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Sägebombe: any info?

Temistocle

New Member
Premium Member
Dear all,
I have just read "KG200 The True Story" by P.W. Stahl. At page 122, discussing the Eisenhammer plan to bomb the soviet power station in Moscow and Gorky areas, the author briefly describe a device KG200 would have used, the Sägebombe (or "S-Bo" or "SBO 53"):

SBO 53 or Sagebombe was evolved from the anti-aircraft cable bomb and intended to destroy high tension electric cables. It consisted of a spherical weight attached to a 400 m (1312 ft) long twisted steel cable wound on a reel fitted inside the aircraft. Various test flights using a Ju 88 were carried out in summer 1942; the device justified itself but demanded high flying skills. It is known that the SBO 53 was subsequently used for service trials, but its operational use in the intended role cannot be confirmed.

I understand that it is not a "real" bomb, but do you have any other info/image about the Sägebombe?

Thank you in advance

PS: Similar devices, but real bombs, were used by USA bombers and Tomahawk missiles in the Gulf War and Serbia in the '90 to knock down the power lines.
 
I know nothing about the bomb you describe, but Japan had something slightly similar about which very little is known. The bomb was pretty small, in ways a submunition, and consisted of two components, described as a mother and child bomb. After release the bomb (mother) would further release a second smaller bomb (child), the two were tethered together with a cable. I have found only 1-2 references to the bomb, and the pictures are terrible. I have never seen one in person. I don't recall that the purpose of the bomb was described, I believe it was in a post war investigative report and they may have never found out.

The bomb used in Serbia was also a submunition. It was the BLU-114, also known as the "soft bomb" and contained no high explosive components. Looking very much like the BLU-97, it released carbon fiber filaments which would short out the power facilities.
 
I don't know how I missed this post!
This was implemented in at least two different operational settings by...USAAF and Israeli P51D:
1) Operation Thursday - Burma 1944
USAAF P-51 of the Air Commando Force led by Col. Philip G. Cochran, carried 200-foot cables with weights attached to cut Japanese telephone lines. These planes swooped low over Japanese telephone and communications lines, hooked their dangling weights on the wires and ripped off several hundred feet at a time.
(There are undocumented reports that this method was first experimented used by Cochran himself in 1942 in Tunisia, when he destroyed telegraph wires by flying over them with a lead weight on the end of a wire attached to the wing of his P-40 aircraft (to the bomb rack most probably).
I have still been unable to find drawing/ picture of these

2) Operation Kadesh - Sinai 1956
On the first day of operation Kadesh - October 29th, 1956 - another task was given to the Mustangs: disruption of enemy communications. The Mustangs were equipped with a weight attached to a cable, which was to be hung from the aircraft's tail. This device was supposed to cut the enemy's telephone line cables. Four Mustangs were equipped as "cable-cutters" and took off around noon, but upon arrival at the target, some of them had lost their equipment. Instead of aborting their mission, the pilots decided to pursue and cut the cable with their propellers and wings.
This the design of this cable cutter and the insignia of this P51 squadron
1956 Cable Cutter.jpg 1956 Cable Cutter Squadron insignia.jpg
and a full article on the subject published in Flugzeug classic in October 2005 (sorry but it's in German)
IDF P51D cable Cutting.jpg IDF P51D cable Cutting_1.jpgIDF P51D cable Cutting_2.jpgIDF P51D cable Cutting_3.jpg
 
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