Do we have here people involved in metal detection and military archiology? I’m ivoloved in search of perished soldiers and WW2 military staff in Russia. If somebody is interested, we can share expirience and fotos of interesting things found.
It’s not mine but interesting:
http://reibert.info/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=16152&d=1149141218
Are you sure you should be lifting panzerfaust warheads out of the ground, they could go BOOOOOOOM!
Interested in panzerfaust? Good choice. Here is a thread explaining one of the methods to disarm panzerfaust.
http://reibert.info/forum/showthread.php?t=7421
Most of the digged out ammo are quit secure if dont play football with it. Serious danger present ammo that was shooted but didnt bust. These ones can explode even from light touching.
That looks interesting. Why does the explosive burn and not explode when you light it?
Comerad, if you take rifle round, take out bullet and fire powder in a shell what will happen? Right, no explosion, just a shell with a fire bursting out. The same happens here. Energy of burst leave shell throuth the hole and there is no critical pressure on walls of a shell.
Oh, here may be some misunderstanding, the warhead that is burning is not full. Part, where march engine was situated, was broken out (look the scheme).
Spent a couple of years in Berlin with the army in the late 70’s and we had a Troop Leader who had a detector (expensive then). He came in one day and asked us if anyone wanted to go looking for buried stuff in and area he’d noticed. What he really wanted was for him to detect and us to dig of course but a couple of us went anyway.
He took us to part of the bank of the river Havel which had trees on it but they were obviously had grown since the war as the whole area was a mass of craters. He went round with his device and there were stacks of finds, but even though we found a couple of rounds and a shovel the majority of it was pieces of Russian mortar bombs. Rather disappointing really but when our Barracks were being extended (we were in Smuts Bks next door to Spandau prison), they dug up our football field and underneath it were approx 10,000 rounds of German ammunition still crated in their boxes. They took them away and blew the lot up of course.
Saw a programme about this subject a few weeks ago and the Germans are turning up tons of the stuff especially round Berlin (no surprise there). Just wondering how much it costs them, can any German member throw light on this?
Thanks komrad for your story. I don`t know how much “echo of the war” are there near Berlin, but in Russia we are provided with the forest trophy for the long years.
Hi guys,
In Poland is nearly the same like in Russia and Germany. Every excavation in Warsaw bring unexploded shells, mortar bombs and sometimes large stacks of ammo. Lucky findings like ex Home Army hidden weapons stores are another matter - they all go to museums. Original Stens are rarity.
I spent my time in the army in late 70’s as well. In AAA. I remember two funny stories. Once when having our tour on the airfield, me and two other blokes went to nearby farm to buy some fresh milk. Waiting for farmers wife to bring milk, we were standing outside. In one moment farmer opened the shed, took out a few buckets of steamed potatoes and emptied them to the larger container. Then went back to the shed, come back with panzerfaust and started mashing potatoes for his pigs. All three of us ducked behind the corner of the house. When we told grandpa that “this thing may go off at any time”, he laughed at us and told to f…k off. For him we were kids, he was about seventy.
We reported things to our CO and he called cops and sappers. When they arrived he went with them to show the place.
When back, he told us that grandpa was furious when they took that panzerfaust. He was swearing loudly that they stealing the best potato masher he ever had… “Bloody government want me to feed bloody pigs to feed bloody beaurocrats in Warsaw, but they stealing my best potato masher!”
Sappers exploded it with two small sticks of TNT and it went off with a quite a big bang.
Another story was even better. Our regiment CO bought horse and proudly rode every morning. One day horse lost horse shoe and blacksmith was needed. It was not far away. He told his so called “personal” private to walk the horse to the blacksmith. Bloke come back and said that blacksmith in a village is hammering hot irons on the body of the large bomb.
He was right, sappers unearthed 500 kg bomb half buried in the ground.
Blacksmith was not very happy… He said that it was pretty solid, stable and excellent tool to hammer bigger pieces like rods for the gates and fencing.
Our airfield was used by German bombers during war. Most probably bomb was dropped when disabled bomber was trying to land and had to get rid of unused bombs. It was German type as sappers told us later. The whole operation of digging it out, lifting by a crane, placing on a truck and then driving with speed of 5km/hour to the place wher they exploded it, took the whole day.
They could not remove fuse, because blacksmith was using a lot of water in his shop and the whole piece underground rusted.
Village had to be evacuated and road closed. Farmers and their families were our regiment guests. For one day our cooks were feeding kids and cooked diet dishes for old grandmas.
Cost of removing unexploded ordnance in Russia, Germany, France, Poland and basically every country where more or less fighting occured during WWII is still high after 60 years. Training of sappers, neccessity of maintaining special military units and so on. I think that NATO policy now is to pass these tasks to specialised private companies run by former sappers - (nice bonus for early retirement) - it takes the burden from the army and costs are not affecting military budgets - specialists charge for explosives removal and disposal. Local councils, owners of the land or investors which hired excavation company pay for the service.
And because of insurance costs for “private sappers” and charges which they have to pay army for using army land to explode their findings, they pay a fortune.
Cheers,
Lancer44
It’s similar on the old WW1 battlefields - probably even worse. IIRC around Ypres and Verdun there are still regular fatalities from old explosives/chemical shells going off.
Last weekend perished in 1943 Soviet fighter pilot was digged out with parts of airplane. BTW Kitty-Hawk. Here some fotos:
http://img170.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscn2636fk8.jpg
http://img404.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscn2598go5.jpg
If interested I have much more fotos
