picture on Ro§bud

[gregoire]

As I was looking at some picture on Ro§bud I have found the following

http://204.83.160.230/archive/w/images/Fra...nz_flugmine.jpg

with the description "unexploded french aerial bomb" and it look like a 58mm trench grenade mortar bomb (a grapouillot bomb) have you ever seen an aerial bomb like that of is it possible that mortar munition have been used by airplanes.

[leo]

Early on, pilots dropped darts, hand grenades, mrotsr shells and maybe bricks. Translation please, What is a "Blindganger"?

leo

[rammjaeger]

Leo,

a "Blindgänger" is an unexploded grenade or bomb.

BTW the German description at the photograph is not referring to any aerial use.

[gregoire]

Early on, pilots dropped darts, hand grenades, mrotsr shells and maybe bricks. *Translation please, What is a "Blindganger"?

leo

If (and I say if) this is a 58 mm mortar bomb it will refer to the Mk2 version of the weapon that was in service in late at a time when there allready were aerial bomb. then those bomb were heavy

[FinnN]

Yep, that's definitely an unexploded mortar - the tube at the back absolutely confirms that.

Have fun
Finn

[MilesC]

I can understand the tube on the bottom allowing for it's use in a mortar, but the fins? How would they get that thing into a mortar tube and out again? If it was dropped from an airplane I could understand the fins, so it must be a modified mortar round.

Miles

[PeterL]

Miles opines:

* * * * * "If it was dropped from an airplane I could understand the fins, so it must be a modified mortar round."



Not really Miles. The similarity to a modern 3 inch round is striking. The fins are there to provide stability just as with a bomb or rocket and are a common feature of mortar munitions. IMO and FWIW the picture on Rod's site is an unexploded mortar bomb.

[Rod_Filan]

It seems I've jumped the gun (pardon the pun). My initial erronious impression on this was 2-fold.
1. The fins radiate beyond the diameter of the mortar, which suggested to me it was modified.
2. My poor translation of the caption had me thinking "unexploded bomb".

I think a more accurate translation of "Franz. schwere Ctr. flügel-mine blindgänger" might be: "French heavy [ctr.] wing-mine dud"

Thanks for the discussion on this.
VBR
Rod

[gregoire]

if it is a 58 mm french mortar bomb the fin were not intented to get into the tube. the mortar tube was quite short and you just put the tube into into it the fin being used to be sure it do not get to deeply into the tube. by the way that bomb was used as insigna for trench mortar artillerymen (on the left arm)
here are some picture


the one in the picture is a 58mm mk1 the mk2 tube was different called grapouillot. the shell in the picture is a 1st version shell the one on ro$bud a second version (both shell could be used by both weapon) having a better aerodinamic and a larger range (a modified first version shell could be fitted with gaz)

It's a dud spigot morter round! *:The tube in the rear slipped over a solid steel rod, with the propellent charge inside. Since you didn't have to worry about the bore of the tube, you could make the fins as large as you wanted. It's rather like a gun turned inside out, where the bullet stays put and the barrel is lauched. See a description of the British PIAT anti-tank laucher.
I suppose you could drop it from an aeroplane, but even the standard *60mm and 81mm rounds have fins. *Little bags of propellent are attached to the fins, called increments, and can removed to adjust range.