important Watch Channel 4 right now!!

[Jack]

21:00 BLITZ STREET 60 MIN

 

Tony Robinson explores what it was like to live through the Blitz, on a specially constructed street that is subjected to explosions similar to those used by the Luftwaffe

[desperatedes]

i am very interesting and informative.shame they blew up some of that period furniture .i would of liked some of that.

[desperatedes]

the anderson shelter has stood up to the damage pretty well.goes to show they were better than they initially appear.

[RGJ/H. Alan]

What a great program.. And at least one things for sure,(If you wasn't dead) you would have been able to have your tea and corn flakes in the morning. That was one tough milkbottle!!

 

 

 

 

Eddie

[Tony B]

Have been working, ah the joy of Channel 4 on line!

[andrewroberts.1953]

What a pity with all the work of building houses, the programme got it wrong. Interwar houses were not built on large contrete bases, but shallow footings. The "bombs" used in the programme, were denotaed as air burst. Less that 1% of german boms were this type, and these were only just less that half a metre above ground.

A bomb falling from a plane reaches a fixed speed, and fuses take a finite time to operate. So WW2 bombs detonated in the ground for part of their length, and part above. This produces a ground shock wave (which is why houses built on large contrete bases behave differantly), and the blast is ground up to high angles with a litle at low angle. This was well known, as is shown in the 1940's manuals.

I can understand that the MOD did not want to blow up their concrete base, but Channel 4 are not doing what it said it would.

[Snapper]

I didn't see the point to exploding the larger bomb without the casing. They either repeat the effects or not. I am also very interested in Andrew's points. I have to say, though, it was a good piece of television. Even Tony Robinson was muted. Pass the milk...

 

 

MB

[Tony B]

Was rather disapointing. The constant reference to 'Shrapnel' when they meant fragments kept grating. Especialy when I know Tony Robinson has had the diffrence explained to him. Still it will amuse the great unwashed.

[Jack]

I thought it was a great insight all round. I like TR presentation style and how on earth people coped with that amount of death and distruction.

[andrewroberts.1953]

A quick bit of maths! A 50 Kg bomb falling from 20, 000 feet will hit the ground at 806 feet per sec. If the fuse operates and the bomb detonates in 1 milli sec, the bomb will be about .8 of a foot into the ground. This assumes the bomb falls from a fixed object, and so has no forward motion. This of course is impossible, and so the bomb will in fact hit the ground at an angle. This will allow the bomb to detonate, at a depth which is in fact related to aircraft speed and height. I have seen a nice table produced by the RAF in the 30's wich allows you to select depth before detonation.

I have also read an RE handbook, which shows how most damage caused to building is ground shock.

If channel 4 can't let off a 100kg, what are going to try for the V2! And I would doubt that the original expolsives for that!

[Tony B]

Also, the positon of theblast. Most of it is going into thin air. During the Blitz the shock wave would have been channeled bettween other buildings. Explosions are very quircky things, cloud cover for instanc can make a tremendous diffrence.

[AlienFTM]

Anybody care to confirm that it was filmed at RAF Spadeadam on the Northmberland / Cumbria border? I am sure I detected a local accent on the bloke at the back doing the countdown, and it's only a couple of years since somebody built a reconstrcution of the Houses of Parliament at RAF Spadeadam and blew them up in Guy Fawkes stylee, so it doesn't take much extrapolation to jump to this conclusion.

[Snapper]

You just can't expect there to be a perfect balance between entertainment and education. Certainly not on Channel 4. It made a good effort, but the obvious restrictions impede on the whole concept. I would also think that the caravans of bombing survey teams fanning out across the Reich would have been well aware what they had done to German construction methods just as they would from visiting an a-z of British sites. It is still a nice idea and a different slant. A lot of people would be turned off by a procession of wrinkly cockney talking heads apples and pearsing it down the shelter and all that - before we even get to Coventry, Plymouth, Manchester...pick yer own... So I think they deserve credit for trying something different. But why does every bloody history show have to include Tony Robinson, the long haired Scottish bloke (who I prefer the most so much I can't remember his monicker) or Dan Snow? Yawn...

[Tony B]

Neil Oliver is the guy your'e thinking of.

The answer is Tony Robinson= viewers. So sayinmg he is a nice guy with genuine interest and knowledge. A friend of mine worked for a plant hire company. Wessex Archeology, the Time Team company, phoned up to hire kit and asked could they have an account, a process usually taking several weeks. She then phoned Head Office about it and was told to give them £250,000 credit immediatley.

[andrewroberts.1953]

my biggest objection, is to channel four saying that this providing new data! The RAF/ Luftwaffe had lots of data on what bombs did. It just seems like talking up someting, which is really not really something new.

As i live in Plymouth, I can confirm the amount of damage done by bombing. Almost 90% of all housing in Plymouth was made unusable. An area about 1.5 miles x a little over that was layed waste, which was the centre of Plymouth. This pre-war was a maze of small streets, and photos show not one brick left on top of another.

I had a quick look in a 1950's RE manual, and 50 Kg bomb dropped from 15, 000 feet will go about 20 feet into the ground. That is if it's a dud!