Fighters destroyed by setting off the bombs of the bombers they attacked?

[gruad]

I remember reading about a Lanc that had a cookie trapped in the bomb bay and couldnt drop it until a safe level of 4000ft was reached.

Night fighters typically attacked at 600 feet so if a cookie went off it would probably be destroyed or badly damaged.

Schrage Musik was even closer and they aimed for the petrol tank, but a lot of attacks were from behind and below.

I am guessing it must be difficult to set off a bomb in a metal case, but perhaps not with a 30mm explosive or incendiary round.

Another guess would be the bombs did not explode when the bomber hit the ground as the bomb aimer wouldnt have fused them and even if he did most of them werent barometric fuses.

I would be interested if any forum members have any other information on these topics.

Thanks - John

 

[pbehn]

Wiki says this
The 4,000 lb (1.8 t) "cookie" was regarded as a particularly dangerous load to carry. Due to the airflow over the detonating pistols fitted in the nose, it would often explode even if dropped in a supposedly "safe" unarmed state. The Safety height above ground for dropping the "cookie" was 6,000 ft (1,800 m); any lower and the dropping aircraft risked being damaged by the explosion's atmospheric shock wave:

We were flying at 6,000 feet which was the minimum height to drop the 4,000 pounder. We dropped it in the middle of town [Koblenz], which gave the aircraft a hell of a belt, lifted it up and blew an escape hatch from out of the top.
— Jack Murray, pilot of "G for George", reporting on G for George's mission on 17th April 1943.[10][page needed]​

 

[Reegor]

Fusing of bombs in WW 2 was prone to errors. There were deliberately many steps needed to arm a bomb. Then there were different ways to "tell" a bomb to actually detonate: delay, barometric, etc. A plane that crashed should never have its bombs go off, unless eventually a fire sets off the explosives.
There are many accounts from US 8th AF of bombers "exploding in mid air" but I don't remember reading of any other aircraft caught by those explosions. Unless they collided. Even in a collision, main risk is from fuel not bombs. Of course fuses sometimes got armed accidentally - even in modern times.
The flip side of fuses designed for safety is duds.
Perhaps someone is familiar with current "state of the art"?

 

[pbehn]

A Lancaster crashed on take off from RAF Croft, eventually the burning fuel and incendiaries set the bomb off, there was nothing at all left of the Lancaster, in the picture in linked article what is believed to be a Merlin engine is circled. 434 Squadron - Airfield Activity - Lancaster explosion, KB-832, WL-F (1st of two images)

I dont know what will or will not set off a cookie but if you are flying 600ft away you will be lucky to land safely.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Fusing of bombs in WW 2 was prone to errors. There were deliberately many steps needed to arm a bomb. Then there were different ways to "tell" a bomb to actually detonate: delay, barometric, etc. A plane that crashed should never have its bombs go off, unless eventually a fire sets off the explosives.
There are many accounts from US 8th AF of bombers "exploding in mid air" but I don't remember reading of any other aircraft caught by those explosions. Unless they collided. Even in a collision, main risk is from fuel not bombs. Of course fuses sometimes got armed accidentally - even in modern times.
The flip side of fuses designed for safety is duds.
Perhaps someone is familiar with current "state of the art"?

Probably not state of the art any more, but when I was in the service, the dumb bombs still had barometric fuses. We had (at Moron AB, Spain, 1991) an IFE on a B-52 coming back from a mission over Iraq, damaged by SAM (missing half of one horizontal stabilizer), and one of its Mk117 bombs (750-lb) hung up on the port pylon.

A/C made a safe landing and taxied to the hammerhead, where we firefighters were setting up on an emergency egress. Now, "rescue side" in firefighting vernacular is the A/C's port side. Aside from the rescue truck itself, I was driving the fastest crash truck in the station, an early-model P-19, so being second on-scene, we set up behind Rescue-9 to covers their ops and set up for turrets as the bomber was slowing. As it came to a halt, with R-9's crew just outside their vehicle, the bomber nosed down and jerked a little as it stopped.

At that point, the hung ordnance let loose and fell off the pylon, oh, I don't know, maybe 9' to the flightline, where it did a bounce-and-roll. You had firedogs running everywhere getting out of its way. R-9 scooped up some crew, and we took a couple ourselves into jumpseats, and both us got the FOOD. I had Crash-5 up to 60mph in what I think was record time as we headed to the 2500' pullback this bomb called for. We passed, going the other way, the two ancient P-4 trucks coming down the taxiway, huffing and puffing their little engines out to back us up, they hadn't turned around yet.

EOD came out later to secure the bomb, and the next day destroyed it by putting it in a farmer's field and setting it off. Crater was 75' wide and probably 30' deep if my old ass remembers right. You could drop a house into it. Me and Ram on C-5 helped snuff the grass fires. That was our excitement for Desert Storm.

Anywho, long story short, even 30 years ago, the fusing was fairly reliable, even if we didn't trust it.

 

[special ed]

A previous father in law who had been with 19 Bomb Group told of B-24s taking off on a mission when one exploded just after lift off. As the entire bomb load had detonated, he said there wasn't enough large pieces of debris left to determine what happened.

 

[pbehn]

When J P Kennedy's B-24 drone exploded at 2,000ft the Mosquito 300ft above and 900ft behind suffered a slight damage and injuries but landed. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. - Wikipedia

 

[GrauGeist]

If a night fighter (or any fighter, for that matter) gets close enough to their target from behind, they do run the risk of being struck by debris coming off of their quarry.