WW2 Butterfly Bomb.

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11 years 4 months

Posts: 384

I watched the excellent series of "Danger UXB" from the late 1970's. One episode relates to the Butterfly bomb. Anyone here have stories or memories of these things?:dev2:

Original post

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17 years 7 months

Posts: 8,983

Here you go

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=69098

I knew about the Highgrove one that only came to light after Danger UXB.

The Russians also used similar, I know up until the early 80's at least, they could be safety moved for 10 mins after being dropped as it took that time to arm to prevent them detonating on impact.... Right!
On exercise in Germany the evaluation team handed our Sgt a note, in front of the HAS they have dropped these things, what are you goIng to do, intending us all come out spend 10 mins playing silly sods picking them up (pretending) then having to call out EOD etc to deal with the rest... Right pain. . Now we used have a sweeper like the have on railway platforms that hoovers up, quick as a flash said Sgt hops on it, whizzes round in about 3 mins flat sweeping the whole area then parks it on the grass out the way and gets off. Speechless distaff says WTF... :D his little exercise finished then and there as he had no answer to it.

Member for

11 years 4 months

Posts: 384

Thanks for the link Tony very interesting. They said in the series that they could not be defused looks like they were pretty accurate. At the time I suppose finding one looks like it would make a good ornament for the mantlepiece. Were they only found in the South East of England? Anyone have War time stories of them?

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24 years 4 months

Posts: 3,566

Pretty solid looking urban myth.....

Member for

11 years 4 months

Posts: 384

WOW! Very impressed with the Info and feed back here guys. Thanks a lot.

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24 years 4 months

Posts: 3,194

Were they only found in the South East of England?

Grimsby was heavily plastered with them one night...

Adrian

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16 years 5 months

Posts: 1,677

There were aerial burst fuzes, time delay fuzes and anti tamper.

Not all lay on the ground waiting for disturbing.

They were also dropped on airfields where RAF were due to return/just returned.

There is a Government film on Youtube on the delay ones...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWsnfK-MeCE

The US copied them and used them after the war.

Member for

11 years 4 months

Posts: 384

[QUOTE=hampden98;1982264]An interesting link showing bomb types and diffusing especially the Butterfly Bomb.

Thanks for the link very interesting. This seems to prove to me that the Danger UXB Producers were very accurate.:)