James May - Man Lab - How not to wire a plug.

[PeterC]

Well, a lot of the first two is in the UK.

[The Other Mike]

James May isn't

[The Other Mike]

It isn't on the day the palestinian bakers dozen suicide squad decide to meet 936 virgins.

[The Other Mike]

You do recall correctly, however they have 'improved' the design and they now require two cores one length and one core another, the earth being the longer of the three. A backward step in my view, the earlier ones were a very elegant bit of industrial design, the cable clamp in particular being the pinnacle of what could be achieved with modern plastics to achieve higher cord retention forces and significantly easier wiring. Longer earth cores on plugs when the whole circuit will be disconnected a fraction of a second later really achieve nothing practical.

[John Rumm]

It wasn't the detaching that armed it... There was a charging harnes that attached to the contacts on the fuse and allowed the internal battery / capacitor to be charged. In the uncharged state they were "safe" - and so were loaded in that state, and would only be charged prior to dropping aggressively. (there was the option to not charge and drop when unloading unused bombs over friendly soil prior to landing)

They did that by simply not charging them before dropping rather than attaching anything to make them safe. If you think about it, such an attachment would be rather a gift for the ATOs

Depends on how deep, and the type of target you are attempting to kill. Too deep and you lose the desired effect. Air blasts are good at killing people and spreading shrapnel, but not as effective on infrastructure targets (you will break windows, but not knock down buildings).

In terms of total casualties per rocket they were broadly similar.. they carried a similar explosive payload as well.

So you are agreeing with Geoff now then....?

[Halmyre]

But he's been with the same GF for ten years, which is a lot longer than some celebrity marriages.

[ARWadsworth]

eg Jade Goody

[chris French]

Sorry, but I find that in extremely poor taste (possibly even a bit sick), given that Jade and hubby never had the chance to see how long their marriage could have lasted.

-- Chris French

[dennis]

No, to do so would make me wrong. He just doesn't understand the meaning of "most". As I said most bombs didn't have anti-tamper, incendiaries didn't for example.

[John Rumm]

I never liked them really. The cord grip was the best bit and worked well, but I found the wire terminations with the central post in the way made them harder to wire. The plugs were often too wide for some circumstances as well.

[geoff]

In message , "dennis@home" writes

Denboi does the old wheedling out bit ... again

Actually, you're right , those little bombs that you used to be able to buy for 6d which you primed with a cap (100 for a penny) when we were at school didn't have them either

[ARWadsworth]

And I always used to think that cancer was a horrible disease, but in fact it is a miracle cure, it can turn a fat ugly racist ignorant woman into an angel.

[dennis]

There is no need for you to resort to the ridiculous, you were wrong anyway. And there was no wheedling out either, it is exactly as I said, just as it usually is.

[geoff]

In message , "dennis@home" writes

As with everything else denboi, you have no spirit or feeling

I'm sure everyone else understood what I meant, you're just trying to pick an argument

f*ck, you're a retard

[dennis]

You are arguing, I just stated a fact.

[Andy Wade]

So if a bomb relies on a charged battery or capacitor to detonate how come that unexploded ones can remain dangerous for decades, when either device would surely have completely discharged?

[Michael Chare]

I had forgotten about those! They were fun.

[dennis]

Two bolts and a nut worked well.

[John Rumm]

I think the main danger is that the chemicals used in in the initiator decompose and it becomes ultra sensitive to vibration and handling in their own right.

[Andy Dingley]

Broadly speaking, they aren't. They were built by Germans, and German chemists at that, so they're pretty stable.

The big problem with a modern discovery of a WW2 German bomb is when it's a time-delay fuze, the No 17. This has two fuzes in series, the electric fuze and then an adjustable clockwork delay fuze. Once the clockwork has started, the electric fuze is no longer required. It was supposed to detonate within 72 hours max, so it has either not been started, or it has started and then stopped by jamming. A mechanical shock today can re-start the clock, at an unknown time.

Then there's an anti-handling fuze, the Zus40, behind many of those delay fuzes. Render-safe still requires that to be dealt with, so as to get the gaine and booster charge (big enough to be a problem) away from the detonator.

OTOH, the Japanese favoured picric acid as an explosive. In contact with metals over time, this forms picrates that are horribly impact senstive. Even without the fuze, even just fragments of a damaged munition, the stuff can go off if you walk on it.