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Torpex
Torpex ("Torpedo explosive") is a secondary explosive, 50% more powerful than TNT by mass. Torpex comprises 42% RDX, 40% TNT and 18% powdered aluminium. It was used in the Second World War from late 1942, at which time some used the names Torpex and RDX interchangeably. Torpex proved to be particularly useful in underwater munitions because the aluminium component made the explosive pulse last longer, which increased the destructive power. Besides torpedoes, naval mines, and depth charges, Torpex was also used in the M.C 500lb and 1000lb bombs, the 4000lb, 8000lb, and 12000lb "cookie" H.C bombs and in the Upkeep, Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs as well as the drones employed in Operation Aphrodite. Torpex has long been superseded by H6 and Polymer-bonded explosive (PBX) compositions. It is regarded as obsolete and Torpex is unlikely to be encountered except in old munitions or unexploded ordnance, although a notable exception to this is the Sting Ray lightweight torpedo, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bouncing Bomb
A bouncing bomb is a bomb designed to bounce to a target across water in a calculated manner to avoid obstacles such as torpedo nets, and to allow both the bomb's speed on arrival at the target and the timing of its detonation to be predetermined, in a similar fashion to a regular naval depth charge. The inventor of the first such bomb was the British engineer Barnes Wallis, whose "Upkeep" bouncing bomb was used in the Royal Air Force, RAF's Operation Chastise of May 1943 to bounce into German dams and explode underwater, with an effect similar to the underground detonation of the later Grand Slam bomb, Grand Slam and Tallboy bomb, Tallboy earthquake bombs, both of which he also invented. British bouncing bombs After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Wallis saw strategic bombing as the means to destroy the enemy's ability to wage war and he wrote a paper entitled "A Note on a Method of Attacking the Axis powers, Axis Powers". Referring to the enemy's power suppli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Explosives Used During World War II
Almost all the common explosives listed here were mixtures of several common components: * Ammonium picrate * TNT (Trinitrotoluene) * PETN (Pentaerythritol tetranitrate) * RDX * Powdered aluminium. This is only a partial list; there were many others. Many of these compositions are now obsolete and only encountered in legacy munitions and unexploded ordnance. {, class="wikitable" , - ! Name !! Composition !! Notes , - , Amatol, , Ammonium nitrate and TNT , , Extensively used in bombs, shells, depth charges and naval mines , - , Baronal, , Barium nitrate, TNT and powdered aluminium , , , - , Baratol (explosive), Baratol, , Barium nitrate and TNT , , Used in British hand grenades. Also used as the low velocity explosive lens in the implosion type nuclear weapon, Fat Man , - , Composition A, , 88.3% RDX and 11.7% plasticizer , , , - , Composition B, , RDX, TNT and wax , , Used as the high velocity explosive lens in the implosion type nuclear weapon, Fat Man , - , Comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Depth Charge
A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapon designed to destroy submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...s by detonating in the water near the target and subjecting it to a destructive shock factor, hydraulic shock. Most depth charges use high explosives with a fuze set to detonate the charge, typically at a specific depth from the surface. Depth charges can be dropped by ships (typically fast, agile surface combatants such as destroyers or frigates), patrol aircraft and helicopters. Depth charges were developed during World War I, and were one of the first viable methods of attacking a submarine underwater. They were widely used in World War I and World War II, and remained part of the anti-submarine arsenals of many navies during the Cold War, duri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tallboy (bomb)
Tallboy or Bomb, Medium Capacity, 12,000 lb was an earthquake bomb developed by the British aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis and used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War."Medium capacity" refers to the ratio of bomb case to explosive filling; in the case of the Tallboy, this was less than 50 per cent explosive by weight, in contrast to "high capacity" bombs like the Blockbuster bombs, in which up to three-quarters of their weight was the explosive. At , it could be carried only by a modified model of the Avro Lancaster heavy bomber. It proved to be effective against large, fortified structures where conventional bombing had proved ineffective. History Wallis presented his ideas for a 10-ton bomb in his 1941 paper "A Note on a Method of Attacking the Axis Powers", which showed that a very large bomb exploding deep underground next to a target would transmit the shock into the foundations of the target, particularly since shock waves are transmitted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sting Ray (torpedo)
The Sting Ray is a British acoustic homing lightweight torpedo (LWT) manufactured by GEC-Marconi, who were later bought out by BAE Systems. It entered service in 1982. Design and development In the 1950s the Royal Navy was equipped with British designed and built Mk 30 air-dropped torpedoes. These were passive homing weapons which relied on detecting the noise from submarine targets. However, as submarine noise levels decreased these weapons became ineffective. A design for a British Mk 31 torpedo which would have used active echo-location sonar failed to receive Government approval for production. US Mk 44 torpedoes were purchased for the Royal Navy in the 1960s to fill this role, and later replaced by US Mk 46 torpedoes. A desire not to be dependent on US torpedo purchases led to a research programme starting in 1964 to develop a British torpedo. Initially designated Naval and Air Staff Requirement (NASR) 7511, it was (much later in the late 1970s) designated the Stin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grand Slam Bomb
