Old War Relics Found

[mike M.]

Okay guys, who can tell whats wrong with this sign? It was made by a G.I. in 1942 or 43, the side with the red paint was still under ground when found.

[mike M.]

Here is another sign found in the same general area. It was made with a nail and was smashed when found,it took some time but I got it straightened out.

[mike M.]

A pile of practice rifle grenades

[Firefly]

Bloody hell, your not touching that stuff are you!

[mike M.]

Hi firefly,
The items in this pic are practice rounds, the mines if they have a fuze produce smoke and these rifle grenades are hollow with no powder of anykind.

[Firefly]

Ah thats ok then...

[mike M.]

This was a truck body that the US Army used for grenade practice.

[mike M.]

If you guys are not interested in these WWII training finds please let me know and i will stop posting. Is there anyone here from Germany or France that hunt old battlefields? :?:

[Cactus]

Keep on posting, interesting stuff there!

[Commando Jordovski]

Just down the road from where i live , not far, about 100km, in a town called Jurien Bay, there are huge bomb craters all along the beach and town where the japanese had bombed us, i always used to play in the bomb shelters when i was a child.
I found a huge sack of Rice in one aswell from WW2 !!!

[Cactus]

That's awsome

Neat posts Mike!

[Jamminjustin]

MORE, MORE! GIVE US MORE!!! lol cool pics man

[Commando Jordovski]

Nice pictures Mike where did you get them from mate ?


by the way 'Cactus', your signature of "Call of Duty" is really cool 8) , you make it ?

[Gutkowski]

Here is a real cool sight ,and this Girl is hot she finds battlefield relics
http://www.serpentswall.com/

[Gutkowski]

I wish I had some where to dig for this stuff ,She has found a ton of very expensive items

[FluffyBunnyGB]

Folks

A quick word of caution here, especially as those under 35 still have the natural confidence of youth.

Be very careful digging for WW2 (or any war relics post 1900 or so) as high explosive has few friends, and you are very unlikely to be among them.

I remember when my grandfather died we were clearing his loft and found a WW1 Mills Bomb (a pineapple-type hand grenade). I said I could defuse it, having read the book and being about 15 at the time. Mum wisely over-ruled me and called the Police who sent a specialist to remove it.

There's an old WW2 mortar range near my house. Every time there is a grass fire, you can hear unexploded rounds going off. They retain their lethality a very long time . . .

A final point. Just remember if you are digging aircraft wrecks or on battlefields, you may be digging through a soldier's grave and many might consider this a bit disrespectful.

[BDL]

A final point. Just remember if you are digging aircraft wrecks or on battlefields, you may be digging through a soldier's grave and many might consider this a bit disrespectful.

As well as grave robbing being illegal in many countries, and sunken ships and crashed planes being legally classed as war graves.

[arhob1]

This is a truly fascinating post - thanks all. Gutkowski's link to http://www.serpentswall.com/ was great. I find anything old that is unearthed fascinating - WW1 or WW2 stuff especially so. If anyone has any similar sites then please post.

Flufflybunny's story about being tempted to defuse a Mill's bomb at age 15 rang a few bells with me.

At age 12 ish I found a load of old .303 rounds in my grandfathers shed. He had all sorts of WW2 stuff in there which at the time I would play with but I think got thrown out as being junk - DAMN! A lot of people of that generation were sick of the war and didn't value all the stuff they accumulated at the time like we would.

Anyway, many a time I toyed with the idea of putting a round horizontally in my dad's vice and hitting the percussion cap with a hammer/nail. What stopped me was I wasn't sure if all the pressure would just force the bullet out or whether it would cause the case to explode and blind me (as happened to a friend when he was making the mother of all fireworks out of lots of little ones). Anyone ever tried the hammer/nail approach to firing a round? What was the result?

[Gutkowski]

WOW be very happy that you did not do that ,I can remember my brother and I taking my Dads 22cal rounds out to the street with all our friends around laying them on the pavement and hitting them with hammers LOL,Its amazing that none of us kids ever got hit

[Man of Stoat]

Anyone ever tried the hammer/nail approach to firing a round? What was the result?

Read Hatcher - it can result in lots of shrapnel.

DO NOT DO IT!

[arhob1]

Although worried about what the effect of using a hammer/nail to fire a round would be on me, it never once occured to me that even if the case didn't explode I would then launch a .303 round that could have passed through the back gardens of neighbours for a mile or more.

On the one hand that could have been fun (all those neighbours with washing out which suddenly sprouted mysterious .303 diameter holes appearing in them) or could have been quite serious.

Which brings me on to when at age 13 I made a fully working flame thrower (flames thrown about 20 feet) which really up-ed the ante when playing soldiers in the woods. The only casualties were a few burnt trousers and trainers but which ever side possessed the flame thrower was guaranteed victory.

Sorry mod for going off topic and reminiscing.

Out of interest the flame thrower was an old paraffin camping stove. You pumped up the pressure in the container carrying the paraffin and thsi produced a steady flame. To convert this to a flame thrower all I needed to do was to use epoxy resin to jam the pressure regulator so that instead of only a very mild few psi of pressure being possible you could just pump it up to a seemingly unlimited pressure. Then remove the rose that the paraffin diffused through and you had a thin jet of neat paraffin that at high pressure would squirt a good 20 feet. You then just needed an accomplish with a gallon container of paraffin and a match and off you go. The only draw back I remember was that once lit there was no turning it off until the fuel ran out (2-4 mins). I remember once setting the woods on fire and whilst stamping that out another bit went on fire and so on and going home singed, blackened and stinking of paraffin all over. Happy but grossly irresponsible days. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.

[Man of Stoat]

Although worried about what the effect of using a hammer/nail to fire a round would be on me, it never once occured to me that even if the case didn't explode I would then launch a .303 round that could have passed through the back gardens of neighbours for a mile or more.

On the one hand that could have been fun (all those neighbours with washing out which suddenly sprouted mysterious .303 diameter holes appearing in them) or could have been quite serious.


No, it won't go any significant distance. You're at more danger from brass shards than anyone downrange is from the bullet.

[Firefly]

Although worried about what the effect of using a hammer/nail to fire a round would be on me, it never once occured to me that even if the case didn't explode I would then launch a .303 round that could have passed through the back gardens of neighbours for a mile or more.

On the one hand that could have been fun (all those neighbours with washing out which suddenly sprouted mysterious .303 diameter holes appearing in them) or could have been quite serious.

Which brings me on to when at age 13 I made a fully working flame thrower (flames thrown about 20 feet) which really up-ed the ante when playing soldiers in the woods. The only casualties were a few burnt trousers and trainers but which ever side possessed the flame thrower was guaranteed victory.

Sorry mod for going off topic and reminiscing.

Out of interest the flame thrower was an old paraffin camping stove. You pumped up the pressure in the container carrying the paraffin and thsi produced a steady flame. To convert this to a flame thrower all I needed to do was to use epoxy resin to jam the pressure regulator so that instead of only a very mild few psi of pressure being possible you could just pump it up to a seemingly unlimited pressure. Then remove the rose that the paraffin diffused through and you had a thin jet of neat paraffin that at high pressure would squirt a good 20 feet. You then just needed an accomplish with a gallon container of paraffin and a match and off you go. The only draw back I remember was that once lit there was no turning it off until the fuel ran out (2-4 mins). I remember once setting the woods on fire and whilst stamping that out another bit went on fire and so on and going home singed, blackened and stinking of paraffin all over. Happy but grossly irresponsible days. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.

Jesus, laffing my Ass off right now, imagining you trying to put out the fires, you bloody maniac!

[Kovalski]

I decided not dig in woods after my schoolmate almost lost his eyes. The day after he bought a metal-detector we went to woods few miles away from my home town. We were 16, so it was a great toy for us. We heard rumors about some german unit's HQ there. We found nothing but some shells and pieces of metal. One of these pieces turned out to be a fragment of some bomb. It exploded just in front of my mate's face. He was really lucky. He had to stay in hospital for a few days, because doctor had to remove some tiny pieces from his forehead. We didn't tell the doctor what really happend. If we did there we would have a lot of troubles with police. It was the last time I went to woods to look for some "interesting stuff".