WW2 Bomb explodes in Germany - 1 dead 2 seriously wounded
92 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Radical Rebel;43403439]No offense but I think it shows how good the craftsmanship was back then if these bombs can still explode after 60-70 years of being abandoned.[/QUOTE]
It's not necessarily even craftsmanship, the fuses for those things were as simple and reliable as they could be, but the reliability sometimes took a shit so they didn't explode when they were supposed to, but just the right amount of "bump" finishes the job.
[QUOTE=GunFox;43405010]For much of the history of cluster munitions, they were even expected to have a few bad bomblets in a batch. Their rate of failure rate was expected to be much higher than conventional free fall bombs. This lead to shitloads of the things being left everywhere they were used.
Modern cluster bombs use a mixture of self destruct protocols and battery actuated trigger mechanisms to keep them from killing people down the line. With the right sort of high explosive and a battery designed to only chemically be capable of holding a charge for a certain period of time, they have really made some major improvements in terms of safety.[/QUOTE]
Major improvements in terms of safety in bombs, that's kind of a funny sentence.
[QUOTE=Drsalvador;43402989]Imagine how much WWI-WWII ordnance is lost in places like France and Belgium, and shit.
Infact, imagine how many [I]corpses[/I] are lost, or destroyed tanks and guns and stuff. It's a truly horrifying thought. Same for naval boats and men lost at sea.[/QUOTE]
Germany probably has a lot more worse explosives stuck in their cities. France and Belgium will have a lot more artillery shells and the like, but Germany got hit a lot worse with air bombardment. And hell Prague got hit by a single air raid and they still occassionally find explosives.
Imagine what it's like in Places like Dresden.
[t]http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Polandball_b18932_4950481.png[/t]
There is a farm near here, where there is an old WWII grenade with its pin pulled out sticking up under the barn. It's most likely been thrown under there during WWII and then they found it so many years later i guess they thought it was safer to just leave it there, i dunno.
I saw it when I was a lot younger, but I remember how it looks, tho it doesn't make sense because it's not a german grenade. At least I couldn't find any pics that looked like it when i tried to google it.
I live in Norway, so that's why I'm assuming it should be a German grenade.
[QUOTE=Radley;43403533]Well if you think about it, yes.
Instruments of war will never take sides, they will always do what they we're designed to do.
A bomb blows up in a peaceful country and people get hurt. This however is no-ones fault since the bomb can not take sides.
It will lie dormant until destroyed, and it will do what it was built for until that day.
So in essence, War never changes.[/QUOTE]
holy shit are you seriously attempting to be ~deep~ and ~philosophical~ like that right now?
[QUOTE=Trunk Monkay;43411117]Any disinformation the Nazi's gave out would have only been marginal to how the Russians acted. The red army was a bunch of brute savages and rapists, theres absolutely no denying that.[/QUOTE]
Have you got any sources to back this up?
[QUOTE=Nick Lomax;43413637]There is a farm near here, where there is an old WWII grenade with its pin pulled out sticking up under the barn. It's most likely been thrown under there during WWII and then they found it so many years later i guess they thought it was safer to just leave it there, i dunno.
I saw it when I was a lot younger, but I remember how it looks, tho it doesn't make sense because it's not a german grenade. At least I couldn't find any pics that looked like it when i tried to google it.
I live in Norway, so that's why I'm assuming it should be a German grenade.[/QUOTE]
Shape?
[QUOTE=Melnek;43413932]Have you got any sources to back this up?[/QUOTE]
How about testimonies from civilians that suffered under Soviet boot in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and other countries that were to "join" the Warsaw pact? And there were still numerous instances of Bolsheviks going around and plundering, murdering and raping their way across Russia during the revolution, and the Polish-Bolshevik war.
[editline]4th January 2014[/editline]
There is a reason why the German army was fleeing west to alllies instead of surrendering to Soviets.
