I hope these guys have their estate planning in order. Makes one glad we don't have this stuff sitting around all over the place here in the states.

What a catch

Dang, the wood on that Garand turned quickly once it was exposed to air.

There is another video of them finding a MP40. I wonder what stuff one could find doing this under a bridge.

The problem is you can find something that is heavier than the magnet can lift. If you have a strong enough line, you lose the magnet.

The approach we took back in the 1970s was to buy an electro magnet from Edmund Scientific. We fished the Ohio River with it connected to a battery. When we found some thing we couldn't lift, we just disconnected the battery. Who knows what lurks in the depths. Like barges or old sunken steamboats. Our fishing was more directed, often looking for lost outboards. Hint: they don't have much steel or iron, mostly aluminum. Or tools. We never found any guns. Didn't even want a "mortor shell".

In other stories: In the 1980s, I was driving home from work. Along the river towards me on the road was a grandfather, father, and kid. I got home, not far away, and hoofed it down to see what they were up to. They were on the way back up the road. They'd had some old military rifle on the way down. Didn't have it now. I asked (rude of me maybe). They didn't want it in the house so they chucked it in the river. Seems the kid was digging it out of the closet, so they removed it. Typical Kentucky solution, toss it in the river.

Scary stuff. I noticed some of the 60mm mortar rounds still had the safety wires in place. They keep playing with the Garand as well, what if it has a round in the chamber.... looks like the war ended and troops decided to just chuck the stuff in the lake rather than carry it back for return/disposal.

Those guys could eventually frag themselves. Other than that, cool.

I am involved in UXO remediation and the casual way those guys handled the 60mm mortar shells and the bazooka rocket made my skin crawl.

Odds are good they'll do the wrong thing one day.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
I am involved in UXO remediation and the casual way those guys handled the 60mm mortar shells and the bazooka rocket made my skin crawl.

Odds are good they'll do the wrong thing one day.

Yep. While many shell fillers from WWII would not be a huge issue, there are some that I would NOT want to handle so casually.

My dad lived on an Air Force base outside Frankfurt in the 50s as a kid (not military, his dad was a PanAm pilot on international flights) and found lots of unexploded stick grenades just lying in the ground in the woods around the base.

I have read stories of French farmers being killed after they hit a WWI vintage poison gas artillery shell with their farm equipment.
WWI. 100 years ago.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
I am involved in UXO remediation and the casual way those guys handled the 60mm mortar shells and the bazooka rocket made my skin crawl.

I know very little, but enough to know the wire hanging off the bazooka round was perhaps a clue. The intact detonator pins on the noses of those mortar rounds had me wondering how long until their magnet touches something like that. Made me uncomfortable enough I had to stop watching.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
I have read stories of French farmers being killed after they hit a WWI vintage poison gas artillery shell with their farm equipment.
WWI. 100 years ago.

Yep, happens quite often. There's a mind-numbing estimated amount of unexploded orndance from both world wars, but especially in France. There have been, and continue to be places you simply don't go because it's too dangerous:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest

quote:

The French Département du Déminage (Department of Mine Clearance) recovers about 900 tons of unexploded munitions every year.

Years ago in Normandy I stayed at a rental home with a British family. The guy was showing off a remarkably preserved bazooka rocket in a bucket of water. He was planning on drilling thru the entire center to make a lamp out of it. He was convinced it was inert after being submerged in the English Channel for 55 years. He also thought there was no explosives because the shaped charge made it look empty when he removed the nose cap. We pried the inner reverse cap off, took a portion of the Composition B out, and easily ignited it. It burned quite readily showing how viable it still was. The poor Brit blanched realizing he would have gone boom if he drilled it.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:

I know very little, but enough to know the wire hanging off the bazooka round was perhaps a clue.

The wire on the rear of the bazooka round is an electrical ignition cord for the rocket motor. The loader slides the round into the rear of the launcher tube, then connects the electrical cord to a contact on the rear of the launcher. When the gunner pulls the bazooka's trigger, a battery in the launcher activates the motor in the rocket, and the round launches out the front of the bazooka's tube.

UXO is fun stuff. Or not. Think how lucky we are to live here where none of that stuff is to be found. Only it is. Central Indiana was the home to the Jefferson Proving Ground, where our best and worst was test fired.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: rburg,

There are places where everyone is prohibited. Think the stories about the desert where people see bad things just lying on the ground.

At Jefferson, locals aren't even supposed to wander in while deer or mushroom hunting. Stories from back in the 1990s related by people living outside the exclusion zone but within ear shot tell of the occasional explosion from that region. Speculation goes from animals or even fools (copper hunting) who bungle into the wrong place. Some of the larger shells are thought to be buried as deep as 10 or more feet down.

Our military/industrial complex produced wonderful munitions. That sometimes went off as planned. Other times, they just sat there waiting for the right stimulus to do their work.

quote:

Originally posted by rburg:
UXO is fun stuff. Or not. Think how lucky we are to live here where none of that stuff is to be found. Only it is. Central Indiana was the home to the Jefferson Proving Ground, where our best and worst was test fired.

We did have a civil war here. Found that story about a dude getting killed by an old cannonball.

https://www.google.com/amp/www...nball-blast.amp.html

Not trying to compare the USA to Verdun, but we aren’t completely UXO free.

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:

Not trying to compare the USA to Verdun, but we aren’t completely UXO free.

Far from it.

As of the end of FY2015 DoD acknowledged 5,230 sites where this is a potential for UXO or discarded munitions to be present.

http://www.denix.osd.mil/arc/a...-report-to-congress/

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
I have read stories of French farmers being killed after they hit a WWI vintage poison gas artillery shell with their farm equipment.
WWI. 100 years ago.

The day after we visited the WW1 US Military Cemetery at Boney on the Somme a local farmer and his little son, who was riding on the tractor hitch, were killed instantly when they drove over something in the middle of one of their fields Engineers/Sapeures cleared over a hundred UXB from the one field over the following two weeks.

tac

There are at least two UXO sites that aren't actual firing ranges near where I live. One is Camp Smith NY, the other is Storm King Mountain in Cold Spring NY. Camp Smith is a NG base, but the UXO they find there dates from vietnam and earlier when it had a grenade and mortar range.

Storm King mountain has UXO from the black powder age. There was a cannon foundry in Cold Spring and they used to test the guns by shooting them at the moutain. Thirty or so years ago there was a forest fire and they couldn't get into fight it because it was setting off the UXO.