WW2 British bomb found in Koblenz causes 45000 people evacuation

[Kongo-Otto]

Originally Posted by cheesehawk

Do they retroactively add that to the USAAF's casualty numbers?

No why should they?
The more important question imho is why wasnt a proper search for unexploded Bombs performed by the Bavarian authorities?
Knowing that the Aera was heavily bombed and it also was scene of heavy ground battles lasting several days, between the (iirc) 45th US Inf Div and the Wehrmacht a proper analysis of the USAAF and RAF Aerial Pictures made after Bombing Raids would have easily prevented the explosion.
Those Aerial Pictures are available to german authorities since years.

btw, its not possible to say who dropped the Bomb, it also could have been a Bomb dropped by the RAF in the November 1944 Raid on Aschaffenburg.

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by Kongo-Otto

No why should they?
The more important question imho is why wasnt a proper search for unexploded Bombs performed by the Bavarian authorities?
Knowing that the Aera was heavily bombed and it also was scene of heavy ground battles lasting several days, between the (iirc) 45th US Inf Div and the Wehrmacht a proper analysis of the USAAF and RAF Aerial Pictures made after Bombing Raids would have easily prevented the explosion.
Those Aerial Pictures are available to german authorities since years.

btw, its not possible to say who dropped the Bomb, it also could have been a Bomb dropped by the RAF in the November 1944 Raid on Aschaffenburg.

It's virtually impossible man. Sometimes bombs get 15, 20 metres deep, there's no way of finding them. It's a sad testament of those dark years, but thinking about finding them all and neutralising them is too much of a prohibitive thing to do in terms of costs.

[Bewolf]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

It's virtually impossible man. Sometimes bombs get 15, 20 metres deep, there's no way of finding them. It's a sad testament of those dark years, but thinking about finding them all and neutralising them is too much of a prohibitive thing to do in terms of costs.

That's indeed a problem. Ground in Germany and especially rivers are so full of metal that any focused search for bombs is an excercise in futility. You just have to go by what is obvious.

[TomcatViP]

Damn we can found oil mixed in sand at 1km beneath ground level. There isn't any good excuse not to find a metallic 250lb+ bomb (I am not talking abt hand grenades here )

A small team, a mini-drone, a truck and hundreds of km² can be done in a day.

[Bewolf]

Originally Posted by TomcatViP

Damn we can found oil mixed in sand at 1km beneath ground level. There isn't any good excuse not to find a metallic 250lb+ bomb (I am not talking abt hand grenades here )

A small team, a mini-drone, a truck and hundreds of km² can be done in a day.

Not if the ground is so cluttered with other kinds of metals that you have to stop every few meters to dig out a bike, a pot or all kinds of other stuff from 5 meters depths. It's not like those bombs are lying out in the open, usually they are only appearing when doing contruction work or in this case, when rivers are so low that their beds are readily accessible. They are also not in the vast wilderness of unihabitated lands but usually right in the middle of urban centers which you just cant shut down to get a search team do their work. The costs are simply not maintainable.

[Sternjaeger II]

yep, I think that what most fail to understand is the sheer size of the bombed areas in mainland Europe.

[Sven]

They have found a ton of ammunition some years ago beneath one railway close to where I live. Mostly German 88 rounds, grenades and rifle ammunition.
Not very dangerous but a lot of drama of course.

[TomcatViP]

Originally Posted by Bewolf

Not if the ground is so cluttered with other kinds of metals that you have to stop every few meters to dig out a bike, a pot or all kinds of other stuff from 5 meters depths. It's not like those bombs are lying out in the open, usually they are only appearing when doing contruction work or in this case, when rivers are so low that their beds are readily accessible. They are also not in the vast wilderness of unihabitated lands but usually right in the middle of urban centers which you just cant shut down to get a search team do their work. The costs are simply not maintainable.

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

[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.

[Kongo-Otto]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

It's virtually impossible man. Sometimes bombs get 15, 20 metres deep, there's no way of finding them. It's a sad testament of those dark years, but thinking about finding them all and neutralising them is too much of a prohibitive thing to do in terms of costs.

Originally Posted by Bewolf

That's indeed a problem. Ground in Germany and especially rivers are so full of metal that any focused search for bombs is an excercise in futility. You just have to go by what is obvious.

Yes you have to go by what is obvious, therefore the Aerial Photos supplied by the USA and the UK are an important factor for searching unexploded Bombs.
Otherwise in every Major Town namely Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Augsburg and of Course the Ruhrgebiet and many more, when ever you dig a hole a search has to be Performed specially in those Areas where Ground Combat also took place.
I did some research, why there wasnt a search performed at the A3, there was a Search performed in 1955(!) and therefore a new search was considered as waste of time(!)
I call such behavior a criminal act caused by laziness along with stupidity!
I see it here in Augsburg from first hand, every time when they tear down a building and build a new one or build a new one on vacant land, a search is performed.

Before i came to Augsburg i lived in Wolfratshausen a tiny City with 17000 People south of Munich, even there they found a few unexploded 500 lbs, cause sometimes when the Target couldnt be reached due to battle damage the Bombers dumped their payload right there where they flew.

But there is a much bigger danger not on Land but in the North Sea, the Allies sunk Ships with Tousands of tons german Ammo after the war, including Yperite (aka Mustard Gas), Sarin and Tabun Gas Grenades and Bombs, this is an imminent Danger to all Nations around the North Sea specially Denmark, Norway, the UK's East Coast and Germany.