Site Report: The Wash Bombing Range

The Wash Bombing Range in Lincolnshire, is one of four bombing ranges in the UK. The others - Tain, on the Moray Firth in Scotland, Pembrey Sands on the South Wales coast, and Donna Nook on the northeast coast of Yorkshire – are on the fringes of the country. The Wash, the busiest of them all, is just three hours by car from London. It is on the east coast of Great Britain, on the southern and northwestern shores of a large muddy bay called the Wash. It is composed of two separate target complexes, at Wainfleet and Holbeach, each with separate administration and scoring facilities. Holbeach, the larger of the two has been in operation since 1929, and used by Americans since WWII.

Beyond the gate is the administrative area, with three office and maintenance buildings. Since most of the users of the range never set foot on it, local staffing needs are small. Around 16 people work at the range, and not all at the same time. The administrative area is on the protected side of a levee. The range is all on the seaward side of the levee, and is accessed by a road travelling along its top.

There are four scoring booths on the levee, which are occupied when bombing runs are in session. Inside each booth, an observer records the location of the impact using a compass scope, and radios the coordinates to the main tower, the focal point of the range, from which all of the targets are visible. Inside the tower, a master scorer enters the coordinates from each booth into a log. An Air Force officer watches over the activities from the tower and communicates with the pilots and air traffic control.
The range is used on the average of 90 passes per day, five days a week, with occasional weekend and nighttime use. Squadrons come from bases all over the UK, and may use the range intensively for a few days, then the range may sit idle for a few days.

Full explosive ordnance is not generally used on the range. Instead, fighter jets drop practice bombs that have a small explosion to indicate the impact point on the target. Some targets are for strafing with bullets, while others are concentric circles that form bulls-eyes for small bombs.

Holbeach has nine primary targets. Two are bulls-eye type, with wide circles delineated with old tires, painted white. At the center is a target object, usually made of industrial plastic pickle barrels, which the Ministry of Defense buys in bulk from a local pickling plant. The barrels are also used to mark flightpaths to the targets, and to mark targets that become submerged at high tide.

Three targets are for strafing by helicopters and jets. The main jet strafing target has a pair of nets with a red fabric centers. Because the impact of the bullets are too numerous and small to see, a hit is detected by a group of microphones that pick up the distinct sound of bullets passing through the fabric. The equipment is inside a fiberglass box, protected by an earthen berm.

On Friday afternoons the range is shut down for clean up crews who come with tractors and carts to pick up the bombs and fragments, and to repair the targets. Bomb remains are collected in carts and stored on site, then shipped away for disposal and recycling. The used American practice bombs are kept separately in a locked cage.

A number of brightly painted pyramidal forms on the range are fixed points on the ground, easily detected by the reflected radar on board oncoming aircraft, navigating towards the targets. Further out into the mud of low tide, are the boat targets and the heavy bomb target. A pair of joined barges are a “sea convoy” target, which is bombed and strafed. The current “freighter” target is a recent replacement for the old ship, which was so shot full of holes that it had disintegrated. The new boat was bought from a shipyard, for 500 pounds, and towed to this location.

The “heavyweight” bomb target is marked by a haphazard ring of scaffolding and pickle barrels. This is where the full size cement-filled bombs can be dropped. Weighing up to half a ton each, they form craters where they land, and burrow deeply into the mud.
In a remarkable contrast with the US counterpart, the Nellis Range, where few civilian outsiders ever enter the secured and restricted bombing areas, at Wash the area is unfenced and accessible to the public. In fact, British law permits anyone to visit this stretch of coastline. One of the jobs of the observers and scorers is to make sure that no civilians are in harms way on the range before a bombing run begins. If people are present, walking their dog or picnicking - both of which happen there - the Air Force can only ask the people to leave. If this fails to be effective - which has also happened - a jet’s low pass with afterburners on has been known to be persuasive.