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Bomb Identification

Yes - I had about the size of a Tallboy. Dont think its big enough for a Grand Slam. The lug arrangements look British. Looks like it had been deliberately dumped there as the lifting lugs are dead even & central. I expect it will be dumped. Odd find in an odd location!
 
The object in the photos might be a dummy or experimental item, but is neither a Tallboy nor Grand Slam.

Both Tallboy and Grand Slam were devoid of lifting lugs, and were loaded and held in the aircraft bomb bay by a cradle. Lugs would have caused precession (wobbling) of the bombs as they attained terminal velocity. Even without lugs precession was a problem discovered in early Tallboy trials over the New Forest, and one that Barnes Wallis had to solve before the bombs could be accepted for service.
 
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The wall thickness looks to be too thin for a Tallboy or Grand Slam.

They were built as very robust bombs to achieve the designed penetration. They also had steel points on the front of the casing.
 
Interesting. It is thin walled it seems, but HC bombs are normally not profiled - i.e are blunt nosed. A bit of a mystery!
 
The one on the drawing has one lug. Not sure with one on the photo.
Was there a range or airfield where the bomb was found or did they drop it by mistake or emergency?
Maybe the EOD guys will get permission to post more pictures.
As for the display, I would leave the bomb as it is now, just add an inert represantation of the charge they used to open it.

Bob
 

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Nabob, many thanks for bomb drawing! You made me really happy:)

Do you know what explosive was HE S?
 
HES - High Explosive Substitute - an inert filling.

TimG

P.S. If the drawing and bomb are one of the same, it has a method of filling I've not seen before. The HE version has the front and rear sections of the cavity filled HES and only the centre section filled HE. Somewhat odd to classify it as HC when the explosive content is a mere 31% (3,106 lbs).
 
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