Unexploded mine... Really

[auruguay]

Originally Posted by The Perfessor

I had sailed the SVI and Vieques two years ago. One captain I talked to from the charter company (originally from Denver, CO) said he dropped anchor on the east side of Vieques. Dove on the anchor and found that he had missed some UXO by about 6 feet. He pulled up and went to the designated safe areas....



So besides worrying about navigating, other boaters, fuel, water, food, weather (and if you saw the thread about the bear boarding boats and tearing apart the cabin looking for food) and bears, we can add worrying about unexploded ordinance to the list. Never a dull moment.

Oh, but sometimes there can be even good!!!

I recall having a week long meeting with a contractor company in southern Germany about 4 years ago.

One night we went to socialize at a beer restaurant when, suddenly, the wife of one of the german guys called him to tell that they had found a WWII bomb near the train station close to his place and, sooo, he wouldn't be able to go home that night.

I'll never forget his face at the time!!!!

Sorry, I didn't resist to this small "off topic", 🤣🤣🤣!!!!

[hellosailor]

Unexploded ordnance is nothing exotic. Vaguely east of Sandy Hook, south of the Ambrose Tower, among all the old dumping grounds there used to be at least one marked "unexploded ordnance" around there. Probably another one on the east end of Long Island, by the old torpedo test range as well.

And for a year, there was a picket boat stationed above the wreck of the USS San Diego (south shore of Long Island) after one too many divers picked up some souvenirs, some 4" shells that he was using as fireplace andirons. His neighbor called the police, who took them to the county range and, yes, detonated them. (Picket boat went away after the nooze got bored.)

Vieques? Hey, it was all part of a war prize and used as a bombing/artillery range. No surprise there. (Well, unless you're like the folks who just used a 1989 road map to visit Montserrat and found a surprising welcome. And fine.)

[a64pilot]

I can remember being briefed about uxo on the Range at Ft Stewart when I was a Pvt. In particular I remember being told that the 40 mm Grenades were so sensitive that occasionally even rain would set them off.

So guess what detail I was put on a few months later? We put out range fires, see obviously when you fire ordinance, sometimes it set the undergrowth on fire, so you get a bunch of Pvt’s to go out there with broom handles with truck mud flaps attached to them, they beat out the fire.
Whole time beating out the fire I kept thinking about those 40 mm grenades

Well fast forward 12 or so years, I was a test pilot AH-64 and we had shot a firepower demo for some foreign military, the pilots so show good faith I guess with the crew chiefs decided to pick up our “brass” it’s actually aluminum cases. We had several firing positions so I would drive the Humvee to each one and we would pick it up.
I decided we were finished when I parked and looked down and saw a green and yellow 155 mm shell.
The inert ones are blue.

There are ranges in the US that have been live fire since WWII, rounds going off and hurting someone are exceedingly rare.
At Ft Hood it was common to have to run off locals from the range scavenging lord only knows what and in Korea even after you did a range sweep, You would begin firing the helicopter, and kids would appear from nowhere to scavenge the brass, which on the Apache was aluminum, bu they didn’t know that at first I guess.

[hellosailor]

I liked the first version of your post better:
"the 40 mm Grenada’s "
Auto co-wrecked software at work, eh? (G)

[a64pilot]

I usually have to edit a post at least three times.
First I cannot type at all, secondly I’m almost always on an IPad, and then there is autocorrect.
And I guess fourth the post is often highlighted in blue, and then disappears if I touch the IPad, that in particular drives me nuts.

[Maka]

I remember as kids, one of my classmates ( 5th Grade ) and his brother found an old rusty WWII bomb and dragged it home.
Their mother locked in in a shed.

EOD people came from Honolulu and took it to a remote place and blew a big hole in the ground with it.
Front page news in the paper and a topic of several conversations between My father and myself.

Him talking very seriously and me listening attentively

[Jim Cate]

Dunno about the rest of y'all, but I was impressed by the explosion in the short video clip. If that was just the destruction charge... well, those EOD guys must like bangs, 'cause it seems that a smaller charge would have settled the fate of that mine, live or inert.

Jim

[SailAmore]

Lucky for us as the Beneteau Rendezvous was held in Brownsville just the previous weekend.

[mickt243]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Dunno about the rest of y'all, but I was impressed by the explosion in the short video clip. If that was just the destruction charge... well, those EOD guys must like bangs, 'cause it seems that a smaller charge would have settled the fate of that mine, live or inert.