[QUOTE=GiGaBiTe;43410086]There were 99 grand slam bombs built and only 42 were used. Unlike carpet cluster bombing, these things were heavily documented as to where they were dropped because they were so expensive to produce (like the tall boy.) The few that failed were recovered or destroyed because they didn't want them in enemy hands.
It's extremely unlikely there are any of these things left.
There might be a few Tall Boys around (12,000 lb) since there were 854 built and the US made some knockoffs of it that were used up into the Vietnam war. But the same still applies as above, they were only dropped on very specific targets and had lots of documentation on how they were used.
[/QUOTE]
Never said this was a Tall Boy or a Grand Slam, just giving an idea of how insanely big some of the bombs used were and how relatively small this one probably was compared to some of the other conventional bombs they used. Bombs like that don't destroy property. They flatten the entire area and leave absolutely nothing standing.
[QUOTE=BananaMed;43413991]How about testimonies from civilians that suffered under Soviet boot in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and other countries that were to "join" the Warsaw pact? And there were still numerous instances of Bolsheviks going around and plundering, murdering and raping their way across Russia during the revolution, and the Polish-Bolshevik war.
[editline]4th January 2014[/editline]
There is a reason why the German army was fleeing west to alllies instead of surrendering to Soviets.[/QUOTE]
And how exactly would you accurately measure the actual extent of the rapes committed only through civilian testimonies? Keep in mind that such testimonies are often mere books written by writers rather than by statistical analysts and as such are not permissible when determining historical accuracy.
The entire point I was making wasn't that no rapes had been committed whatsoever, but rather their extent has been greatly exaggerated by both Fascist and later on, McCarthyist propaganda establishments. As with other incidents like looting, rapes occurred sporadically and at an individual's initiative, not as part of any Red Army policy. As much as some like to think that the Red Army was a barbaric 'horde' encouraged from Moscow to plunder and rape the Germans, that popular image does not match with what the Red Army was actually like. There are many recorded instances of Soviet soldiers being executed after being proven guilty of something as relatively trivial as looting.
Furthermore, the claim of mass Soviet-German rapes are extrapolated based on postwar abortion cases. Funny thing about those cases. Rape was essentially a no-questions asked pass, and in every case the claim invariably involved a foreign soldier or occupier. I haven't even heard of a claim of German-on-German rape, which is funny if you think about it, all the German rapists just went on vacation in the 5 years following the war, apparently. Nor is there accounting for the fact that people simply had abortions because of the dire material conditions in war-torn Germany.
[QUOTE=Radley;43403215]War... war never changes.[/QUOTE]
and explosives rarely go inert
[QUOTE=Melnek;43414495]And how exactly would you accurately measure the actual extent of the rapes committed only through civilian testimonies? Keep in mind that such testimonies are often mere books written by writers rather than by statistical analysts and as such are not permissible when determining historical accuracy.
The entire point I was making wasn't that no rapes had been committed whatsoever, but rather their extent has been greatly exaggerated by both Fascist and later on, McCarthyist propaganda establishments. As with other incidents like looting, rapes occurred sporadically and at an individual's initiative, not as part of any Red Army policy. As much as some like to think that the Red Army was a barbaric 'horde' encouraged from Moscow to plunder and rape the Germans, that popular image does not match with what the Red Army was actually like. There are many recorded instances of Soviet soldiers being executed after being proven guilty of something as relatively trivial as looting.
Furthermore, the claim of mass Soviet-German rapes are extrapolated based on postwar abortion cases. Funny thing about those cases. Rape was essentially a no-questions asked pass, and in every case the claim invariably involved a foreign soldier or occupier. I haven't even heard of a claim of German-on-German rape, which is funny if you think about it, all the German rapists just went on vacation in the 5 years following the war, apparently. Nor is there accounting for the fact that people simply had abortions because of the dire material conditions in war-torn Germany.[/QUOTE]
It's fairly easy to extrapolate based on the East German Rebublic or Poland, which was under the direct influence the soviets and even there the cases of aggression by soviet soldiers is fairly decently documented.
