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To: spunkets
A farm house in TX was shelled with live 155mm rounds a few years back. I think they came from Fort Bliss. The farmer and his wife were eating breakfast at the time. Shells hit just outside the house somewhere. No one was hurt during that WTF moment. The arty crew claimed they had a problem with GPS, but obviously the officer was disoriented and had no appreciation for direction. Down range was in the opposite direction...

Some of the problems too are coming from bases being crowded. They were once in the boonies and now houses are very close to them. In late 1984 my NG unit went to Ft Pickett Va. for training. We had 155 tracks. We had to literally back up on one corner of the base and shoot to another corner. Houses were very close to the base also. Practice Range space is becoming limited especially for heavy artillery. That being said a short round or a round well outside designated impact area does not make for a good day. Had it been inside the base the Battery CO would get a good chewing. The Pentagon needs to review it's requirements for safety buffers as well including wide room for error near ranges.

47 posted on 04/12/2008 1:43:21 PM PDT by cva66snipe (Proud Partisan Constitution Supporting Conservative to which I make no apologies for nor back down)
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To: cva66snipe; Squantos; FreedomPoster

A little war story from my days in Vietnam:

I was in an M109 battery (not an A1 or A2, but straight M109). We had a battery fire mission one day where one gun chief laid his gun 3600 mills out. In other words, five of the six guns in the battery were firing in one direction and one was firing in exactly the opposite direction. The FDC (Fire Direction Center) worked up data for the errant round and found there were no friendly forces nearby so all that happened was a good chewing out for the gun chief.


48 posted on 04/12/2008 3:17:19 PM PDT by SLB (Wyoming's Alan Simpson on the Washington press - "all you get is controversy, crap and confusion")
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