War Biggest World War Two bomb found in Poland explodes while being defused - Does this increase the WW2 casualties?

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WARSAW (Reuters) - The biggest World War Two bomb ever found in Poland exploded under water on Tuesday as navy divers tried to defuse it.

More than 750 people had been evacuated from the area near the Piast Canal outside the town of Swinoujscie where the Tallboy bomb used by Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) was found. It weighed nearly 5,400 kg, including 2,400 kg of explosive.

"The deflagration process turned into detonation. The object can be considered as neutralized, it will not pose any more threat," Second-Lieutenant Grzegorz Lewandowski, the spokesman of the 8th Coastal Defense Flotilla, was quoted as saying by state-run news agency PAP.

"All mine divers were outside the danger zone."

Swinoujscie contains a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal but a spokesman for the town's mayor told PAP no one was injured and no infrastructure had been damaged.

The Piast Canal connects the Baltic Sea with the Oder River on Poland's border with Germany. The bomb was dropped by the RAF in 1945 in an attack on the German cruiser Lutzow.

(End of Article)
 
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Imagine what carpet bombing the US would do to its infrastructure, prisons would turn into death camps
 
Those bombs were designed to smash through the roof of a building, smash through the floor, dig deep into the ground, then explode so the whole building would collapse into a crater. And that was WWII.
 
Leonard Helplessness said:
Those bombs were designed to smash through the roof of a building, smash through the floor, dig deep into the ground, then explode so the whole building would collapse into a crater. And that was WWII.
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Is this true or was it just a bomb that didn't meet the requirements to go boom because it was a literal splash?
 
WARSAW (Reuters) - The biggest World War Two bomb ever found in Poland exploded under water on Tuesday as navy divers tried to defuse it.
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If it was underwater, why bother to risk a bomb squad guy by diffusing it and not just do a controlled ignition? Were they diffusing it with a drone?
 
Aidan said:
Is this true or was it just a bomb that didn't meet the requirements to go boom because it was a literal splash?
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It's essentially designed to drill it's way underground on account of how heavy it was and cause an miniature earthquake to ruin the foundation of whatever building you wanted destroyed. Results were successful, to a certain degree. And the mission that this one was found with had another bomb that went right through a German pocket battleship before it went off.
 
NerdShamer said:
It's essentially designed to drill it's way underground on account of how heavy it was and cause an miniature earthquake to ruin the foundation of whatever building you wanted destroyed. Results were successful, to a certain degree. And the mission that this one was found with had another bomb that went right through a German pocket battleship before it went off.
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Those heavy-duty demo bombs were no joke. The Nazis were quite rightfully terrified of the RAF paying their submarines a visit while docked in port and built reinforced bunkers over their submarine pens to rival the Fuerherbunker. Not even those Tallboys were guaranteed to get through some of those designs, and you're talking a 12,000 pound object falling at terminal velocity. You had to volunteer for the job of hauling one of those bombs, since there was a very good chance your airplane might disintegrate from the shockwave. They also weren't loaded with the normal filler you'd expect either, but Torpex which was roughly 50% more powerful than the TNT or TNT substitutes most bombs had, and accordingly 50% more sensitive to sudden shocks like say, anti-aircraft fire. Oh, and because they were so expensive to make the RAF was very insistent that you not jettison it in the ocean if your plane is damaged and you were forced to abort the mission and return to base. Talk about confidence knowing the RAF would much rather risk losing you and your crew than the bomb you're carrying!

Of course, that isn't even the biggest bomb the British made...

And the US being the US, had to swing its dick around and come up with a B-29 modification that let it carry two Grand Slams, one under each inside wing. One might say things were getting out of hand by the end of the war.
 
Leonard Helplessness said:
Those bombs were designed to smash through the roof of a building, smash through the floor, dig deep into the ground, then explode so the whole building would collapse into a crater. And that was WWII.
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Specifically, hardened structures like sub pens and bunkers, but bridges and tunnels were also favorite targets. Anything big that might not be destroyed, per se, but would at least be so thoroughly damaged it'd be down for repairs for months to make it "safe" again in the case of say, a stone rail viaduct. You may blow it up, but even a near miss will transmit shock waves that will weaken it so badly, they can't risk running a train over it until they practically rebuild it. Anything big and lumbering was on the hit list, really.

The RAF, after dozens of sorties and commando raids had failed, finally got the German battleship Tirpitz with 2, possibly 3 of them, punching clean through the ship at anchor and exploding beneath the keel in the shallow water below. Split the armored belt right off the hull according to eyewitnesses.


Still, the biggest unexploded bomb of WWII isn't a bomb, but a whole bunch of them, all too old to move or defuse.... it's the SS Richard Montgomery, the wreck of a liberty ship currently sunken in the Thames off Shearness, and still carrying TONS of explosives as lost cargo, and no one is sure of what to do about her to this day. Except putting up marker buoys that say "Do not approach" and hoping for the best.
 
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One of those targets with Grand Slam was Bielefield, but I'm not sure why the RAF went after a place that doesn't exist...
 
Aidan said:
Is this true or was it just a bomb that didn't meet the requirements to go boom because it was a literal splash?
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These bombs were no joke. Here's the sort of damage they could do to a reinforced concrete structure:

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Video
No sound, though.
According to this article, this bomb had been dropped as part of a 1945 RAF mission to sink the pocket battleship KMS Lützow. One of the other bombs was a near miss but nonetheless tore a hole in the bottom of her hull
German_cruiser_Lützow_in_Kaiserfahrt_canal_on_25_April_1945.jpg

She sank in shallow water, though, so her deck remained above water. The Germans then decided to use her an artillery emplacement against the oncoming Soviets.

This wasn't the first time Tallboys had been used against Kriegsmarine warships - in 1944 they were used to sink the last remaining Bismarck-class battleship, KMS Tirpitz.
Tirpitz.jpg

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And into it they poured all of their manhood and all of their bravery... one bomb to rule them all.
 
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