Crater size of different RAF bombs used in WWII

[jay hammond]

I've been searching years to find someone who can tell me what the crater dimensions would be from an RAF 250, 500 and 1,000 bomb if dropped on a railway marshalling yard and surrounding city, i.e., not open country. I've looked on the internet, a variety of books and to date nothing. Hopefully someone has the answer to this niggling problem.

 

[AL90]

The link below is to "Relative effectiveness of Various Bombs and Fuzes" which is an American document, somewhere in the Ike Skelton Digital Library there is a study made by the British........but I can't find it or my copy.

World War II Operational Documents

cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org

Effect largely is decided by the bomb contruction, fuse and where it lands.
Trials were carried out on Braid Fell to the east of Cairnryan in Scotland where dummy factories and buildings were built then various bomb types were dropped. The area has still not been cleared and some of the water filled craters are massive.

 

[larrymc]

This table may help a bit.
It does not specify time delay or depth of penetration before detonation, so YMMV.

 

[33k in the air]

I've been searching years to find someone who can tell me what the crater dimensions would be from an RAF 250, 500 and 1,000 bomb if dropped on a railway marshalling yard and surrounding city, i.e., not open country. I've looked on the internet, a variety of books and to date nothing. Hopefully someone has the answer to this niggling problem.

There would be differences between bombs of the British GP and MC series of the same weight class due to the larger amount of explosive filler in the latter. That said, results from British bombs would be generally similar to U.S. bombs, bearing in mind differences in explosive filler amount and type would cause some variation in the effects.