Ordnance

[narcT]

Is the ordance on old WW II ships still hot?

I was in Palau last week on a little ship that had radial engines in one hold and depth charges in another.

Up on the deck was a cannon with a couple boxes of shells. Somebody swam by me and my wife and pulled a shell out of a box. He then pulled some type of metal clip off the nose of the shell, looked at the shell, then let it drop through the water onto the deck. Bong!

I signaled my wife to head up for the boat....

 

[pipedope]

That stuff can be live or dead and there is no way to know which until it is too late.

The big problem with idiots like that playing with the ordanance is that thye will kill everybody in the water in the area and not just themselves.

Underwater explosions are VERY dangerous to divers.

Shells, bullets, bombs, torpedos, etc HANDS OFF!

 

[DA Aquamaster]

That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of a diver doing. Reminds me of a 1940's cartoon with a guy testing fuses in a shell factory with a hammer - fortunately for the cartoon character they were all duds. I would have never imagined a diver doing what amounts to the same thing in real life. What a moron.

I'm not sure what size or type of shell we are talking about here. Many impact fused shells of the era had a travel saftey that was removed before loading/firing and then a saftey in the shell itself blocking an inertial firing pin. The saftey would be pulled out of the way by centerfugal force once the shell was fired and spun in the rifling. This would prevent detonation of the shell upon firing or in the barrel bt would allow it to detonate on impact. Normally this type of shell was relatively safe to drop on deck when new or in good condition but could be very very dangerous to drop after 60 years of corrosion in sea water.

Shells could also be equipped with a variety of timed fuses with either a clockwork mechanisim that would also be very dangerous to handle after 60 years in sea water or a simpler time fuse that consisted of a more conventional chemical fuse burning down an adjustable lenght track to the detonator that would not be quite as hazardous.

The US Navy used proximity fuses from 1943 onward and these would also be very hazardous to handle.

The odds are not in a diver's favor and any ordinance would best be left alone.

 

[Genesis]

A shell underwater, for all intents and purposes, is a small depth charge if it goes off.

The pressure wave will scramble you VERY reliably from quite a distance.

HANDS OFF, as was mentioned by others! The risk is not just to the idiot playing with it.

 

[ew1usnr]

The guy messing with the possibly live ammunition is a brainless idiot. What also bothers me is the idea that the ammunition was sitting on deck as it had been since that ship was sunk in battle over 50 years ago. Visiting that ship is as close to going back in time as there is. When people like this idiot starts scattering things he is ruining the wreck for everyone else.

 

[coberry7]

I've done a little work with explosives topside, and all I can say is that unless I created it or tested it, or am trained in it's disarmament, I do not touch it. Period!

Any underwater explosion is damn dangerous, as water does not compress. Guess what gets the brunt of the shockwave of any proximal underwater explosion...Yup, you the diver.

Underwater ordnance, especially ordnance that has been exposed to salt water for 60 odd years, is unpredictable and best left alone.

Good call going to the surface.

 

[Bob3]

You would've been within your rights to cut the idiot's reg hose.:boom:

 

[narcT]

We had been on the wreck 50 minutes before the other divers showed up. So we were going to surface anyway.

But still, I was scared when I saw what he did. My wife and I were only about 3 feet from him! No doubt we would have been small pieces of fish food if it went off....

 

[coberry7]

It sucks when you you run across some ignorant fools. Especially when they endanger your life. It's a rather helpless feeling. I am glad to know that you are safe.

Colin Berry

 

[Hoya97]

I work with explosives and hang around a lot of guys who also work with explosives. Without going into specifics about various 'fills' used in WWII, suffice to say they weren't nearly as stable as the stuff we used to cream Saddam earlier this year.

Anything, whether in or out of the water, that is designed to go boom can complete it's mission if mis-handled. As being underwater for over 50 years is not an approved storage technique, I would place it in the catagory of it being mis-handled . Thus, rest assured, anyone who touches any round, no matter how corroded, small, old or anything else is inviting disaster.

I agree, it would have been totally legal to cut the suckers reg hose! What a dope!