Seventy years later and these things are still going off. Amazing.

https://news.sky.com/story/sec...erman-field-11748066

They're still dealing with live WW1 munitions 100+ years later too.

They found a 250 pounder near the Alex (Alexander Platz) in Berlin a few weeks back.

I wonder if these are true duds, or one of the delayed explosion bombs, that failed to go off - turned in to an infinite delay...

Rogue probably knows. He is incredibly knowledgeable about both wars. Reminds me of a Professor of History whose area of expertise involves the weapons, machinery, and military tactics of both World Wars. I wish he would replace the British guy, now gal on the AHC network.

Back in the summer of 2003 I was participating in a study abroad program in Innsbruck, Austria. One weekend we’d been out traveling by train and were on our way back to Innsbruck. The last connection we made was at the Salzburg train station. I read where a few days later an unexplored bomb had been found and gone off right below the platform where we’d been standing, several people injury and one killed if I remember right.

ETA: Looks like it was two killed , both bomb disposal experts.

Once in awhile people even come up with Civil War era artillery shells.

quote:

Originally posted by icom706:
I wonder if these are true duds, or one of the delayed explosion bombs, that failed to go off - turned in to an infinite delay...

As unexploded ordnance degrades over time, the detonation mechanism and/or internal explosives can become more sensitive and unstable. This can cause the ordnance to go off if subjected to impact or handling, or even to detonate spontaneously, as seems to have occurred in this case.

onto the OP, that is a pretty amateur crop circle...

I was stationed there 7 years ago and they find in exploded bombs all the time. We went to the field in Baumholder and one of our guys literally tripped over a tank round. My unit immediately packed up and went home early because the Germans closed off the whole area to deal with it

In Duck, Dare county NC, the fire station has UXO lying in the open...the area was a bombing range during WWI and WWII...I’ve seen little hand dropped bombs lying in the sand and salt grass...

You should see the UXO in and around Yepres from WWI whole towns have disappeared because there is so much UXO that they just moved the towns/survivors

Yeah, evacuation of residential areas for EOD because someone dug up a wartime bomb during construction or mandatory probing while developing new property is a semi-regular occurrence, including in major urban areas. And despite everything, sometimes people get killed. That happened in 2010 at my birth place of Göttingen, when a bomb found on the city's fair ground blew up during preparations for defusing, taking three EOD personnel with it and wounding six more. In 2006, another bomb exploded when it was hit by a milling machine during roadworks on Autobahn 3, killing the operator. Generally, EOD stays quite busy.

They will likely never find all of the ordinance buried about in all of Europe. I used to watch Danger UXB as a teen and thought it would be absolutely terrifying to try and diffuse something that could go off at any moment for any number of reasons.

Gents, it isn't just an European problem.

As of the end of FY2018, in the U.S., there are 5,493 munitions response sites (MRSs) known or suspected of having unexploded ordnance (UXO), discarded military munitions (DMM), or munitions constituents (MCs) present at concentrations that pose a risk to human health or the environment.

Of these 2,301 are on Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS).

At small subset the 5,493 sites have as an issue the presence of chemical warfare material (CWM) or chemical agents.

You can read summary information about these issues in the Annual Defense Environmental Program Reports to Congress available HERE .

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
Gents, it isn't just an European problem.

As of the end of FY2018, in the U.S., there are 5,493 munitions response sites (MRSs) known or suspected of having unexploded ordnance (UXO), discarded military munitions (DMM), or munitions constituents (MCs) present at concentrations that pose a risk to human health or the environment.

Of these 2,301 are on Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS).

At small subset the 5,493 sites have as an issue the presence of chemical warfare material (CWM) or chemical agents.

You can read summary information about these issues in the Annual Defense Environmental Program Reports to Congress available HERE .

I think the difference is that the ones from war could be quite literally anywhere within the continent where bombs were dropped. With absolutely know way of knowing they are there until discovered...or they detonate randomly.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
Gents, it isn't just an European problem.

As of the end of FY2018, in the U.S., there are 5,493 munitions response sites (MRSs) known or suspected of having unexploded ordnance (UXO), discarded military munitions (DMM), or munitions constituents (MCs) present at concentrations that pose a risk to human health or the environment.

Of these 2,301 are on Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS).

At small subset the 5,493 sites have as an issue the presence of chemical warfare material (CWM) or chemical agents.

You can read summary information about these issues in the Annual Defense Environmental Program Reports to Congress available HERE .

I was at Ft. McCoy WI about 10-12 years ago. The Army told us to be careful where we tread since sections of the base was used for artillery training in WWII and once in a while a live round will be located.

Ran an EOD unit back in the 70s on the West Coast. Destroyed thousands of WWI and WWII munitions found in several old training sites. One wheat farmer just stacked them up at the side of his field and we visited him every summer to collect them and then destroy them. Most of the bombs we used in WWII used a form of impact fuse that would only go off on impact. There were exceptions. Normal functioning rate on US Ordnance is around 90% with about 10% not going off and those of other countries can be higher or lower depending on who made it. The country with the highest functioning rate is the Soviets as they don't worry too much about munition safeties. So figuring the millions of bombs and shells used in the two wars there is a lot of unfound and unexploded ordnance still over there. And the stuff they are filled with will still go boom. Once deactivated a pre-Civil War shell and the powder still worked just fine.

Camp Shelby Mississippi has stuff buried that gets hit sometimes while practicing maneuvers. I imagine they'd allot of old stuff all around the states.
My grandfather believed burying stuff was safe to do.

quote:

Camp Shelby Mississippi has stuff buried that gets hit sometimes while practicing maneuvers. I imagine they'd allot of old stuff all around the states.
My grandfather believed burying stuff was safe to do.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yeah some of the local rednecks got onto the base at Shelby through the wire and had been stealing brass. They cut through a live shell. Bad result for them.