Ypres unexploded shells still an issue...

[Rob Fast]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26654314

[Gordon Yeo]

I've been into the WW1 battle fields several times and unexploded ordinance is very easy to find, picture below is what we found in a potato field in 2009. In 2007 we found an unexploded shell that was just turned up by a farmer when he ploughed the field.

[cletrac (RIP)]

It makes you wonder what will ever happen to that unexploded mine that's the twin to the one that obliterated Messina Ridge.

[motto]

The 'iron harvest' claims more victims.

Yes there is still a big one out there somewhere. Two of the twenty one mines on the Messines Ridge failed to detonate at the opening of the offensive 7th June 1917. Their locations were subsequently lost. One of these went off in 1955 during an electrical storm it being assumed that it was struck by lightning.
One to go.

David

[Bill Murray]

An interesting but rather sad and deadly subject.

I did a little research on this a year or so ago, precious little, and the materiel I found was quite depressing.

Modern manufacturers estimate a "failure to explode on impact" rate of between 10 and 20 per cent for new ordinance. Certain ordinance has/had a much higher failure rate. 30% for modern cluster bombs, 70% for early US WWII torpedoes for example.

Apparently, the age of the ordinance also contributes greatly to higher than normal or expected failure rates. Most developed countries are supposed to destroy unused ammo after a certain date point but I suspect many don't. I would imagine it is a given that lesser developed countries or "rebel" organizations never destroy ordinance.

Not to get into a political discussion, but I have also read that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands of weapons and millions of various pieces of explosives such as mines, rockets and bombs more or less disappeared from the armories of the former Soviet States and later appeared on both the legitimate and black markets all over the world.

I am certainly no expert in the field, but this article confirms a bit of what I have read, that certain types of ordinance can keep the explosive materiel from degrading for decades and all it takes is a spark from a machine hitting the ordinance or a fire or even a lightning strike to set it off.

A sidebar to this story is that many thousands of acres of military reservation land that was used as firing ranges here in the US are more or less completely cordoned off nowadays and are considered "no man's land". When the bases are closed and turned over to civilian authorities, they often find a large part of the base is totally unusable and uninhabitable. Not even to think of the hundreds of thousands of land mines that have been buried on the North/South Korean border. Even when peace comes to that area, the only way to go from one country to the other will be through a few narrow border crossings.

Sorry for the book, it is a rather consuming and frightening story.

Bill

[Scott Bentley]

Originally Posted by Bill Murray

An interesting but rather sad and deadly subject.

I did a little research on this a year or so ago, precious little, and the materiel I found was quite depressing.

Modern manufacturers estimate a "failure to explode on impact" rate of between 10 and 20 per cent for new ordinance. Certain ordinance has/had a much higher failure rate. 30% for modern cluster bombs, 70% for early US WWII torpedoes for example.

Apparently, the age of the ordinance also contributes greatly to higher than normal or expected failure rates. Most developed countries are supposed to destroy unused ammo after a certain date point but I suspect many don't. I would imagine it is a given that lesser developed countries or "rebel" organizations never destroy ordinance.

Not to get into a political discussion, but I have also read that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands of weapons and millions of various pieces of explosives such as mines, rockets and bombs more or less disappeared from the armories of the former Soviet States and later appeared on both the legitimate and black markets all over the world.

I am certainly no expert in the field, but this article confirms a bit of what I have read, that certain types of ordinance can keep the explosive materiel from degrading for decades and all it takes is a spark from a machine hitting the ordinance or a fire or even a lightning strike to set it off.

A sidebar to this story is that many thousands of acres of military reservation land that was used as firing ranges here in the US are more or less completely cordoned off nowadays and are considered "no man's land". When the bases are closed and turned over to civilian authorities, they often find a large part of the base is totally unusable and uninhabitable. Not even to think of the hundreds of thousands of land mines that have been buried on the North/South Korean border. Even when peace comes to that area, the only way to go from one country to the other will be through a few narrow border crossings.

Sorry for the book, it is a rather consuming and frightening story.

Bill

FWIW, more often than not, the Taliban and AQ in Afghanistan were utilizing ammo stores that were turned over to the DRA or discared by the Soviet Union upon withdrawing, or were old stocks that originated in China. On one route clearance task I actually found a dud Yugoslavian 82mm HE mortar. Funny to see something familier from a previous deployment in a different broken country thousands of miles away and years later. I actually did a double take when I saw the cyrillic writing on it.

The good news side of this story is that because of the very high dude rate of this old Chinese and Soviet ordinance in Afghanistan, many Coalition Soldiers (myself included) are still around to talk about it. Some of the closer calls that my peers experienced included an RPG-7 that hit the passenger side window of an uparmoured Gwagon and failed to function (the passenger's bowels did fully function), and an 82mm HE that landed in the roof rack of another Gwagon and failed to function, after a mortal attack on a patrol base. That one made for an interesting "render safe" procedure trying to remove it from being wedged into a roof rack when the SOP at the time was to Blow in Place where possible

[Wayne McGee]

In the early '70's I was around for the retirement of the 3.5"RL.
The rocket range at CFB Borden was used and you were given the opportunity to fire HEAT rds until you were sick of firing. I have no idea how many rounds I crewed on but I'm sure it was well into the 50's. There were LOTS of misfires (particularly sphincter tightening for the #2 who had to reach into the back of the tube, partially slide the round out, rotate it 360 deg, and reinsert it. Hoping not to generate any static as the rocket motor was electrically fired), and there were LOTS of blinds from rockets' tail fin assemblies which did not deploy correctly causing speed wobbles and cork screws to the sound of WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP to everybody's delight.
Range Control had no interest in in how many blinds or misfires we produced, they just wanted the Korean War vintage war stocks gone.

