Does anyone know anything about the British L.D H.E. M.C. Mk.1 / Mk. N1 HE MC 1000 pound Bomb / MC 1000 LB MK N1.
It is this thing carried on both of the Buccaneers
I’ve scoured the internet and I have found nothing about it except for a forum post on beyond the sprues from 2014.
Here’s the link UK RAF and RN FAA - Mk. N1 HE MC 1000 pound Bomb
I’m just confused on what it is, where it came from, and what aircraft carried it. If anyone can give me any information about it it’ll be appreciated.
Here’s an extract from the wiki: “The usage of the L.D H.E. M.C. Mk.1 continued as the standard unguided ordnance for the British Armed Forces in the 1,000 lb / 500 kg air-drop category until it was phased out in April of 2019, in favour of smaller, precision ordnance such as Paveway munitions manufactured by Raytheon UK.”
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Only seen them on early 1960s aircraft such as the Sea Vixen, Buccaneer etc. Seems to be a short-lived venture to produce a low-drag alternative to the other RAF 1000lb bomb which were at the time largely still using bomb casings from the abundance of WW2 production.
Here’s one with a No.916 RF proximity fuze
Likely fell out of favour when AGMs became more widespread for stand-off use instead of toss bombing, while low-level ret*rded bombs became the preferred delivery method for CAS, and avoiding SAM/SPAA threats. The No.117 tail kit being available for the more plentiful 1000lb bomb in the mid/late 1960s.
As you say, they seem to follow the “Aero-1A” shape established by Douglas aircraft that was used for American Mk.80 bombs but accepting UK fuzing, suspension lugs and and filling. The diagrams shown have identical internal layout to Mk.83 and the diameter is the same.
Early "Aero-1" form bombs
https://live.staticflickr.com/6078/6091717169_ee0f30cc03_4k.jpg
http://data4.primeportal.net/hangar/weichao_chen/f3d-2_127074/images/f3d-2_127074_12_of_54.jpg
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My question then is could it be carried by the Phantom’s as they would’ve been in service while the Sea Vixens and Buccaneers would be on service at the time.
Personally I’ve only seen Phantoms with the “fat” 1000lb bombs
The very few images I’ve seen of the LD 1000lb in the presence of Buccs and Sea Vixens are dated no later than 1963, which pre-dates the Phantom’s service by a few years. And none of the photos were on a carrier deck (the above Sea Vixen one is at Boscombe Down, Bucc ones were at Farnborough etc.), so I’m not even sure the bombs ever went in to active service.
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I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the years looking into the British low drag 1,000 lb bomb. It is usually referred to as something like HE MC LD Mk N.1. Sometimes the name changes a bit but the Mark being N.1 as opposed to just 1 seems to be a consistent trait.
Frankly the low drag bomb does not seem to have been used much at all, as far as I can tell. It is listed in the 1972 Buccaneer S.2 Operating Data Manual:
Spoiler
https://i.imgur.com/VIYDiUZ.png
But there is no mention of it in the 1977 Phantom FGR.2 Operating Data Manual:
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https://i.imgur.com/BFmrkin.png
Or the 1980 Jaguar Gr.1 Weapons Manual:
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Or the 1989 Jaguar GR.1A Weapons Manual:
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Or the 1980 Tornado GR.1 Weapons Manual:
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Or the 1989 Tornado GR.1 Release to Service:
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Or the 1997 Harrier GR.7 Weapons Manual:
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Or the 2010 Harrier GR.7 Weapons Manual:
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Those manuals only every reverence the Mk.10 - Mk.22 HE MC bombs which are the “fat” 1,000 lb bombs. The Low drag 1,000 lb bomb seems to be seldom mentioned or photographed anywhere.
Edit: All those manuals were obtained from the RAF Museum or through FOI before anyone gets upset.
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The stuff about 500lb, 540lb bombs and 8 inch recce flares 2 off + adapter beam is interesting.
The 8 in flare was the Lepus flare which I have seen on a tandem beam rack similar to what we have on Jaguar, and numerous pics of the empty beam fitted on Buccs
Album of images:
I’ve read in several places claims that it was only for Lepus, but this part of the manual suggests we should be able to carry 2x 500/540lb bombs on it too.
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Thanks flame. Your Reddit comment was much more descriptive than this one but I get the gist. I’m just confused and annoyed at how the British have a small amount of our used dumb bombs and I can’t find anything about the MC 10-22 series of bombs. I was talking to a military friend of mine and he said that documents pertaining to the bombs were “official” and that he couldn’t send me anything about it. I was wondering if you had anything different to say or anything about the weapons in general.
I thought the only bit I cut from the Reddit comment was about the Mk.13 bomb, which wasn’t really relevant to this thread.
As noted in the Reddit comment there isn’t much difference really:
I know the confusion pertaining to this bomb; there’s essentially no information about it online and all of about 1 photograph. A couple of years ago I did some digging and someone who collects information about bombs gave me these images. To this day they’re the only reliable information I have been able to find on the British 1,000 lb low drag bomb. He didn’t share the rest of the document with me, but a copy of it is available to view in the National Archives (declassified in 2002) so it’s safe to share here.
I don’t know why it never seemed to catch on. But for whatever reason the RAF never really seemed to adopt it and stuck with the classic 16.5" bombs.
It was used for bombs too:
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I my research I came across a manual for British bombs including depth charges, GP, MC, & HC bombs, AP & SAP bombs, and those 4lb incendiary sticks. Talking about the 1000lb MC bomb it states that there were 3 fillings. Amatol, RDX and TNT (or RDX/TNT), and Torpex. We have both the Amatol and RDX/TNT but not the torpex. From the book it states that it had more than 500lbs of torpex (either 525 or 575 if my memory serves me right) which would equate to over 300kg of TNT equivalent. I’ll send you a link to the PDF file in the morning if you want unless you know what manual I’m talking about. Anyway, what this equates to is that I’m interested to see if the more modern bombs could have a larger quantity of explosive inside of it instead of the 180-ish kilos of RDX.
Please do send the PDF over, I’d be interested to see it. I’d be surprised if any of the modern MC bombs had over 500 lb of filling. I gather they were all about the same size as the MC Mk.13 (410 lb of filling) and if you look at the MK.13 diagrams in the manual pages I posted above there isn’t really much spare space in it.
The MC mk 1 we have in game M.C. Mk.I (1,000 lb) - War Thunder Wiki has 500lbs of RDX/TNT and the other new one has 475lbs of Amatol. I know that the other one had I think 525lbs of Torpex. I’m just wondering though what’s the difference between torpex 4B and 4D.
Here’s the link to the document I was talking about. It’s on page 40 of the book if you search it via the top.
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Have you found any more information on this bomb since?
