Ground dug AN-M104 Nose impact fuse

[Steve T]

Hi all

Thought I'd share this with you. DM and me did a little relic swop on Saturday, and I traded him a couple of tea ration tins for these two.

They have had 48hrs in vinegar and then a good scrubbing with a heavy duty scourer and then a brillo pad. Both have come up very nicely and are rare little finds.

Can't quite remember where DM dug them.......was it your range DM ?

Anyway......here they are. Rare little beasties by all accounts Used on 23lb frag bombs, and also in 'clusters' of the same bomb.





And here are some diagrams and a description of them.....







Thanks DM !!



Steve T

[cornishboy]

Nice finds Steve,scrubbed up good too! Thanks for posting

[jayh]

I took mouse to the site where these were found , I have been there 3-4 times totalling about 1 hour and have found about 20 of them if anyone wants one then pm me and I will see what I can do and Steve if you want the location of the site we could maybe try to organise a rrpg trip there

[Steve T]

Great idea jayh I'll be in touch

[jayh]

Went back today for half an hour and got another dozen or so !!there seems to be loads of them there but very little of anything else

[Steve T]

Must have been a bombing range. Perhaps a different area would yield different finds ?

[jayh]

I will let you do the investigating when I give you the location as all I can see are empty fields lol

[Paul B]

There were a relatively small number of wartime bombing ranges in your neck of the woods, I have some of them plotted on WWII aerial photos to identify the impact areas, ground-to-air signals etc.

All the best,
PB

[dangermouse]

This place Steve is just so open and as Jay said they are everywhere, it gets very repetative digging them and nothing else... you even get excited when it just the collar ring of one, as its different and not as heavy

Once you have 5 of these in your bag it starts getting heavy! 10 and its really not funny anymore!

And how the hell does yours look so nice! Will give you mine to clean next time

[Paul B]

Wartime photo showing a crated AN-M4 ParaFrag cluster (three M72 23lb Parachute-retarded Fragmentation Bombs on an M3 Cluster Adapter) that had come apart during transit:



All three are factory-fitted with AN-M104 fuzes, one of which has the firing plunger fully compresed!

The photo was taken following a dreadful accident where these crated clusters were being stacked in an underground bomb dump at an AAF airbase in China during 1944, where some exploded killing three men. The cause was traced to the faulty packing as seen by the broken strapping in the photo, allowing the bombs to detach from the adapter and arm themselves unseen inside the sealed crates.

PB