Lord_Slayer's Facebook finds: Vietnam era 16in HE Shell located

[Lord_Slayer]

A 16in shell from USS New Jersey was found in Vietnam in 2015.

[Admiral_Karasu]

Man, that looks dicey as .....

[Snargfargle]

That's one thing I like about living in America is that we don't have too much unexploded ordinance lying around outside of military bases.

 

Edited April 5 by Snargfargle

[Admiral_Karasu]

14 minutes ago, Snargfargle said:

That's one thing I like about living in America is that we don't have too much unexploded ordinance lying around outside of military bases.

 

Another hazard are old sea mines that are still popping up. Though, probably less in America.

[Lord_Slayer]

On 4/5/2024 at 4:42 PM, Admiral_Karasu said:

Another hazard are old sea mines that are still popping up. Though, probably less in America.

While not explosive, you can find war remnants.

In Gettysburg you can still find bullets and even shells out in the fields and forests.

[Wolfswetpaws]

👍

[Efros]

On 4/5/2024 at 4:42 PM, Admiral_Karasu said:

Another hazard are old sea mines that are still popping up. Though, probably less in America.

There was a case in Edinburgh, actually Granton Harbour IIRC, where a trawler had brought in a mine in its nets and brought it back to port. Someone on board the trawler then proceeded to try and hammer off one of the horns on the mine as a souvenir. He was killed along with some of his crewmates. I can't find a reference to this but it happened in the 70s or 80s.

 

[Admiral_Karasu]

1 hour ago, Efros said:

There was a case in Edinburgh, actually Granton Harbour IIRC, where a trawler had brought in a mine in its nets and brought it back to port. Someone on board the trawler then proceeded to try and hammer off one of the horns on the mine as a souvenir. He was killed along with some of his crewmates. I can't find a reference to this but it happened in the 70s or 80s.

 

Seems ironic, having looked up the name and how Granton Harbour was a base for mine sweeping activities. Couldn't find any trace of the incident you mentioned either. There's a been several other cases of trawlers having encounters with mines in the past ten years or so, as well as of mines washing ashore.

[Asym]

On 4/20/2024 at 3:12 AM, Efros said:

There was a case in Edinburgh, actually Granton Harbour IIRC, where a trawler had brought in a mine in its nets and brought it back to port. Someone on board the trawler then proceeded to try and hammer off one of the horns on the mine as a souvenir. He was killed along with some of his crewmates. I can't find a reference to this but it happened in the 70s or 80s.

Off the shore of New York and New Jersey, the military dumped millions of tons of WW1 and WW2 ordinances.  Barges where they cut up m1 rifles, BAR's and all types of machine guns;  as well as, thousands of Torpedoes.   I had an Uncle that did that for two years: 1946-47 then went to Korea....  Load it up in the morning and spend all day destroying weapons and then, throwing all of the chuncks overboard....

To this day, the Coast Guard has "off limits" trawling and drag net fishing areas.  In the early 1960, we were at the Beach in Atlantic City when, there was this huge gray-white bubble growing out of the Atlantic....I was 6 or so....  My Dad, a Marine, saw that and simply tackled all of us as the pressure wave simply eliminated all of the beach umbrellas and chairs as far as you could see North and South....  What a noise !  I searched for the News Articles and never found it...   A trawling fishing boat moved some 16" naval shells and something caused a massive, sympathetic detonation....  Nothing was ever found of the small trawler........nothing.

You should be stationed at a Combat Arms related Army post.   There are sympathetic "cook offs" when Artillery units practice in new Impact Areas that were used in WW2....  @Snargfargle and his 203's

  were the most effective way to cause a, as my children called them, "Night of the Booms !" 

And, some installations simply can't be "cleared" because there is soooooo much unexploded ammunition, there's no way to clear those old Impact Areas.  Fort Dix is a great example where they want the Land to develop.........but, there's a bizallion tons of WW2 ammo in those swamps..... 

 

Edited April 21 by Asym

[Snargfargle]

20 hours ago, Asym said:

There are sympathetic "cook offs" when Artillery units practice in new Impact Areas that were used in WW2...

When I was firing a M60 once I set off a 40mm grenade that hadn't armed properly. The machinegun range was also the grenade launcher range. I've heard that there are entire islands still off limits because they were used as Navy target ranges.

I got assigned to an EOD unit as their medic once. It was really interesting to see them work. We were still shooting up old WWII-era 8-inch shells in training and occasionally one would be a dud. EOD would then have to go out and explode it with C-4.

Edit: I just looked one of them up. Brown’s Island, off the coast of North Carolina, is off limits due to unexploded ammunition. These fishermen are risking a $5000 fine and six months in jail for fishing there. It is or was a range target area for Camp Lejeune.

Edited April 22 by Snargfargle

[Asym]

Vieques, Puerto Rico is another that simply can't be effectively "touched"... Since the 1940's, the Navy and Marines have fired almost every type of sea or air delivered ordinances imaginable to include DU munitions...

And, there is a sunk DD and a lot of Armor targets still there !  Some have said "you simply can't find an acre of Impact Area without a significant amount of explosives"....  If it all went off in a string of massive explosions, they'd get a massive new bay contaminated so badly, nothing could live there !

Edited April 22 by Asym