Tiny Aerial Hand Bomb?

[Pyrohd]

Hi Members this is my first post.

My name is Tony and I live in Twickenham, England.

I have been a militaria collector for over 50 years (mainly bayonets and helmets) but I have boxes of all sorts of stuff.

I've had this little bomb for about 35 years and my guess was that it is a hand dropped bomb from WW1 . But I'm sure you know better.

It is a cast (iron?) body with tin (alloy) fins and measures 19 cm long with a about a 6 cm diameter at the thickest part of the body. It is painted a field grey and has ink markings on one fin - which look like "256'20".

It's very heavy- about 1100 grams - and is hollow - you can see through the base hole (about 2 cms diameter) to the small hole in the nose - about about 5mm.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,

Tony

 

[siegfreid]

Tony . I think this is an RAF practice bomb from the 1920's.

 

[Pyrohd]

Thanks Siegfreid.

I suppose these were fitted with some kind of detonator to fire a blank? Were they thrown by hand?

Cheers,

Tony

 

[siegfreid]

Tony . They were more likely to have been used with wing racks & some contained a smoke charge to show where they had landed . If you ever go to the RAF Museum at Hendon , they have case with a selection of the various types . Mike.

 

[skull181]

That's a nice bomb...

 

[US-Subs]

http://www.bocn.co.uk/vbforum/threads/78899-Unusual-practice-bomb?highlight=practice+bomb

 

[Pyrohd]

Cheers Chaps,

I'm impressed - by both your knowledge and your helpfulness.

I'm in the process of thinning down a 50 year collection. Any idea what this little gem would be worth?

Thanks again for your help.

Tony