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SS Richard Montgomery in Thames Estuary

Here's a list of what's on board with locations.



HOLD NO1
Deep tanks Aft
79 cases signals 3 (pyrotechnics)
1429 cases wp 100lb smoke bombs 65 (white phosphorus)
Deep tanks Forward
30 Boxes boosters 31 (pyrotechnics)
786 boxes signals
Lower hold/tween deck
1407 500lb bombs TNT AN M64A1 167
850 1000lb bombs TNT AN M65 208
1500 250lb bombs TNT AN M57 84

HOLD NO 2
Lower hold
1068 1000lb SAP bombs TNT AW-M59 140
574 500lb SAP bombs AN M58 41
286 2000lb GP TNT AN-M66 144
588 1000lb AN M65 140
Tween deck
521-580 B260lb fragmentation bombs AN M81 9
2297 cases of fragmentation bomb clusters 9
AN M1A1 (6 x 20lb fused)
and/or AN M4A1 (3 x 23lb unfused)
and/or AN-M81 B260lb

HOLD NO 3
Lower hold/tween deck
1170 SAP 1000lb bombs 163
406 GP 1000lb bombs 99
1351 SAP 500lb bombs 97


TOTAL on board 1400 tonnes
 
some where there is also a list of what was taken off in the salvage operation as it did not break its back straight away
 
The Kielce, a similar wreck to the Montgomery exploded off Folkestone in 1946 during salvage operations.
This is one of the reasons that the Montgomery has not been salvaged.
 
I saw on the news last week about a clapped-out Russian ship loaded with 20,000 tons of Ammonium Nitrate that is not being allowed to dock in any sensible port. Bear in mind that the Beirut explosion of a couple of years ago was supposedly `only' 2,500 tons of Ammonium Nitrate. So the ship contains about eight times as much.
 
I think there was about 2,750 tonnes in storage, but far less detonated. I did an estimate using geometry of the fireball and that came out to 260-430 tonnes. That's still a pretty big bang though!

Double checking the report I wrote, the stuff stored at the port facility is thought to have been high density prilled ammonium nitrate (AN), more exactly Nitroprill HD (density 1.00 g/cm³).
 
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