By Doug Stanglin - USA TODAY
Posted : Tuesday Mar 19, 2013 6:12:35 EDT
At least 6 Marines were killed and eight injured when a mortar exploded during a training exercise at the Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada, NBC reports, quoting unidentified military officials.
NBC, quoting the officials, said a 60-millimeter mortar exploded in a tube as the Marines were preparing to fire it.
The 230-square-mile facility, about 140 miles southeast of Reno, stores ammunition that is awaiting demilitarization but is also used for desert training.
KTVN-TV initially reported that victims were taken by medical helicopters to hospitals.
An official at the depot told KRNV that the explosion was an accident unrelated to the ammunition stored at the depot. The incident occurred just before 10 p.m. Monday local time, KTVN reports.
The U.S. Joint Munitions Command says on its website that the depot is an “archive site” for storing slow-moving ammunition and stocks awaiting demilitarization. It says the depot also provides “high desert training facilities” for military units.
NBC reports that the facility is used for training Special Operations forces preparing for deployment to the Middle East.
Seven Marines killed, seven more hurt in Nevada training blast
Reuters – 15 mins ago.. .
(Reuters) - Seven Marines were killed and seven others were wounded in an explosion that occurred during a training exercise at a military facility in western Nevada, a military spokesman said on Tuesday.
The blast at Hawthorne Army Depot, a military ammunition storage facility, took place late Monday during a Marine training exercise.
Hawthorne Army Depot is a 147,000 acre site used for storing ammunition and other military equipment.
(Reporting by Chris Francescani; Editing by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
Six or seven Marines where killed and a similar number injured early today during what was apparently an accidental mortar explosion at the Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada. The facility is used for the storage of ammunition and other hardware, but is also used as a training facility for various US units, particularly those bound for Afghanistan.
Last edited by Thanas on 2013-03-19 05:07pm, edited 2 times in total.
Reason:DP deleted.
I don't know much about the shelf life of ammo, but I'd be kinda iffy about firing off old rounds or shells after a certain period of time. Metal corrodes over time, seals could go bad, whatever. Bound to happen if they were using really old ammunition, I guess.
That's terrible. My heart goes out to the families of the deceased.
Apparently they where undergoing night training on a section of the base seperate from the actual ammo storage area, an annex of the Mountain Warfare Training Center. All of the personnel involved in the incident where from 1st Battalion 9th Marines out of Camp Lejeune, and where training in preparation for a deployment to Afghanistan.
Apparently there was some sort of incident involving a 60mm Mortar, though obviously at this early stage there's no specific information on what exactly caused the round to go off.
Aside from the seven dead Marines, five Marines and a Navy sailor are still in serious condition in a Reno, Nevada hospital, and another Marine is being treated for minor injuries.
That's depressing as hell, loosing a whole squad worth of people before even going on deployment.
Darth Lucifer wrote:I don't know much about the shelf life of ammo, but I'd be kinda iffy about firing off old rounds or shells after a certain period of time. Metal corrodes over time, seals could go bad, whatever. Bound to happen if they were using really old ammunition, I guess.
That's terrible. My heart goes out to the families of the deceased.
even if it wasn't "out-of-date" ammo it could have been a faulty round, sure there's tests for those but they're not 100% and all you need is one and BOOM! The ammo is after all designed to kill or maim people which it did, but sadly for the marines or their families we don't have weapons that harm only the "bad guys", so a tradegy like this can happen even if it's rare.
lets hope those who were injured survive and recover as fully as it's possible as this is depressing enough without further deaths.
I may be an idiot, but I'm a tolerated idiot
"I think you completely missed the point of sigs. They're supposed to be completely homegrown in the fertile hydroponics lab of your mind, dried in your closet, rolled, and smoked...
Oh wait, that's marijuana..."Einhander Sn0m4n
US ammo is the safest in the world, but premature bursts in the tube are going to happen from time to time. Age is an unlikely cause, because the military knows how old its ammo is and actually stores it properly, and because most of the likely causes would be linked to factory defects or else major really major problems in the weapon itself or drew drill like double loading a hangfire.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
The article tries to make it clear that while the base is primarily used for munitions disposal that is a seperate function from the range these Marines were using. There really wasn't any need for reporters to mention the disposal function and this has caused lots of confusion in the media concerning speculation on old rounds set for disposal being used.
I am a bit surprised at the number of people killed/injured by this. I would imagine that you would want to keep the people in the immediate vicinity of an active firing position down to a minimum, especially in a training enviroment unless it was a classroom moment. Does anyone know the normal crew for manning one of these things?
Patroklos wrote:Does anyone know the normal crew for manning one of these things?
Either two or three, unless it's vastly different from what I know. But given the number of injured and killed, it sounds like the entire squad was caught in the explosion.
Patroklos wrote:Does anyone know the normal crew for manning one of these things?
Either two or three, unless it's vastly different from what I know. But given the number of injured and killed, it sounds like the entire squad was caught in the explosion.
I was in a weapons platoon, granted I was a 0331 and not a 0341, but IIRC you had a gunner and assistant gunner right on the gun. On the range, the guys would set up roughly 5 meters apart with fire control hovering pretty close too. So the exploding tube probably got it's own crew, the next crew, and either some of the fire control or perhaps a safety officer on the range, or even the ammo guy. Until they say otherwise, I'm going to assume the crew had a dud or something and the crew didn't notice and dropped the next round. It is by far the biggest 'fear' for that sort of thing.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
Looks like they've gotten as far as confirming that the round did explode in the tube and not while being handled. I doubt much more will be said for a long time.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
