skoda bomb being lift up - the third bomb on the right can be either)
1919 helo5508.jpg
 
Last edited:
Did You consider Romanian royal army operating with the Red Army at the end of WW2?
One such bomb was found in Moravia some time ago.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0256.jpg
    IMG_0256.jpg
    273.2 KB · Views: 14
  • IMG_0258.jpg
    IMG_0258.jpg
    289.6 KB · Views: 12
  • IMG_0255.jpg
    IMG_0255.jpg
    300.4 KB · Views: 12
  • IMG_0264.jpg
    IMG_0264.jpg
    312.3 KB · Views: 10
  • IMG_0250.jpg
    IMG_0250.jpg
    309 KB · Views: 15
Last edited:
Yes you're fully right Bob. I forgot the Romanians!
The JRS79 bombers of the Romanian air force were equipped with French bombs - French 10kg, 50kg, 100kg and 500kg were definitively in use with the Romanian (there is photographic evidence for it) - 200kg also probably but no photo evidence till now. The Romanian Bloch 210 and Potez 543 were also equipped with French bombs but by the end of the war they were obsolete and no longer operational in front lines.
 
Top