Morrow Project Facebook Group

[nuke11]

On The Morrow Project Facebook page, in the community section https://www.facebook.com/pg/TheMorro...=page_internal

John Miller asks what seems to be a simple question about the M1 Timer Detonator in the rulebook.

I am not on Facebook so I cannot reply to the message directly and maybe John Miller is on this board and might see this response. If anyone wants to post a link to this post, they can.

The weights given for a create of them is off, but the more interesting aspect of this question is what does an M1 Timer Detonator look like and are the details given correct?

From the description given in the 3rd and 4th edition “An adjustable mechanical detonator. The time delay can be set from 10 to 60 seconds and from 1 minute to 10 minutes in 1-minute intervals, and from 1 hour to 48 hours in 10-minute intervals. The detonator will set off any explosive charge.”

Simple enough, so it must have 3 “dials”, so it could be a small box or cylindrical in shape. I am thinking the latter in this case.

Looking at the reference section of the rule books, I have most of these books on hand. Looking thru them there are many different references to “M1 Detonator”, but nothing that is a mechanical timer based, all are either chemical or firing pin type, so no help there.

Expanding the search to other reference material, there are 2 families of mechanical detonators built in the late 40’s and 50’s that are close. There are clockwork detonators created during WWII, but we will not look at those.

Demolition Firing Device Mk. 12 Mod 0/Mk. 13 Mod 0/Mk. 15 Mod 0, 1946-47. The Mk 12 can delay for 5 to 90 seconds, Mk 13 can delay 1 minute to 60 minutes and the Mk 15 can delay for 15 minutes and 11 hours. This is an aluminum cylindrical device (there are images available on line for this).

Demolition Firing Device Mk. 12 Mod 1/Mk. 13 Mod 1/Mk. 15 Mod 1 these are just improved versions of the Mod 0 devices, simpler to set the time delay on the device. This is an aluminum cylindrical device (there are images available on line for this).

From this point forward there is no further reference to a mechanical timer I can find used by the US military. I have looked in field manuals and TM’s from the 60’s, 70’s and 80's on engineering and demolitions, no reference to devices to mechanically delay a detonation.

The next time I find a reference to a time delay-firing device is from 1999 thru 2001. The M147 Time Delay Firing Device. To me this is the most logical device to replace the M1 Timer Detonator. It can delay a detonation from 5 minutes to 30 days.

Whatever the M1 Timer Detonator is, I cannot find a reference to it, but it seems logical that there would be one or 3 versions over the 40 year gap where I can’t find. It might be a Special Forces item thou, with little to no public references.

Now I do see the Kevin Dockery responds to posts on the Facebook page, so maybe he can provide more details as to what this is. He does have access to SF device information the general public does not have.

I’ll continue to search further in my library, as there maybe something in a Jane’s All The Worlds book.

Gary.
http://www.thesupplybunker.net/morrow.htm