Ordnance

[DA Aquamaster]

I just read a book ("Pig Boat") about the S-39 and it's service in the Phillipines in the years prior to WWII and it's 5 patrols during the war.

On its 5th patrol the S-39 ran aground on a reef. In an effort to lighten the boat the torpedoes were fired and all the ammunition and other non essential equipment were thrown over the side. Just before an attempt to pull it off the reef was to be made by an Australian corvette, a 4 inch shell washed back under the sub by the pounding surf detonated and blew a hole in the hull doomimg the boat.

The shell should not have exploded, but was already fairly old by the standards of the day. And as pointed out above, ordinance from that era was not exactly stable by modern standards. The same type of shell, given 60 years for the explosive to destabilize would be even more hazardous. Many of the explosives used in WWII were TNT or nitrogylcerin based and could become very impact sensitive if the nitro leeched out of the filler material over time.

 

[GDI]

narcT once bubbled...
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....

:doctor:
narcT - I can tell you from my experience in the armed services and having worked with EOD, DON"T PLAY WITH EXPLOSIVES REGARDLESS OF HOW OLD YOU MAY THINK THEY ARE!
We are still finding explosives from WW1 in the English Channel and they do go boom once in a while.

 

[the_dumper]

Some people just don't have any common sense, how dangerous!

I was diving on an old wreck in the English channel a few years ago and this guy brought one up in a goody bag, it was about 18 inches long!
The thing was he "forgot" to tell anyone else until we where back on dry land, and by this time the thing had started fizzing and bubbling a little bit, we all went mad at him and he was lucky we didn't throw him and the shell back in the sea.
He just ignored us, put it in the back of his car and drove off!

 

[Doc Intrepid]

NarcT,

The ammunition can certainly still be live.

Moreover, the wrecks in Palau are protected. If you'd told the boat operator what had happened, I think that guy would not have done any more diving that day.

Its astonishing how consistently the case is that it only takes one ignorant fool to screw up things for so many others.

 

[Rick Murchison]

I've corrected the spelling in the thread title...
Rick

 

[Conor]

Shame you guys were near by, could have given darwinism a chance to take place.

You here a lot of stories of ordnance dumped in the irish sea washing up on the irish coast and having to be detonated in situ....not to mention the muppets who brought pockets full of phosphorous up from a wreck thinking it was coal......guess what happened when it dried out

 

[narcT]

The funny thing is that there were two boxes with about 8 shells each on the deck where he dropped the shell. If both boxes went up there would have been a large bang.

But get this, about 10 - 15 meters from where the shells are sitting is the hold with about 10 - 20 depth charges stacked.

Care to estimate how big a band 20 depths charges makes if set off at the same time? Small mushroom cloud maybe:boom:

Oh well, live and learn. I just hope everyone reading this thread thinks twice before playing with that stuff....

 

[Conor]

Thats the most important point. Hopefully that guy will read this and think twice in the future.

Some people just don't think, they go in the ocean and think they are in a museum, everything is on display and therefore must be safe. If you visit the wreck of a warship you are seeing reality and worse than that reality at its worst, it is not disneyland.

Sorry....pet subject

 

[Bob3]

the thing had started fizzing and bubbling a little bit

One particular flavor of high explosive used becomes extremely unstable when dried out after having been submerged for a while.
Too bad the idjitts can't just blow themselves up, without taking innocent bystanders along.

 

[matt_unique]

I dive the U853 quite often off the coast of Rhode Island (US). There is a torpedo in the port forward torpedo tube (torpedo door open) as well as unexploded depth charges and hedge hogs around the sub.

I always wondered how likely it would be for that stuff to explode.

--Matt