105 Howitzer Round Lands in Yard

[denton]

About 3:00 this afternoon, a live 105 Howitzer round landed in a back yard, not too far from here. It dug quite a hole in the yard, and sent shrapnel through the house and a nearby car. Fortunately, nobody was hurt.

Can you imagine filing the insurance claim?

There is speculation that it was a stray round from an avalanch clearing operation in a nearby canyon.

[Rocky Raab]

I didn't hear about that, and I live here in Utah!

I also wasn't aware that they used 105s for avalanche work. I thought they had nothing bigger than 76mm recoilless rifles and such.

Stray round? What'd they do, miss the MOUNTAIN??!!??

[denton]

KSL is saying that it was definitely a stray round from near Bridal Veil Falls, in Provo Canyon. The round landed in a yard near the mountain, in Pleasant Grove. My daughter-in-law's parents live next door to where it happened.

Apparently they did miss the whole mountain.

I expect that by this afternoon, we'll know who was at the trigger.

[TreeDoc]

Oooops! Must have been some Iraqi on the trigger!

Gardening in a combat zone!

This reminds me of a similar situation out here in California. Back about 15 or so years ago there was a chunk of private farmland/oak woodland that was situated between Camp Roberts, an Army National Guard facilty, and Fort Hunter Liggett, another even bigger ANG/US Army installation. They used to lob Tank fired projectiles from the gunnery range at Camp Robts up onto FHL. One day Mr. Farmer was on his tractor working up his fields on this sliver of land and KABOOM, a very NEAR miss detonates in his field. After multiple Underwear changes the old timer goes after Uncle Sam who I believe ultimately bought his sliver of land in the Hot Zone.

To bad for these guys killin' snow, they probably won't be able to play with their big gun anymore after this one.

[gumpokc]

Geez, that would not be fun.

Rocky, there are soem places that use the old towed 105's for avalanche duty, there was an article abit back, i think a year or so ago, where the army was recalling towed 105's for use in Afganistan and iraq, that it had donated for such duty.

Now _why_ you'd need a 105 for avalancje duty is beyodn me, unless you had slopes long enough that you couldnt reach all of them with a 106 recoilless.

[Rocky Raab]

I thought I read that the supply of recoilless rifles ammo was dwindling to nothing. Since they don't field those any more (to the best of my limited knowledge) the supply would have been limited to surplus stuff.

But there are grazundles of 105 stuff still being made, so those towed mountain howitzers would be a natural. On further reflection, therefore, I guess it's not so surprising that they use them.

Missing a mountain, on the other hand...Sheesh!

[TreeDoc]

Originally posted by Rocky Raab
Missing a mountain, on the other hand...Sheesh!

Hey, you should have seen me on the Skeet Range last week....I could've missed a mountain.

[Skinny Shooter]

Originally posted by denton
About 3:00 this afternoon, a live 105 Howitzer round landed in a back yard, not too far from here.

There is speculation that it was a stray round from an avalanch clearing operation in a nearby canyon.

I heard Boyd Heaton was out practicing at 1pm Eastern. Hmmm

[skeet]

Hey... I wonder how many elevation clicks that would take on the ol scope. 80 clicks for a groundhog at 800 yds...HMM long shot there Boyd

[gregarat]

Who was his Forward Observation Oficer who gave Boyed his cords?
Thats the guy to blame!

[Rocky Raab]

They finally reported a bit more info on the incident in this morning's paper.

It seemed that the two-man firing crew was very experienced in this kind of avalanche control. But somehow or other, both of them managed to forget to reduce the charge in the final round. They thought the round was a dud because they saw no impact.

In fact, they had fired a seven-increment charge (the way the round is packed at the manufacturer) instead of removing two bags of propellant for the proper range.

Result: higher trajectory and longer range than intended. They missed the mountain by shooting over it. The round went 9,000 yards and landed in a guy's back yard, putting shrapnel all over and pretty much wrecking his backyard storage shed.

[gumpokc]

I can believe that. No matter how good you are, experienced, you can always have a brainfart

I do speak from experience, but then again i think we allc an to some extant or another.

[TheeBadOne]

Can't you hear the inside jokes now....

"Those two couldn't hit the broad side of a mountain"

[Deerman]

Since no one was hurt it is kind of funny.
Missing the whole mountain.

[gumpokc]

Originally posted by TheeBadOne
Can't you hear the inside jokes now....

"Those two couldn't hit the broad side of a mountain"

Lets just hope it never becomes " man those two missed the _ground_ " :P