Obviously crimes happen around all armies. The americans, the soviets, germans and others. But some armies were far more barbaric compared to others.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;43404117]Wasn't their focus more on napalm and chemical weapons? Their aftermath is millions of birth defects and cancer.[/QUOTE]
agent orange, the one guy who never gets off your back
"my son died because of WW2"
Jesus those bombs are old but they still pack a fucking punch.
[QUOTE=goon165;43408761][t]http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/images/online_exhibitions/C5422LG.jpg[/t]
[I]They started it[/I][/QUOTE]
Too bad that Germany also bombed Warsaw to the ground
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Warsaw_in_World_War_II[/url]
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/P%C5%82on%C4%85ca_obl%C4%99%C5%BCona_Warszawa.jpg[/img]
And Rotterdam
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotterdam_Blitz[/url]
[t]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Rotterdam.jpg[/t]
Perhaps not on Britain self but on the allies of them, it is about the same.
But it is still terrible on both sides and war has always killed alot of civilians(Thirty year war like 30-40% of the population dead or gone).
War is terrible. It is and it always will be.
[QUOTE=Trunk Monkay;43410236]yeah they started it, then the Allies firebombed every major German city into nothingness. Dresden's civilian suburbs were firebombed so badly, that the German military couldn't dig mass graves deep enough for the tens of thousands of bodies. They had to come in with flame thrower infantry and burn the bodies again before they could bury them. The firebombing was so effective and so immense, that Germans had to get POW's to help with the clean up, including shoveling families that were burnt alive out of bomb shelters and cellars.
Allied bombing of Japan and Germany was mass murder disguised as anti-moral and factory efforts.[/QUOTE]
It's not an excuse, because the firebombing of German cities was horrific, but another reason for it was for morale back home. Britain had watched a tide of darkness wash over Europe, and suffered the humiliation of it's troops being pushed off the mainland back to Britain, loosing valuable materials for the war effort in the process.
The bombing of German cities made the British people, troops and to be honest it's leaders feel they doing anything, something against what was happening, even if it was targeting innocent civilians and quite frankly having the same effect the Blitz had on the UK (i.e none).
In a twist of bitter irony, the RAF also decided to rely heavily on incendiaries after noticing the Luftwaffe's use of them over high explosives proved effective on the few British targets they hit.
[QUOTE=Melnek;43413932]Have you got any sources to back this up?[/QUOTE]
I could point to the mass rape during the siege of Berlin and the 15,000 dead polish POW's, civilians, and prisoners lying in mass graves in a forest in Russia. Could also point out that the Red Army waited outside of Warsaw while the Polish resistance was wiped out by the Germans, because the resistance was the last remaining ties to the Polish democracy.
[editline]5th January 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Camundongo;43417496]It's not an excuse, because the firebombing of German cities was horrific, but another reason for it was for morale back home. Britain had watched a tide of darkness wash over Europe, and suffered the humiliation of it's troops being pushed off the mainland back to Britain, loosing valuable materials for the war effort in the process.
The bombing of German cities made the British people, troops and to be honest it's leaders feel they doing anything, something against what was happening, even if it was targeting innocent civilians and quite frankly having the same effect the Blitz had on the UK (i.e none).
In a twist of bitter irony, the RAF also decided to rely heavily on incendiaries after noticing the Luftwaffe's use of them over high explosives proved effective on the few British targets they hit.[/QUOTE]
Mass murder by fire was ok because it raised moral a little bit.
[editline]5th January 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Melnek;43414495]
As with other incidents like looting, rapes occurred sporadically and at an individual's initiative, not as part of any Red Army policy. As much as some like to think that the Red Army was a barbaric 'horde' encouraged from Moscow to plunder and rape the Germans, that popular image does not match with what the Red Army was actually like.[/QUOTE]
Yeah the thing is, there wasn't a whole lot of punishment dealt out for Russians raping German women. And while mass rape wasn't exactly encouraged by Soviet politics, it wasn't exactly discouraged either. Germany as a whole was ostracized during and after the war. They were all made to look like mass murdering barbarians by Russian propaganda, and the hatred of the German people by the Russians is still very prevalent today.
