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France Bomb Fuze ?

Fusse2004

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Need help again! Who knows this French bombshell? What is the name? For which bomb? When was he on duty? Need as much info as possible.
 

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I have a problem with this fuze. On one side the look of the suspension and vanes bring to is identification as a Type H modele 1921 (for 10kg anti-personal bombs) or 1929 (for 10kg incendiaries) but the part under the vane is conical and this is not supposed to be so - would it be that this part is in fact part of the bomb and not of the fuze itself? Another possibility being of course the fuze for the Stankovich 12kg bombs. However I must say that my field is mainly bombs and air dropped equipment, rather than fuzes,.
 
Need help again! Who knows this French bombshell? What is the name? For which bomb? When was he on duty? Need as much info as possible.

Hi Fusse,
Can you give us the marking that we can see stamped on the fuze ?
I agree DreanK, it's very similar on a French bomb fuze, but I don't find it in my books. The cylindrical part of it let me think on a pyrotechnic or mechanical delay holder but without other views of the fuze we can't confirm it.
The booster holder seems to be typical French also.


Yoda
 
Hello Dreamk + Yoda! Unfortunately, I only have the photo! I was also asked what this Fuze is about. I have found nothing in my documents. Am also of the opinion that it is a 24/31 1921 Bombfuze for 10 kg bombs. Thank you for your opinion. Harry
PS. I found something! This foot is offered by Gun Broker under ID: 769544662.
 
I checked my files - Here's the Vasic fuze for Stankovich (Vistad) 106kg bomb - quite similar isn't it? except for the absence of vertical suspension hook

Vasic fuze for preWW2 Yugoslav 106kg VISTAD bombs.jpg
and here in place on a 106kg bomb
Bombe STankovic 106Kg on Yugoslav do17k-bomb.jpg
The answer may well be in a vertical suspension version of this very fuze...a kind of variation also known with French bomb fuzes in the interwar
 
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I checked my files - Here's the Vasic fuze for Stankovich (Vistad) 106kg bomb - quite similar isn't it? except for the absence of vertical suspension hook

View attachment 142937
and here in place on a 106kg bomb
View attachment 142938
The answer may well be in a vertical suspension version of this very fuze...a kind of variation also known with French bomb fuzes in the interwar

Interesting idea Dreamk, we talked about this yellow fuze and I thought it could be a fuze for other country with a french shape detonator

http://www.bocn.co.uk/vbforum/threads/96506-Bomb-fuze-ID-please?highlight=french+bomb+fuze

I was told 12kg bombs used by French came from Czech.

stankovic.jpg
 
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Stankovich (Nikola Stanković) was the name of the engineer that devised these bombs - he founded in 1935 the Yugoslav Vistad company which works \were in Višegrad though the company headquarters were in Srajevo. In 1937 he opened another factory in Valjevo. Interestingly the 12kg Stankovich was the only bomb of foreign origin used by the French. As a matter of fact, to complicate the issue, this fuze used on teh Stankovich bombs may well have been a development of a Polish fuze - the 48/60 FA wz.35 that looks almost identical except for the metallic ring linking the tip of the vanes.
 
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BTW Yellow was the paint color for explosive aerial bombs in the thirties in France (and the US - there was even a tentative to make this an "international standard", with even the Soviets adopting it for a very brief period). This is not always obvious on photographs, as on B&W chromatic film, widely used in the thirties and early forties, Yellow appears as...black. Yugoslav bombs were painted green (a kind of medium olive-green shade), grey, or even, from reports on the paints found at Vistad Factory in 1941, orange.
 
I looked in my files for the Polish inspiration of the Stankovich fuze and, well, I think I have got the identification of this fuze in the first post of this thread:
Zapalnik 48/60 FA wz.35 for 12kg bomb
Zapalnik 48-60FA wz.35.jpg
 
Would you have more details?
According to the lists of the Yuigoslavian air force Staff in Zemun, the only Polish bomb used in 1941 was the 12kg wz.27 (called in Yugoslavia "Polish 12kg bombs")
(раљевина Југославија – Команда Вазд. Војске, Таблице бомбардовања II део, Земун, 1941.г)
According to the last published researches of Wojciech Mazur, from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and in the classical study published in the mid 1990s by Marek Piotr Deszczyński only other piece of air-ground equipment sold by Poland to Yougoslavia in the 1930s was the SW 12x10 wz30 bomb racks. They found mention of Polish artillery fuzes sold to Yugoslavia but not bomb fuzes.
 
note from archive, 5.06.1935 / SEPEWE
"...Test in 1933 in Yugoslavia in Bela Crkva [soft area] and in Mostar [hard terrain] 1000 bombes (i do not see info about types) with fuzes, the fuses worked well and only one bad work. Fragmentation of shell not ideal - big pieces of shell. Tested all 1000 bombs....."

from W. Mazur / M.Deszczyński, based on two archives:
...from 1933 - 1000 bombes 12 kg...


from one other book text made by constructor F.J. Pogonowski, maybe with mistake (12 kg / 100 kg), in short:
"....my fuze patented and used for exporting bombs abroad...
Yugoslavia has announced a fuze competition: Skoda, Bofors, one Yugoslavian company and PWU from PL with my fuze [constr. by Pogonowski], Test in Yugoslavia took place on the training ground in Bela Crkva and in training ground in Mostar. Poland achieved an unrivaled victory, Yugoslavia ordered a batch of 100 kg of bombs with my fuses.
The order was carried out quickly and efficiently by the Ammunition Factory No. 1 in Skarżysko, to the great satisfaction of the Yugoslav side, which we thanked for providing technical documentation regarding the product of this fuse."

If i found more info will write.
 

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