Capacity of the Small Bomb Container "SBC"

[JDCAVE]

I would like to confirm the capacity of the Small Bomb Container, SBC. The ORB for dad's a/c KB.762 for February 20/21, 1945 to Dortmund indicates 1500, 4lb incendiaries. Dad's log book records 1X4,000 and 11 SBC's. The two pieces of information would indicate ~136 4lb incendiaries per container. However the caption for this photograph for a similar bomb load (12 SBC's) indicates 236 4lb incendiaries.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...M_CH_18371.jpg
The information from the ORB would suggest a 10,000 bomb load and the second load would suggest 15,300 lbs, which seems incorrect to me.

Thoughts?

Jim

[lancasterlm342]

My understanding is that an SBC was around 500lb. The short lived J type 30lb incendiaries were in a cluster of 14 which with the container was also around 500lb

Mike

[JDCAVE]

My understanding is that an SBC was around 500lb. The short lived J type 30lb incendiaries were in a cluster of 14 which with the container was also around 500lb

Mike

Thanks Mike. That's about what I thought. 136 X 4lb, would put the weight at 544lbs. It might have been that the correct load was 12 SBC's at 125 4lb IB's each and a total of 1500 at 6,000 lb total. The Mk 14 aimable cluster bomb was about 470 lb.

Jim

[ianh]

Hi Jim.
Harris' official Dispatch on War Ops refers to SBC's originally holding 90 x 4lb IB's, being replaced in 1943 by SBC's that held 150 x 4lbs (or 12 x 30 lbs).
Ian

[Don Clark]

Posts above relevant to BC ops.

More than one Mark of SBC, capacity rising by mark, and by type, by aircraft type.

On early Mark use in Blenheim & Hudson ops see

Blenheim Armament
at
https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20..._armament.html

Then [Ctrl F] to The Small Bomb Container (SBC)

Source: 211 Squadron site: mine. Sources there as referenced there.
Fact/text errors: mine.

[JDCAVE]

Thanks Don. Logical that these would be different for Blenheim bombers.

Thanks Ian. If 150 x 4lbs, with 1500 IBs, that would indicate 10 SBCs, so dad’s logbook could be in error.

https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/o...2/1083?r=0&s=3