WW2 British bomb found in Koblenz causes 45000 people evacuation

[Bewolf]

Originally Posted by TomcatViP

Ok Ok... overoptimistic mode was ON.

But still, this could work out of urban area. Hve a look at all the counter-IED work. And still they contains (for this very specific fact) few metal parts

Well, the problem is not a lack of metal, but too much of it. If you go into the city with a metal detector you probably get a flatline beep because there is so much of it. Bombs just vanish in this clutter. To find those bombs you actually would have to dig up every square meter and check for yourself, that is what makes it so tedious and unviable. Remember, those bombs are located underground, when they came down they sometimes buried themselves a dozen meters into the earth. Believe me, if Germany had a realistic working method to get rid of those things this country already would have done that.

In the coming years lots of those bomb fuzes will reach the end of their lifetime, and then things will become really interesting.

[Sternjaeger II]

Yep. The only solution would be to use echo-scanners or similar sonars, so that you can get some sort of silhouette of what's below, but even in that way it might not be easy: think about the intricate pipework, subway and sewage systems of modern cities.

I'm also afraid about the instability of fuzes and explosives in general after 70+ years. The dramatic thing is that many cities have a lot of subterranean caves (natural or artificial) which could expand the shockwave in unexpected and really dangerous ways.