Jim

Most ordnance has explicit instructions on what type, how big and where to place the donor charge.... but we almost all live by the motto ‘if in doubt max it out’, yes we get trained on how to get the most effect out of the least explosive, but when it really must work 100% on the first attempt, you go big. When you are on a proper demolition range is where you finnesse it to do the most with the least.


And yes Jim, we do like a good bang.

[deluxe68]

Originally Posted by Maka

I remember as kids, one of my classmates ( 5th Grade ) and his brother found an old rusty WWII bomb and dragged it home.
Their mother locked in in a shed.

EOD people came from Honolulu and took it to a remote place and blew a big hole in the ground with it.
Front page news in the paper and a topic of several conversations between My father and myself.

Him talking very seriously and me listening attentively

In 1995 I was stationed at the Kuwait City airport where we had a helicopter rescue squadron supporting the no-fly zone. I met a crew chief I was stationed with previously. He then told me a few months ago, when he first got there, he went to the recreation trailer and noticed a funny looking door stop. Some idiot found a mine and thought it was a good idea to carry it back to the rec trailer. He called EOD and they took it away.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I wonder if there is any material risk of setting off unexploded ordinance with an anchor?


I was once trying to get an anchor down in Vyborg harbor some years ago (that used to be Viipuri, formerly the biggest city in Finland, but now in Russia). In order to med moor to the old quay there. The harbormaster waved frantically, then came out in his skiff -- you really don't want to do that.


But really -- has there ever been a case of a yacht setting off an old bomb or mine with an anchor? I've never heard of one.

I dont know of any actual cases, but I do know old ordnace gets unstable and risky to disturb. This from a friend who was a Navy Seal underwater demolition guy. He found an old UBoat in the Gulf of Mexico and was concerned about that issue.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I can remember being briefed about uxo on the Range at Ft Stewart when I was a Pvt. In particular I remember being told that the 40 mm Grenades were so sensitive that occasionally even rain would set them off.

So guess what detail I was put on a few months later? We put out range fires, see obviously when you fire ordinance, sometimes it set the undergrowth on fire, so you get a bunch of Pvt’s to go out there with broom handles with truck mud flaps attached to them, they beat out the fire.
Whole time beating out the fire I kept thinking about those 40 mm grenades

Well fast forward 12 or so years, I was a test pilot AH-64 and we had shot a firepower demo for some foreign military, the pilots so show good faith I guess with the crew chiefs decided to pick up our “brass” it’s actually aluminum cases. We had several firing positions so I would drive the Humvee to each one and we would pick it up.
I decided we were finished when I parked and looked down and saw a green and yellow 155 mm shell.
The inert ones are blue.

There are ranges in the US that have been live fire since WWII, rounds going off and hurting someone are exceedingly rare.
At Ft Hood it was common to have to run off locals from the range scavenging lord only knows what and in Korea even after you did a range sweep, You would begin firing the helicopter, and kids would appear from nowhere to scavenge the brass, which on the Apache was aluminum, bu they didn’t know that at first I guess.

I used to do a lot of hiking/back packing when I lived in Texas. Near Mineral Wells SP (maybe included in its boundaries) is an old military base...one field in the base area was saturated with craters from explosions...obviously a practice range...I wander a few meters into it one day...though about possible UO and then carefully back tracked.

Understand that may still be a risk in some parts of E Puerto Rico too.

[Steadman Uhlich]

Anecdotes:
On one of my three recent voyages past Cape Hatteras and the Outer Banks, I recall seeing some notes on the chart that indicated mines reported (don’t anchor here). Unfortunately I did not note the location so can’t tell you exactly where now. There was no more info on the chart (it was a large area marked), and we were passing by, but at the time I thought of how the WW2 German U Boats were sometimes tasked with laying mines off key ship traffic points to hamper/sink shipping during the early part of WW2, and this included off the Atlantic coastal cities of USA.

Also, on one of the voyages I could hear multiple very loud BOOM explosions (from miles away) as several F-18 jets flew low over us and then on to a Live Fire Exercise (the US Navy was practicing and had announced this on the radio, for all ships to stay clear). One of the low jets did a roll as he went by...I waved and I smiled at the thought of the fun that pilot must have been having.