Did you intend to post this in a different thread?
Ahh yes, I remember the clockwork fuse. I had an instructor one tell me that, “If you start to hear it whirring and buzzing, you have the rest of your life to get it off [the bomb]!”
(They were designed to be ‘tamper’/‘removal’ resistant).
Tripler
Wow, this thread takes me back in time . . .
This is still quite true.
There are now some pretty advanced munitions specifically for wrecking runways. But it’s always only temporary because a) repairs are pretty easy, and b) given the importance of runways, the runway owners will have invested heavily in rapid repair equipment, supplies, & manpower.
Sometimes, denying the use of an airfield for a couple of days is all you need.
And you can always restrike if repairs are advancing.
Or attack the aircraft trapped on the ground after runway denial.
'Zactly.
It’d be nice (very nice) to put an airfield “permanently” our of commission, like until after the war has ended. But that’s the perfect becoming the enemy of the good enough. A couple days now and again may be all you really need.
With the flipside that because airfields are vital, they tend to be heavily defended. Striking one hard enough to shut it down for a couple days is unlikely to be a loss-free operation for the attacker.
At least until we start considering pure missile- or long range standoff weapons-based attacks. Which may become the wave of the future, but today are either ineffective or unduly escalatory for most scenarios.
No. Read the last sentence of the post just before mine.
Moderating
In that case, keep the political pot-shots out of FQ. Save that type of commentary for other forums.
My apologies.
Has anyone seen Youtube videos of people finding UXO while magnet fishing? There are a few of them out there. Here’s one that might be nightmare fuel for how the UXO is handled before they realize what it is:
There are places in Europe where metal detecting and magnet fishing are just banned. The justification used is the danger of unexploded ordinance. Some people I know think that is just an excuse, like “patient benefit” in hospitals, but whatever: it is the justification offered.
Why wait? A good Prime BEEF team can fill a crater and drag a fiberglass mat to get an airfield back to MOS in a matter of hours (depending on size, of course). Taxiways can be used as emergency runways in the meantime (I had an O-6 do this once, overseas). If you can attack the can attack the parked aircraft, your getting a couple of steps ahead…
But I get it–airfields are easier targets. You really want to foul up air operations? “Slime it” with persistent chemical agents. You. Will. Slow. Sortie. Generation. Down. To. A. Snails. Pace…
Tripler
Doing things in MOPP gear? That adds some extra time.
Modern runway denial weapons heave hardtop around the crater for several meters around and tens of centineters high. So you’d have to deal with unplanned speed bumps that the runway matting won’t be able to flatten.
And no sane operator is going to advocate WMDs as a mere area denial weapon.
Its not that hard to deal with… just plow what you can back into the crater, identify what won’t, and haul it off with front end loaders, compact everything, and drag your mat across. SOP for expedient repair. The mat is just a cover for the compacted, repaired hole until you can replace the slabs with fresh concrete.
No sane operator, true. But the DPRK isn’t known for its adherence to sanity . . . Or “rules”. But WMDs, specifically persistent chem weapons, are capable of being used as an area denial weapon (like minefields).
Tripler
Kill people, or channel them where you want them to go!
Agree w Tripler. Soviet doctrine was to slime NATO airfields rather promptly.
They never believed in the hard firebreak between “normal” weapons and "WMD"s. To them that was an artificial distinction NATO came up with to handicap the Soviet side and simplify NATO’s planning.
Bumped.
There’s now a partial closure of the Antietam, Md. battlefield to remove live ordnance from a postwar monument: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1664074608420351&set=pb.100044534825272.-2207520000
I like the comments, we want a realistic experience for the guests.
Incidentally there was an interesting article a few weeks back about the UK bomb disposal squad and how and why they make the decisions they do.
Note, someone upthread mentioned a big bomb being found in Plymouth; that was in 2024, this one was this year:
It’s still such a frequent situation that it rarely makes the news unless it’s unusual or in a really dangerous situation; my former university dug up a smallish unexploded bomb on site while I was there and it got just a few lines in the student newsletter and a passing mention in the local newspaper, to the bewildered horror of some of the international students.
There was one found down the coast in Falmouth a few weeks ago as well. There’s a lot of construction going on at the moment, and that always digs a few up.