Many many many many many German troops were kept in gulags well into the 1950's because of false war crimes. Eric Hartman, the highest scoring ace in history, was thrown into a forced labor camp because he refused to join the East-German Luftwaffe. The Soviets pinned false warcrime charges on him, claiming he took part in a mass murder and saying he shot down 300+ "expensive aircraft".
[QUOTE=Trunk Monkay;43418606]I could point to the mass rape during the siege of Berlin and the 15,000 dead polish POW's, civilians, and prisoners lying in mass graves in a forest in Russia. Could also point out that the Red Army waited outside of Warsaw while the Polish resistance was wiped out by the Germans, because the resistance was the last remaining ties to the Polish democracy.
[editline]5th January 2014[/editline]
Mass murder by fire was ok because it raised moral a little bit.[/QUOTE]
I said it was horrific, and I never said it was okay. However, it would be hard to explain why it's reprehensible at the time to someone who's had most of their family and their neighbours killed by a Luftwaffe bomb, or had lost their husband and their son in Europe. War makes us do terrible things, and even worse, it makes them seem like the morally correct choice at the time.
You forgot about the mass rape of Russian women when the Germans and Nazis took almost all of Russia over in the beginning of the war. Although it was pretty stupid of that madman Stalin to actually think he could ally with that mad madman Hitler.
[QUOTE=Trunk Monkay;43418606]I could point to the mass rape during the siege of Berlin and the 15,000 dead polish POW's, civilians, and prisoners lying in mass graves in a forest in Russia. Could also point out that the Red Army waited outside of Warsaw while the Polish resistance was wiped out by the Germans, because the resistance was the last remaining ties to the Polish democracy. [/quote]
Yes, the Warsaw Uprising. The Soviet Union supported the Uprising. They told the Polish Resistance to rise up, and when the Germans were occupied, they would roll in. What they really had planned, was the Resistance being wiped out. With the Resistance gone, the USSR were free to impose their own rule in the future. Gotta feel bad for 'em, what the Soviets did was real scummy but anything to expand their rule with as little effort as possible.
[QUOTE=Trunk Monkay;43418606]Yeah the thing is, there wasn't a whole lot of punishment dealt out for Russians raping German women. And while mass rape wasn't exactly encouraged by Soviet politics, it wasn't exactly discouraged either. Germany as a whole was ostracized during and after the war. They were all made to look like mass murdering barbarians by Russian propaganda, and [U]the hatred of the German people by the Russians is still very prevalent today.[/U][/QUOTE]
If my German friends are any reference, the feelings are mutual. They hate the Russians for what they did to Germany, things that persisted long after WW2 ended.
[QUOTE=Trunk Monkay;43418606]Many many many many many German troops were kept in gulags well into the 1950's because of false war crimes. Eric Hartman, the highest scoring ace in history, was thrown into a forced labor camp because he refused to join the East-German Luftwaffe. The Soviets pinned false warcrime charges on him, claiming he took part in a mass murder and saying he shot down 300+ "expensive aircraft".[/QUOTE]
There's also the story of 2 men, a Father (German) and Son (American), who were arrested and spent years in Gulags and NKVD Prisons. The reason? They were convicted of "spying" against the Soviets. The real reason? They were owners of a Camera Factory in Dresden, and a Commissar saw the factory wanted it, so the factory was seized and they were arrested on bogus charges.
Another story of a German Captain named Wilm Hosenfeld, who helped hide Jews from the Gestapo, and became known among Jewish refugees for his kindness and aid. When he was captured by the Soviets, they imprisoned him for "war crimes", ignored pleas and petitions from the Polish and Jewish communities to let him go, and he eventually died after being tortured to death. Why? Because he was from the wrong country, wearing the wrong clothse. His past deeds didn't matter to the Soviets, they killed him regardless.
