Report - RAF Fauld underground munitions storage depot - Late 2012

[Maniac]

Like everyone else I've held off posting this, but as things are at the moment I thought I may as well stick up my photos from here. I really enjoyed visiting this place, so much so these photos are taken over about 3 or 4 visits to the place over late 2012/early 2013.

RAF Fauld was a massive underground munitions depot in Staffordshire. At 11:11am on Monday 27 November 1944 an explosion destroyed a large part of site and resulted in the deaths of 75 people. Despite this, a large part of this site was in use up until the early 1970's

The magnitude of the RAF Fauld explosion should not be underestimated, between 3,500 and 4,000 tonnes of ordnance exploded - that's a lot! It is widely thought to be the largest explosion caused by conventional weapons the world has ever seen.

I first became aware of this place a number of years ago, but I had never really had the chance to have a proper look at getting inside, Staffordshire is quite far away from Kent. We got spurred on when in late 2012 a set of photos appeared on a blog so we knew it was possible and had to go have a look for ourselves. After a bit of googlemap research and a "it's most likely here" map point plotted we went for a walk and found our way inside amazingly. We obviously weren't the first, but we did leave the entrance exactly like we found it; shame the same can't be said for others who came after us as by our 4th visit quite a number of months later things were somewhat more obvious.

Anyway, on with the photos. Sorry about the 2013 watermark, these have been sitting in a private album on my photobucket a while.

Thanks for looking,

Maniac.

 

[ACID- REFLUX]

Very nice mate

Crisp & nicely lit

 

[Lenston]

Very nice that

 

[Oxygen Thief]

Shame on the mongs that left the doors flapping in the wind. Every time bar the first, the access was wide open and obvious. Lazy fuckers.

 

[Ojay]

If only Brian looked after that too

 

[Maniac]

Shame on the mongs that left the doors flapping in the wind. Every time bar the first, the access was wide open and obvious. Lazy fuckers.

I think I went 4 times, the first two the place was exactly how we left it, the third time someone had been too lazy to move that barrel back in front of the hole but the gates were closed properly and the 4th time the place was wide open and we couldn't even find the chain for the gate, although by this point they had started piling stuff in front of the gates and we barely squeezed through into the place anyway.

 

[The Kwan]

Shit man, this is lovely...got a bit of everything going on

 

[trailboss99]

'twas a big bang but not the biggest. Fauld was about two kilotons:

On 27 November 1944 the RAF Ammunition Depot at Fauld, Staffordshire, became the site of the largest explosion in the UK, when 3,700 tonnes of bombs stored in underground bunkers covering 17,000 square meters exploded en masse. The explosion was caused by bombs being taken out of store, primed for use, and replaced with the detonators still installed when unused. The crater was 30 meters deep and covered 5 hectares. The death toll was approximately 78, including RAF, six Italian POWs, civilian employees, and local people. In the similar Port Chicago disaster, about half the weight of bombs was high explosive. If the same is true of the Fauld Explosion, it would have been equivalent to about 2 kilotons of TNT.

The biggest was the N1 rocket explosion in the Soviet Union at close to 7 kiloton equivalent.

On 3 July 1969, an N1 rocket in the Soviet Union exploded on the launch pad, after a loose bolt was ingested into a fuel pump. The entire rocket contained about 680,000 kg (680 t) of kerosene and 1,780,000 kg (1,780 t) of liquid oxygen.[38]Using a standard energy release of 43 MJ/kg of kerosene gives about 29 TJ for the energy of the explosion (about 6.93 kt TNT equivalent).
Comparing explosions of initially unmixed fuels is difficult (being part detonation and part deflagration), but in terms of energy released, this is the largest man-made non-nuclear explosion.

Fauld rates at around # 8 or 9. A list of earth shattering kabooms may be found HERE

 

[WildBoyz]

Really nice set of shots there.