British Bomb Markings Reference (WW2-1952)

[Old Wombat]

US Army Technical Manual: TM 9-1985-1; British Explosive Ordnance from 1952 referencing British bombs; includes bomb colours, markings & their meanings, etc.

Big PDF - 466 pages but very detailed.

https://stephentaylorhistorian.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/tm-9-1985-1-british-explosive-ordnance.pdf

[NARSES2]

For those who want to go that extra mile or so.  I've often wondered just how many people were employed to write these massive tomes, especially in the days of mechanical typewriters and even earlier.

Cheers Guy 

[Gondor]

Very nice indeed. Always usful to add that little extra detail to help fool the public and raise the ire of the JMN's

Gondor

[Rheged]

Very nice indeed. Always usful to add that little extra detail to help fool the public and raise the ire of the JMN's

Gondor

It's superb! And as Gondor suggests, excellent material for deliberately putting exactly the wrong markings on ordnance purely for the confusion of pedantic JMNs.

[jcf]

The manual is also available over on the BulletPicker site, along with a very large selection of other manuals, technical reports, intelligence reports etc. all dealing with ordnance.

US Army Technical Manuals

[Old Wombat]

Thanks for those additional links, Jon!

I was only looking for RAF WW2 bombs on my search, though, because I want to do the bombs in the open bomb bay of my Mancaster as accurately as possible.

The markings are going to be right but the paint jobs aren't, I don't think I can get that bad in 1/72 scale. Looking at colour, & even some B&W photo's, the paint work, especially on the big 4,000lb+ bombs, was atrocious!

[Rick Lowe]

Looking at colour, & even some B&W photo's, the paint work, especially on the big 4,000lb+ bombs, was atrocious!

Well they didn't have Tamiya tape in those days, did they?

[NARSES2]

Thanks for those additional links, Jon!

I was only looking for RAF WW2 bombs on my search, though, because I want to do the bombs in the open bomb bay of my Mancaster as accurately as possible.

The markings are going to be right but the paint jobs aren't, I don't think I can get that bad in 1/72 scale. Looking at colour, & even some B&W photo's, the paint work, especially on the big 4,000lb+ bombs, was atrocious!

Well it didn't exactly have to last, did it   

As for accuracy ? Are you going to add some graffiti to the bombs ? I've seen some transfer sheets with this in the past.

[Old Wombat]

Well it didn't exactly have to last, did it   

As for accuracy ? Are you going to add some graffiti to the bombs ? I've seen some transfer sheets with this in the past.

True but, then, why make them out of such good steel?

I have a fragment of WW2 bomb that was embedded in the front door of my father's parents' house in Přerov, to which my father added a JC figure from a crucifix after the war*, & it has barely any corrosion & the edges are still sharp enough to cut yourself on, if careless.

Graffiti tended to be done for the media, mostly; so, no, I'm not doing any. I may try to do some of the chalk marks scrawled on them when they were armed & made "live", though.



[*: My father told me he wore out over a dozen good quality drill bits drilling three holes through it to mount the figure.]

[NARSES2]

True but, then, why make them out of such good steel?

I think it was a case of simply wanting to reduce the number of grades being made. Therefore a lot of things were being made from higher grade steel then necessary, it was around.  It tends to be a case that the thinner steel gets in its final form then the more prone to rust it is and some bomb casings were quite thick.

[Old Wombat]

Not overly thick, 1/4-3/8 inch, maybe?

Here are a couple of photo's, so you can see what I'm talking about.





It's absolutely awesome how plastic that metal became during the blast.

[jcf]

[NARSES2]

Neat pics mate and that's still reasonably thick. I had another thought yesterday as well. Bomb and shell casings would have been cast I suppose and cast steel is always of a fairly high grade.

People always have this impression that steel will rust regardless, but that's mainly because most people only come into contact with it in the form of vehicles or domestic appliances which are, or were,  made from pretty low grade and thin material. Most long and cast products are better grades and providing they are not deliberately exposed to the wrong conditions will have a fairly long shelf life.

[zenrat]

...It's absolutely awesome how plastic that metal became during the blast.

I was thinking similar.  The forces involved to tear the casing apart like that...