The Bomb, Medium Capacity, (Grand Slam) was a earthquake bomb used by RAF Bomber Command against German targets towards the end of the Second World War. The bomb was originally called Tallboy Large until the term Tallboy got into the press and the code name was replaced by "Grand Slam". The bomb was similar to a large version of the Tallboy bomb but a new design and closer to the size that its inventor, Barnes Wallis, had envisaged when he developed the idea of an earthquake bomb. It was the largest and most powerful conventional aerial bomb used by either side during the war. Medium Capacity (M.C.) bombs were designed to remedy the shortcomings of General Purpose (G.P.) bombs, with a greater blast and casings which were robust enough to confer a considerable capacity to penetrate, especially the Tallboy and Grand Slam. The Grand Slam case was made of a chrome-molybdenum alloy steel and had a charge-to-weight ratio of over 43 per cent. Standard Avro Lancaster bombers could n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Aphrodite
Aphrodite was the World War II code name of a United States Army Air Forces operation to use worn out Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated PB4Y bombers as radio controlled flying bombs against bunkers and other hardened or reinforced enemy facilities. A parallel project by the United States Navy was codenamed Anvil. The missions were not generally successful, and the intended targets in Europe were either overrun by the ground advance of Allied troops or disabled by conventional attacks by aircraft. Background The plan called for B-17E/Fs that had been taken out of operational service (various nicknames existed, such as "robot", "baby", "drone" or "weary Willy") to be loaded to capacity with explosives, and flown by radio control into bomb-resistant fortifications such as German U-boat pens and V-weapon sites. The German offensive against London with the V-1 flying bomb, a jet-powered autopilot weapon, began in June 1944. This increased interest in the use of aircraf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Explosive
An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An explosive charge is a measured quantity of explosive material, which may either be composed solely of one ingredient or be a mixture containing at least two substances. The potential energy stored in an explosive material may, for example, be: * chemical energy, such as nitroglycerin or grain dust * pressurized gas, such as a gas cylinder, aerosol can, or boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion * nuclear energy, such as in the fissile isotopes uranium-235 and plutonium-239 Explosive materials may be categorized by the speed at which they expand. Materials that detonate (the front of the chemical reaction moves faster through the material than the speed of sound) are said to be "high explosives" and materials that deflagrate ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hexanite
Hexanite was a castable German military explosive developed early in the 20th century before the First World War for the Kaiserliche Marine, intended to augment supplies of trinitrotoluene (TNT), which were then in short supply. Hexanite is slightly less powerful than TNT on its own. The most common hexanite formula (by weight) was 60% TNT and 40% hexanitrodiphenylamine. Typically, hexanite was used in underwater naval weapons e.g. warheads for the G7a and G7e series torpedoes and the main explosive charge in aluminium-cased buoyant, moored "EMF" magnetic mines capable of being laid by U-boats in of water. This explosive is regarded as obsolete, so any hexanite-filled munitions encountered will be in the form of unexploded ordnance dating from the Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amatol
Amatol is a highly explosive material made from a mixture of TNT and ammonium nitrate. The British name originates from the words ammonium and toluene (the precursor of TNT). Similar mixtures (one part dinitronaphthalene and seven parts ammonium nitrate) were known as Schneiderite in France. Amatol was used extensively during World War I and World War II, typically as an explosive in military weapons such as aircraft bombs, shells, depth charges, and naval mines.Brown, G. I. (1998). ''The Big Bang: A History of Explosives''. Sutton Publishing . pp. 158-163. It was eventually replaced with alternative explosives such as Composition B, Torpex, and Tritonal. Invention Following the Shell Crisis of 1915 in which the UK did not have enough ordnance due to a lack of explosives, a team at the Royal Arsenal laboratories produced a mixture of ammonium nitrate and TNT, known as Amatol for short. Special factories were constructed for the manufacture of ammonium nitrate by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beeswax
Bee hive wax complex Beeswax (also known as cera alba) is a natural wax produced by honey bees of the genus ''Apis''. The wax is formed into scales by eight wax-producing glands in the abdominal segments of worker bees, which discard it in or at the hive. The hive workers collect and use it to form cells for honey storage and larval and pupal protection within the beehive. Chemically, beeswax consists mainly of esters of fatty acids and various long-chain alcohols. Beeswax has been used since prehistory as the first plastic, as a lubricant and waterproofing agent, in lost wax casting of metals and glass, as a polish for wood and leather, for making candles, as an ingredient in cosmetics and as an artistic medium in encaustic painting. Beeswax is edible, having similarly negligible toxicity to plant waxes, and is approved for food use in most countries and in the European Union under the E number E901. However, due to its inability to be broken down by the human digestiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trialen
Trialen was an explosive developed in Germany. It was used during World War II in the V-1 flying bomb and Arado E.377 glide bomb, among other weapons, as an enhanced blast explosive. Trialen was the German equivalent of the British explosive Torpex, though its production was hindered by a shortage of the aluminium powder that was added to increase its explosive power. It comprised a mixture of TNT, RDX, hexogen, and aluminium powder in varying proportions for each of three versions, known as trialen (or filler) 105, 106 and 107 respectively. The proportions for each version were: *Trialen 105: trotyl 70%, hexogen 15%, aluminium powder 15% *Trialen 106: trotyl 50%, hexogen 25%, aluminium powder 25% *Trialen 107: trotyl 50%, hexogen 20%, aluminium powder 30% * Trialen 105/109: a mixture of 27% trialen 105 and 73% PMF 109. PMF 109 (Panzermunitionsfüllung 109) was a mixture consisting of 71% RDX, cyclonite, 25% aluminium powder and 4% montan wax. Though highly brisant and thermobaric, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
