On saturday I went to the Army Surplus store in Calgary and bought this thing because it looked cool. The guy told me it was used as a tracer bomb for telling where a bomb load was going to land. The small bomb is about 10" long, but sure is heavy. It’s cast iron and is hollow inside from front to back. I’m guessing a powder and a small charge was placed inside it so you could see it when it hit the ground. The bomb has a marking on the side that says “MK23MOD1”. I’m wondering who made it, when it was used, what planes used it, anything. If you know anything about it or even have a good guess, I’d love to know.[?][?][:P]
From what I’ve read (which isn’t very much), the Mk 23 was a practice bomb, made of cast iron, that was used from WW2 to the 1960s.
A spotting charge was used so that the pilot could see when it hit the ground during practice. It was not used as a “tracer bomb for telling where a bomb load was going to land.” That’s sort of silly. [:)] Why would you drop a very light “tracer bomb” and then release your full load on a target after you’ve seen where something with completely different ballistics has landed?
Here’s a site that mentions the Mk 23 bomb:
http://www.flbgr.org/project/glossary.html
And here’s another: