Luftwaffe and concrete bombs?

I read that by 1943 Germans were running out of iron and made bombs out of concrete...Does anyone know if this is true? I think this means the casing would be from concrete.

 

I don't know anything about their use but it seems like a good idea. I know in WWI they used some cargo ships made of cement and one hull still rests in Galvestion Bay that was blown to shallow water by a hurricane in the past.

 

I found this site and the US used cement bombs to practice with in the States.

About 3/4's down the page he tells about it.

http://kued.org/productions/worldwar2/mickelson_mont.php

 

Not much help, but I know they had concrete hollow balls with explosive charges in to roll down cliffs in Normandy.

 

I'm fairly certain they didn't...the reason I say this is that in 2003 in Iraq, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) armaments and ordnance personnel constructed a concrete bomb to use on Republican Guard tanks in the fighting for Baghdad to reduce civilian casualties. This was hailed and laughed at as a phenomenon, and no reference was made to the use of such munitions in other wars.

Hope this helps

 

Just read Wolfgang Fleischer's excellent 'The Wehrmacht weapons testing ground at Kummersdorf' (schiffer 1997). Reference to quite a bit of testing of concrete artillery shells and even Panzerfaust heads, 105 & 150mm prototype examples for Howitzers manufactured by Preussag-Rudersdorf have been found on the ranges. The structure (from a photograph of a recovered example) appears to be reinforced concrete with a metal cap and driving band with the reinforcing rods running spirally the length of the shell.

I'm sure Sapper has also told us elsewhere that many German stick grenades his blokes captured at the time had concrete fragmentation sleeves.

Cheers,
Adam.

 

The Germans had a concrete bomb factory west of Chartres. These were 500 kilo practise bombs. They were used between Chateaudun and Chartres in the large wheat fields of the Beauce. There are still many of these bombs around in the countryside . Farmers will give them away. The last one I heard of was discovered in 2005 near a school at PATAY , west of Orleans.

 

Concrete Bombs:

SBe 50 Concrete Bomb
SBe 250 Concrete Fragmentation Bomb
SC 10 Concrete Bomb
ZC 10 Concrete Practice Bomb
ZC 50 Concrete Practice Bomb


From:

http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/bombs.html
(scroll down for details on each one)

 

You are right Amrit the ones I meant were 250 kilo bombs. They were also used at Dijon airfield.

 

Ahh, what's 250K between friends?

 

Noted another concrete shell illustrated in that Fleischer book,
'The 210mm type 5021 Mortar shell', which appears to be a thin metal (could just be smooth concrete) outer shell with a thick layer of concrete around the central charge. Can't find a picture on the web though.

I see there were also specifically anticoncrete rounds produced for German guns, some coverage from lone sentry:
"German Anticoncrete Shells -- 150- and 210-mm Calibers" from Tactical and Technical Trends.

Cheers,
Adam.

 

Thanks Von Poop, interesting, I didn't know that.