[editline]5th January 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=coldroll5;43421883]You forgot about the mass rape of Russian women when the Germans and Nazis took almost all of Russia over in the beginning of the war. Although it was pretty stupid of that madman Stalin to actually think he could ally with that mad madman Hitler.[/QUOTE]
Honestly it was 2 nationalist, authoritarian empires next to each other, it would be a surprise if they didn't fight. Besides, Stalin could have been a genius by allying with Hitler. There's evidence suggesting he intended to surprise invade Nazi Germany while the Germans were occupied elsewhere. In his speeches, he said that Communism must spread, and that war is inevitable, the Soviets were rapidly modernising their army and building up their forces. T-34's and KV1's were replacing T-26 and BT series of Tanks, SVT-40 semi-automatic rifles were being produced and issued to front line troops, and said troops were being stationed near the borders of Nazi Germany. One popular reason given by German High Command for the invasion, was that they were sure Stalin would double-cross them, thus making the invasion of Russia a pre-emptive strike.
Funny thing is, half the reason the Russians failed so badly in the early stages was because the surprise attack led to thousands of their weapons and soldiers being captured by the Germans, because they were built up at the border, yet not prepared to fight. The Germans ended up capturing hundreds of thousands of SVT Rifles and using them throughout the war against the Soviets, while the Soviets begun producing the older Mosin-Nagant because it was easier to make and use, and they needed to replace lost weaponry fast.
[QUOTE=Trunk Monkay;43418606]I could point to the mass rape during the siege of Berlin and the 15,000 dead polish POW's, civilians, and prisoners lying in mass graves in a forest in Russia. Could also point out that the Red Army waited outside of Warsaw while the Polish resistance was wiped out by the Germans, because the resistance was the last remaining ties to the Polish democracy. [/QUOTE]
Again, the mass rapes claim is unverified and poorly documented on [i]both sides[/i]. This is not to say that they weren't being committed on massive scales along with looting, pillaging, and general destruction given that we are discussing the most fatal and chaotic war in human history.
But since a lot of disinformation and propaganda was used by two of the most apt nations in such sectors - along with poor documentation amid the chaos, determining the actual image of the Soviets and Germans is impossible. As with most cases in history, the most popular and mainstream version of any given topic is also often the most inaccurate and sensationalized. This is one of those cases.
Furthermore, Atina Grossman in her article in "October" describes how until early 1945 abortions in Germany were illegal (except for medical and eugenic reasons), and so when doctors opened up and started performing abortions to rape victims (for which only an affidavit was requested from a woman), many women would claim they were raped but their accounts were surprisingly uniform (describing rapists as having "mongoloid or asiatic type"). It was also typical that women specified their reasons for abortions being mostly socio-economic (inability to raise another child) rather than moral or ethical.
[QUOTE=Trunk Monkay;43418606]
Yeah the thing is, there wasn't a whole lot of punishment dealt out for Russians raping German women. And while mass rape wasn't exactly encouraged by Soviet politics, it wasn't exactly discouraged either. Germany as a whole was ostracized during and after the war. They were all made to look like mass murdering barbarians by Russian propaganda, and the hatred of the German people by the Russians is still very prevalent today. [/QUOTE]
Thing is, there was [i]a whole lot[/i] of punishment dealt to Russians raping. Entire units were often under investigation with a lot of executions as an end result, along with the government being against such actions - which is contrary to the German government upon invading Russia. Stalin's orders on treating the population humanely were implemnted and enforced.
