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American AN-M50A2's which are 4lb incendiary bombs
All gone sky high
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American Incendiary Bomb
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American AN-M50A2's which are 4lb incendiary bombs
All gone sky high
Investment
Well-Known Member
Ref: TM 9 1980 American Bombs for Aircraft 1944
waff.. i wrote something on tailsections and deleted it.
I don't have the documentation on hand right now and wanted to post some pics on the container that is used to drop these 'SUB' munitons..
Submunitons should have an irrational spread pattern in order to make the area inacessible, however that is in an anti personell role. This type of submunition (incendiary) was used to put large rural area's on fire and there's no need to stabelise the bomb body in order to get a better precision. Another use for a tail section is to get the fuze in the direction.. in this case there's no need. This type of bomb has a natural higher weight on the nose so it will drop down nose first.
Answere on the question could be;
(1) no need for a stabelising tailsection
(2) money saving design with same results
(3) higher number of submunitions in the container because of space saving
Personally i think this is a typical KISS solution.. Keep It Simple Stupid, and use a simple desing in high numbers on a target.
Note: the octagonal shape of the bomb body is easier to stack into a container, held together with some metall straps. The straps were released and the bomb bodies fell out on innertia.
I am writing this down without doucumentation on hand so i might be wrong and want to add one extra detail; as far as i can remember this is a Brittish desing adapted by the American Forces.
I don't have the documentation on hand right now and wanted to post some pics on the container that is used to drop these 'SUB' munitons..
Submunitons should have an irrational spread pattern in order to make the area inacessible, however that is in an anti personell role. This type of submunition (incendiary) was used to put large rural area's on fire and there's no need to stabelise the bomb body in order to get a better precision. Another use for a tail section is to get the fuze in the direction.. in this case there's no need. This type of bomb has a natural higher weight on the nose so it will drop down nose first.
Answere on the question could be;
(1) no need for a stabelising tailsection
(2) money saving design with same results
(3) higher number of submunitions in the container because of space saving
Personally i think this is a typical KISS solution.. Keep It Simple Stupid, and use a simple desing in high numbers on a target.
Note: the octagonal shape of the bomb body is easier to stack into a container, held together with some metall straps. The straps were released and the bomb bodies fell out on innertia.
I am writing this down without doucumentation on hand so i might be wrong and want to add one extra detail; as far as i can remember this is a Brittish desing adapted by the American Forces.
Hi Ammodillo
You're right: they didn't need stabalising because accuracy wasn't important. The nose was weighted to make them drop more or less nose first. The British version, the 4lb Incendiary, was used until quite recently (may still be so) as a means of destroying explosives by burning during EOD demolition operations - Magnesium alloy burns well!!
Regards
eodda
You're right: they didn't need stabalising because accuracy wasn't important. The nose was weighted to make them drop more or less nose first. The British version, the 4lb Incendiary, was used until quite recently (may still be so) as a means of destroying explosives by burning during EOD demolition operations - Magnesium alloy burns well!!
Regards
eodda