Very fourtunate there were no injuries. When traveling through training areas I occasionally observed unexploded projectiles. It was difficult to tell in every case how far the projo. had traveled after the initial impact. We were required to identify enourmous 'Safety' zones around our target or impact areas. There were some other safety considerations related to such bounces or skip rounds. These safety requirements were aggravating, but some officers did not understand them clearly and turned them into ridiculous constraints out of fear.

Unexploded ordnance is spooky. We spend few nights in 1998 in an area that was littered with them... mostly 81mm and 120mm mortarts, but I guess we found also one 152mm shell. When those artillery guys fire with old ammo and there is over one metre of snow, there seems to be a lot of duds, especially when they use mortars (I cannot say that I know, but it seems like that). Once I unloaded 120mm mortarts made in -43 from a truck and the fuses they put on them didnt look too new either. I guess that in "right" conditionss the dud rate must exceed 10%. The safety zone in this particular accident was 1700 metres and the maintenance centre wasn´t quite behind the target zone, although I am not sure about the exact angle.

When we had 'short' impact areas the minimum quadrant elevation was susposed to be 280 mil at the mavimum range allowed. This was susposed to preclude skipping projectiles. I supose so. What it also did was confuse numerous artillery officers who read that line of the safety regs hastily and thought that the 280 mil limit was to be applied in entirely different circumstances. Eventually I came to regard that item as a sort of intellegence test for young Lts.

I have had rounds skip when firing a QE of 700 mils!!! These were inert rounds however. But bottom line strange things happen, even when firing high angle we still calculate a skip fan just in case.

My take was the min QE of 280 mil had something to do with the estimated angle from the horizontal needed for the fuze to function rather than break the majority of the time. Alternately it may have been based on some minmum angle from the horizontal desired if a proj. skipped. The safety regs for designing impact areas we worked with in the 1980s were designed to aid computation of a buffer zone around the target or impact area. They seemed to cover the ordinary errors well enough. The gross errors like loading the wrong charge are more difficult.

Just out of curiosity what is the title & number of the safety reg your gunners use? I'm curious if the Order we were using ten years ago has been changed.

Carl, Yuma Proving Ground operates unders it own local SOP, as a former artillery man you would go out of your mind trying to make sense of how they operate. I know it drives current artillery guys nuts. Had the FAC's from 2/11 and 3/11 there a few weeks ago. They went away shaking there heads!!!!

I guess its all fun & games till someone gets killed : )

Yeah, Unfortunately that does happen at the proving ground. Been a few years since the last fatality, plenty of injuries though.

Let me guess...smashed hands, with crushed toes second? Hearing trauma a distant third?