[quote]An order issued on January 19, 1945 and signed by Stalin said;
[quote]"Officers and men of the Red Army! We are entering the country of the enemy... the remaining population in the liberated areas, regardless of whether they're German, Czech, or Polish, should not be subjected to violence. The perpetrators will be punished according to the laws of war. In the liberated territories, sexual relations with females are not allowed. Pepetrators of violence and rape will be shot."[/quote][/quote]
[editline]5th January 2014[/editline]
Oh also, regarding animosity between Germans and Russians 'that is still prevalent today';
[quote]According to a 2013 BBC World Service poll, only 12% of Germans view Russia's influence positively, with 61% expressing a negative view. Russians, however, have a much more positive view of Germany than Germans do of Russia, with 55% viewing Germany's influence positively and 10% negatively.[/quote]
[url]http://www.globescan.com/images/images/pressreleases/bbc2013_country_ratings/2013_country_rating_poll_bbc_globescan.pdf[/url]
[QUOTE=Nick Lomax;43413637]There is a farm near here, where there is an old WWII grenade with its pin pulled out sticking up under the barn. It's most likely been thrown under there during WWII and then they found it so many years later i guess they thought it was safer to just leave it there, i dunno.
I saw it when I was a lot younger, but I remember how it looks, tho it doesn't make sense because it's not a german grenade. At least I couldn't find any pics that looked like it when i tried to google it.
I live in Norway, so that's why I'm assuming it should be a German grenade.[/QUOTE]
Did it look like this:
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/N°5-MkII_N°23-MkII_N°36-MkI.jpg[/IMG]
This:
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/MkII_07.JPG[/IMG]
This:[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/M24_1.JPG[/IMG]
[QUOTE=Nick Lomax;43413637]There is a farm near here, where there is an old WWII grenade with its pin pulled out sticking up under the barn. It's most likely been thrown under there during WWII and then they found it so many years later i guess they thought it was safer to just leave it there, i dunno.
I saw it when I was a lot younger, but I remember how it looks, tho it doesn't make sense because it's not a german grenade. At least I couldn't find any pics that looked like it when i tried to google it.
I live in Norway, so that's why I'm assuming it should be a German grenade.[/QUOTE]
Could have been an eihandgranate.
[t]http://www.talesofagamer.com/valley/wp-content/gallery/weapons/model39grenade.jpg[/t]
[QUOTE=Radley;43403533]Well if you think about it, yes.
Instruments of war will never take sides, they will always do what they we're designed to do.
A bomb blows up in a peaceful country and people get hurt. This however is no-ones fault since the bomb can not take sides.
It will lie dormant until destroyed, and it will do what it was built for until that day.
So in essence, War never changes.[/QUOTE]
Except that's not the message that Fallout preaches with that leitmotif. The message Fallout preaches is that mankind will never change its core morals and the petty brutality man commits unto man will always be at the heart. Before the Great War mankind was squabbling over increasingly petty and pointless things and after the Great War mankind was squabbling over increasingly petty and pointless things and it likely will do until extinction, as there will never be true peace in the Wasteland.
That is what it means by "War Never Changes".
[QUOTE=Flapjacks;43402552]I remember reading somewhere that Europe is covered with untold amounts of unexploded ordinance from both world wars.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I found a rusty hand grenade in a field while I was on holiday in Belgium, the farm beside it had a 3ft high wall around a courtyard made out of old cannon shells.
So, what kind of WWII documentaries are there that are told from say... the German perspective? or the Japanese perspective? Ones with very little US influence in production? I'd love to see the whole thing through their historians eyes.
[QUOTE=S31-Syntax;43440098]So, what kind of WWII documentaries are there that are told from say... the German perspective? or the Japanese perspective? Ones with very little US influence in production? I'd love to see the whole thing through their historians eyes.[/QUOTE]
Not necessarily documentaries but;
Downfall, As far as My Feet will Carry Me, My way, City of Life and Death, John Rabe, and if you want to read a book check out Tigers in the Mud.
The original Stalingrad is also a good movie.
This was certainly a tragic incident. As a matter of coincidence, I have been watching documentaries on the second world war since last week. I just wanted to refresh my memories, recently I had developed an interest in knowing about these things. But one thing still boggles my mind, how the hell was Hitler able convince so many people? Who would be foolish enough to even think about letting him be a leader and/or even support him?
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