OT - Unexploded Ordinance

[wdolson]

My SO and I were watching a British program set in the 50s in which they found an unexploded bomb in London. She was surprised that they would turn up something like that 10 years after the war. I remembered a large bomb being found in the Rhine not too long ago and looked it up. It led me to Wikipedia which said that on average 15 UXBs a day are found in Germany nearly 70 years after the war!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexploded_ordnance

I know some here have been very down on Wikipedia and I have found the occasional error, so this number may be off, but news stories I found in my search did indicate that finding UXBs in Germany is pretty common even today. It's mind boggling to think about.

Bill

[Grfin Zeppelin]

Last year we had to close our cinema for a day because of a bomb found nearby
They find usually one or two per year where I live.

[koniu]

Must be true.
There is no day in Poland without sapper intervention.
Sometime ago i have statistical data (not official) that was showing ~5 interventions in day in Poland. With at lest one in Warsaw City.
In place where i live is see sapper convoys that are transporting explosives, to place when they can destroy them, at lest once in month

Only in Years 1944-1957 they found:
14763514 mines (99% of all mines in Poland territory)
58805852 artillery shells, small caliber ammo, grenades etc. (75% o probable numbers of explosives in Polish territory)

It cost lives of 645 combat engineers and over 1200 wounded

[JeffroK]

Keeps us in business [8D]

[Omat]

Hello

This year (03.01.2014) a excavator driver got killed by a bomb in Euskirchen. 13 are wounded and two are seriously wounded.

http://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitges ... euskirchen

It is a big problem because the condition of the bombs deteriorate with time.

Omat

[JockJimmy]

Its was also a regular event on the major battlefields of the WW1 Western Front. With some of the UXB being nastier than simple HE. Human remains being found was also a regular occurance.

JJ.

[catwhoorg]

I have little doubt than in another 100 years, they will still be finding them in the major cities.

Part of that is the turnover of the land, until a building is being demolished, or a new site being opened, any UXB below the foundations simply will not be found.

[wdolson]

Ordinance from the US Civil War still turns up from time to time and that was 150 years ago.

My sister studied Geology in college and they went to various geologic sites around California on field trips. One of the best preserved stretches of undisturbed coastal geology is on the Pendelton USMC base, so the college gets permission to go onto the base. They need to troop across a now open field which used to be a gunnery range to get to the shoreline and my sister picked up a few souvenirs she found lying around. Most were shell casings, but one thing she thought was an inert bullet turned out to be a live 20mm round.

She was still living at home then and had forgotten about it for a while after the trip. She came across them one day and trotted them out. My father had a cow when he saw the 20mm round. He very carefully put it on his desk in his office and called the police who came out and took it away. My father does tend to exaggerate the dangerousness of things and claimed that it could have killed all of us. If it had gone off in her closet, it would have made a big mess, possibly started a fire, and possibly injured or killed someone who was close by, but I doubt it would have killed the whole family. The house had thick plaster walls which would have absorbed most of the blast.

Bill

[Terminus]

If a 20mm round goes off while you're holding it, you're likely to die. Better safe than sorry.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

My SO and I were watching a British program set in the 50s in which they found an unexploded bomb in London. She was surprised that they would turn up something like that 10 years after the war. I remembered a large bomb being found in the Rhine not too long ago and looked it up. It led me to Wikipedia which said that on average 15 UXBs a day are found in Germany nearly 70 years after the war!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexploded_ordnance

I know some here have been very down on Wikipedia and I have found the occasional error, so this number may be off, but news stories I found in my search did indicate that finding UXBs in Germany is pretty common even today. It's mind boggling to think about.

Bill

there is still a lot of ordinance lying in the ground in Germany and Austria. Lots of places you have to hire companies to search for bombs before being allowed to build. Crazy enough, in Austria you are being
responsible, better say you have to pay for the defusing of the ordinance if anything is found on your ground and that is horribly expensive.

Just recently a man was killed by a 500lb bomb in Germany that he hit with his digger. If 500lb bombs are found, this usually gets 10 sec in the news, if there is a need to evacuate 5000 ppl for the whole day it's
worth 20 sec, 1 min if someone gets killed. There is still so much stuff in the ground it is amazing there isn't happening more. Here's a link of a 500lb bomb "defuse" in Munich last summer...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NbM2Xbc1uk

that was going through the news for more than a day

edit: that was two years ago already

[Lecivius]

I tell ya, when I Get To Where I'm Goin, my wife is gonna have a hard time explaining my steamer trunk.


Just sayin

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

If a 20mm round goes off while you're holding it, you're likely to die. Better safe than sorry.

Say goodbye to your arm, at best.

[crsutton]

Have yet to see "Danger UXB" but it is in my Que. I understand that this mini-series from the late seventies is superb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078593/

[wdolson]

I saw Danger UXB when it was first aired on PBS. I thought it was pretty good, but the nude scene stood out most in my mind. I was about 12, so those sort of things have an impact. I was also watching with my *extremely* prudish mother. Frequently with anything on TV which was not "wholesome" she would damn it and I couldn't watch it.

Yes a 20mm going off in your hand would be very bad. I was talking about in the next room of a very sturdily built house.

It's amazing how adaptable people are. The thought that there could be a bomb buried who knows where within a mile of your house would probably put most people in countries where that sort of thing doesn't happen in a catatonic state.

Bill

[decaro]

Folks, for the record, ordinance is a law, or regulation, ordnance (military supplies) is the stuff that explodes.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

I thought it was pretty good, but the nude scene stood out most in my mind.

Bill

Ok, I just went on to Netflixs and moved it to the top of my list.....[:D]

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

Folks, for the record, ordinance is a law, or regulation, ordnance (military supplies) is the stuff that explodes.

Sorry. I'm not a great speller. [:(]

Bill

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

Folks, for the record, ordinance is a law, or regulation, ordnance (military supplies) is the stuff that explodes.

Sorry. I'm not a great speller. [:(]

Bill

Neither am I, but I have even more trouble pronouncing "ordnance" without sounding an "i".

[AW1Steve]

When I lived on Guam , finding unexploded munitions was a daily occurrence. What was sad (at least for the military museum where I worked) is people would often find a cache of it along with old firearms and equipment. I recall one find which contained a cave full of Japanese weapons , including several "knee mortars" that we would have liked for the collection for the collection , but had to be destroyed in place as the ordinance was too unstable. [:(] [X(][8|]

[AW1Steve]

Otis Nat Guard base on Cape Cod , and also Spring Valley in DC have had WW1 munitions show up. [:(]