Cheers

[Scott Bentley]

Originally Posted by Wayne McGee

Range Control had no interest in in how many blinds or misfires we produced, they just wanted the Korean War vintage war stocks gone.

This is a perfect description of Area 2 in Petawawa.

We did an initial surface sweep for duds in 2004 after a Reservist was injured disturbing an M203 dud while siting trenches. I'm not sure when it was swept prior to that, but it was clearly well before the 106mm RR went out of the system.

The dud contamination level made for an interesting disposal operation. Since 99% of duds cannot be safely moved, the range looked like a spider web of Det Cord going in every different direction connecting all the charges together. We resorted to completely ramping up/hatching down the APC Dozer and fired the huge demolition from right in the middle. Talk about getting your cage rattled
Talking to a buddy who worked at Base Ops later on; apparently the low cloud ceiling that day and the shock wave from firing off all of the charges simultaneously (enough to max out the explosive template for the training area), triggered dozens of noise complaint calls with one coming in from as far away as Pembroke complaining that her china cabinet was rattling. Good times

[Wayne McGee]

Summer '87, Dundurn is my last recollection of rounds down range with a CRACK and Whoosh and a Thump!

Cheers

[David Dunlop]

There was a documentary on TV here a year or so back on the Messines Ridge mines and they covered the detonation of the 'dud' in the 50's following a thunderstorm. The crater was enormous and not that far from a town.

Apparently the remaining unexploded mine had been confirmed by authorities to now sit beneath a very large and prosperous dairy farm. The family that owns the farm is aware of it but not that concerned.


David

[Wayne McGee]

MILK SHAKES for everyone!!!

Cheers

[motto]

[QUOTE=
The family that owns the farm is aware of it but not that concerned.


David[/QUOTE]

They are probably living it up on the Riviera on government subsidies and the cows are cardboard cut-outs.
Some years ago we were waiting in a line of trucks just behind Omaha Beach alongside a cow paddock. A middle aged woman came out of the farmhouse with a three legged stool and a bucket, sat down alongside a cow and proceeded to milk it.
One of our crew was an Aussie farmer. His comment was,' And these are the people who call the shots regards farm policy in the EU?'.

David

[Jes Andersen]

A couple of years ago, a group of us did the tour of WW1 & 2 Canadian battle sites. With a local friend from St Julien, we saw lots of out of the way spots. The power poles are lattice concrete and every second pole had old shells piled in the openings. Farmers just pile them there when plowed up. Our host told us the Belgian army comes and collects them once a year for disposal. We found lots of fragments walking along side plowed fields. The stuff is everywhere. At the Ambrosia Hotel in Ypres, there are photos of piles of shells dug up when they excavated for a garage under the hotel a few years ago. The Vimy site has large areas fenced off that have not been cleared. You can see the craters in through the trees as you drive by. Lots of stuff still waiting. The staff told us that they occasionally lose a sheep grazing in the areas close to the monument to uxo detonating. Not many anymore, but still there.

Jess

[motto]

That's what the French refer to as the 'Iron Harvest'. Each farmer has a particular location where they deposit their finds for collection.
We were being shown around Bullecourt by a local resident and stopped to look at a little shrine in the corner of a field. Right alongside was a small cache of ordnance waiting for pickup, a couple of artillery projectiles and two mills bombs.
Claude, the local, had a practised eye for such things on the ground and walking between the crop rows easily found a couple of shrapnel balls for those who wanted them.
Another concern apart from explosive ordnance of course is gas shells or canisters.

David

[Howard]

Our Son's history and French classes are proposing a visit to the WW1 battlefields next June (2015). Boy, I'd love to see him get there... And wouldn't mind joining him either! All of this above sounds fascinating.
Cheers,
H

[Jon Skagfeld]

Originally Posted by Gordon Yeo

I've been into the WW1 battle fields several times and unexploded ordinance is very easy to find, picture below is what we found in a potato field in 2009. In 2007 we found an unexploded shell that was just turned up by a farmer when he ploughed the field.

I'll be in Ypres in August this year as part of a battlefield tour.

I'll watch my step and not stray from the beaten path!

[Bill Murray]

This showed up today on my newsfeed.

Sadly, my friends, this problem will go on for generations to come.

Not to get too political, but I often wonder nowadays if the politicians who make the decisions to go to war somewhere ever bother to think of the longer term consequences or if they are even aware of them. The military forces know full well what they will leave behind but I doubt if they make an issue of it to their political leaders.

A real shame.

Bill

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...b08_story.html

[Marc Montgomery]

not to get too conspiratorial but during the US-Iraq war when we were all watching the "smart bombs" hitting their targets... apparently that represented only 3% of the ordnance.. Some have suggested that the war was provoked to give US forces- out of shape so to speak- some actual war/combat experience, while also easily getting rid of thousands of tons of Viet era ordnance beyond its best before date...the thought was that they could get rid of it without real cost, instead of disposing of it "safely and environmentally" which would have cost an astronomical sum (apparently)
Dont know if thats true at all...but one wonders

[Marc Montgomery]

Back to WWi..trying to find the bodies of 44 Cdn dead at Vimy

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/07...?__federated=1