What specific munition was my ashtray in it's previous life?

[Sputnik]

I'm fairly sure it's a cluster bombie, but would like more detail

[Aardappel]

As you are from Cambodia, chance is high. But that stuff is more than 50 years old I reckon, not easy to find the exact type I guess. That was a brave person who cut off the top (tail) of the cluster 😂

[Sputnik]

2 minutes ago, Aardappel said:

As you are from Cambodia, chance is high. But that stuff is more than 50 years old I reckon, not easy to find the exact type I guess. That was a brave person who cut off the top (tail) of the cluster 😂

they didn't cut it; they unscrewed it! harvest the explosive, scrap the steel is the MO

 

I have a collection of disarmed bits and bobs from that era 

 

mines grenades mortars etc

 

[BENDER*]

if you can take some more pictures of it from different angles, I might be able to help you out with this quest.

[Sputnik]

On 12/9/2025 at 10:09 AM, BENDER* said:

if you can take some more pictures of it from different angles, I might be able to help you out with this quest.

here you go, also a few other bits I have come across over the last 15 years or so

 

excuse my grubby hands, am a mechanic 

Edited December 10, 2025 by Sputnik

[RedBaird]

In your first photo and the last three, I thought it looked like a 'cluster bomblet', but could find nothing like it for US munitions.  Searching for Soviet / Vietnamese ammo just got the usual image.

 

The photo below seems to show a Claymore anti-personnel mine with some parts missing.  If the other side of it says "front toward enemy" then it is US-made.  It looks like it is upside-down, with one set of legs still attached.  If someone has not taken it apart, then it might still contain C-4 explosives.  

 

Edited December 10, 2025 by RedBaird
fix a typo :(

[Sputnik]

5 minutes ago, RedBaird said:

In your first photo and the last three, I thought it looked like a 'cluster bomblet', but could find nothing like it for US munitions.  Searching for Soviet / Vietnamese ammo just got the usual imagers.

 

The photo below seems to show a Claymore anti-personnel mine with some parts missing.  If the other side of it says "front toward enemy" then it is US-made.  It looks like it is upside-down, with one set of legs still attached.  If someone has not taken it apart, then it might still contain C-4 explosives.  

 

I have seen other examples of these cluster bombies like this one, but in better condition. They were bright yellow with a little trigger/stabilizer thing sticking out the top

 

One day at work three of them got picked up by a magnetic separator on the bauxite conveyor and automatically dropped into a verifiable  bin of shrapnel/scrap metal. Lucky for us they remained unexploded or health and safety would have had a field day

 

there are no explosives left in any of these - they were harvested decades back by forest people and the explosives were used to make cherry bombs for fishing with. . . 

[Sputnik]

11 minutes ago, RedBaird said:

In your first photo and the last three, I thought it looked like a 'cluster bomblet', but could find nothing like it for US munitions.  Searching for Soviet / Vietnamese ammo just got the usual imagers.

 

The photo below seems to show a Claymore anti-personnel mine with some parts missing.  If the other side of it says "front toward enemy" then it is US-made.  It looks like it is upside-down, with one set of legs still attached.  If someone has not taken it apart, then it might still contain C-4 explosives.  

 

I think I found the relevant info here - it might be a BLU-24C/B jungle/all terrain bomblet

 

https://rogueadventurer.com/2012/02/28/submunitions-in-vietnam/

[RedBaird]

Yes, I had later wondered if those "baseballs" were cluster bomblets whose plastic shells had eroded away.  It looks like you have found confirming evidence.

 

[Sputnik]

I took a few more pictures of the decommissioned claymore 

 

It is unmarked, but I guess it is either of Soviet, Chinese or Viet manufacture. If anybody could say for certain what it is that would be cool

 

 

[RedBaird]

It looks like it has the standard blasting cap ports on the top left and right, with the aiming sight between them, but that hole in the back looks like it might be another blasting cap port.   

 

ADDED:  It might be Vietnamese-made.  Here is an image showing a hole in the back of the mine, but it does not show the aim-sight or blasting cap ports on the top.   Well it is a drawing.  It is said to have used TNT instead of the C-4 in the US-type.

 

 

I didn't find any others that seemed to have a hole in the back.

 

ADDED:  Ha, Ha!  "thuốc nổ" means "explosives", so that is not actually a 'hole' at all, but a waste of my time searching for it! 😄 

 

Here is the Chinese Type 66, which looks similar, with that double-circle in the front.  It sort of looks like a mold-mark of some kind, where the plastic was poured into a mold and then later trimmed off.

 

Edited December 12, 2025 by RedBaird
ADDED line

[Sputnik]

On 12/12/2025 at 4:20 PM, RedBaird said:

It looks like it has the standard blasting cap ports on the top left and right, with the aiming sight between them, but that hole in the back looks like it might be another blasting cap port.   

 

ADDED:  It might be Vietnamese-made.  Here is an image showing a hole in the back of the mine, but it does not show the aim-sight or blasting cap ports on the top.   Well it is a drawing.  It is said to have used TNT instead of the C-4 in the US-type.

 

 

I didn't find any others that seemed to have a hole in the back.

 

ADDED:  Ha, Ha!  "thuốc nổ" means "explosives", so that is not actually a 'hole' at all, but a waste of my time searching for it! 😄 

 

Here is the Chinese Type 66, which looks similar, with that double-circle in the front.  It sort of looks like a mold-mark of some kind, where the plastic was poured into a mold and then later trimmed off.

 

Yes

 

Chinese type 6 snap match, just had blasting inserts unscrewed 

 

 

[RedBaird]

10 hours ago, Sputnik said:

just had blasting inserts unscrewed 

 

And I just realized why those were pointed down:  to keep the connections to the blasting caps dry, mostly the det-cord inserted into the blasting caps, but perhaps not the electrical blasting caps.  If the Claymores were in a "daisy-chain" of two or more, only one of them would have an electrical initiator and the rest would be connected to each other with blasting caps and det cord.