Posted on 07/09/2015 1:32:38 AM PDT by nickcarraway
A couple found a live tank round near the railroad tracks in Union City Wednesday afternoon, loaded it into their car and took it to the police station, prompting an evacuation, police said.
A woman walked into the front counter of the police department at 34009 Alvarado-Niles Road at about 1:30 p.m. and said she had found what appeared to be a “very large missile” on the railroad tracks off Zwissig Way, according to police.
She and her husband had put the “missile” in the back seat of their car and taken it to the police station.
Officers went outside, looked at it and based on its appearance evacuated the surrounding area, including the police department, city hall and the library. They called in the Alameda County sheriff’s bomb squad.
The bomb squad determined the “missile” was in fact a live tank round. They took it away for further examination, according to police.
Officers searched the area around the railroad tracks but found no other ordinances or explosives. Investigators have not determined how the round got there, police said.
Police ask that anyone who finds possible explosives or suspicious packages to leave them where they area and call police.
It would make a nice boom if you detonated it...
Sure..
You could drop it pointy-end down and see if it bounces.
Or something..
You lose something out on maneuvers?
I'm guessing they are a bit more sophisticated than a shot gun shell. We used to take the pellets out of shotgun shells, tape a wrist-rocket pellet to the bottom primer and lob them up in the air. When they hit the pavement then would go “bang”.
But yeah - best to leave that stuff alone. I seem to recall a Freeper, or perhaps it was just an article, where they were cleaning out the house when the old man dad. The paperweight on his desk was a live shell from WWII! Although like you said - probably not a huge deal. No different than the cartridges rolling around in many of our desk drawers.
Tank rounds are fired using less than 9 volts of electricity. Not super dangerous, but I have fired them using a small battery. Makes a huge explosion. They claim even static electricity can cause one to detonate.
hit it with a hammer- tell me if anything happens- if we do not hear back from you we will assume something did :)
It's the only thing to do.
Here hold Mah Beer, watch this!
Since when do tanks fire “missiles”?
Could replicate the Maine idiot LOL
Maybe someone was making an IED on the tracks and was spooked off. Seems unlikley a live round fell off a train.
The M551 Sheridan’s 152 mm main gun was designed to also fire the Shillelagh missile :)
That was my thought as well. That scene in Hurt Locker when he realizes he’s standing on a pile of artillery projectiles that are wired as an IED popped into my head. Especially if those tracks are passenger train travelled.
They interrupted an IED being planted?
Tank round?
Nah.
In the Tour de France, yesterday’s stage (Wednesday) went through the area of the 1915-6 Somme Battlefield. Every year some more unexploded ordinance from WW1 & WW2 is found, sometimes explosively. Natural weathering and erosion can bring buried items to where a plow can hit it.
As for hitting it with a hammer, I can recall some WW2 Cartoons and training films that appear to advise against such efforts.
“They interrupted an IED being planted?”
An artillery/tank shell left on the railroad tracks. Now, why else would it have been there?
Exactly what I’m wondering. We’ve been having a lot of train wrecks lately near Lynchburg, Va. All ‘explained’ away.
I would have used it to decorate my fireplace hearth
M551 Sheridan did.
It was called the MGM-51 Shillelagh.
Doubt this was a shillelagh missile though.
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