Posted on4/18/01 09:46 AM Cpt Dad "Surviving Stupidity"
A friend of mine who was a professional PFC and I found what we took to be a DUD on the range in Hohenfels, Germany. We were both drivers and had been sent out together to recon a training area. At this time I was a SP4 and because Roy was a Korean War Vet, he was infallible. He said the round must not have hit the ground at the right angle so it didn't explode. It was a 3.5" Rocket round. For those who don't know, it has a warhead shaped like a double ended shaped charge. The impact end is in fact a shaped charge. There is a rocket body attached to the warhead and on that body is the fin system. The rocket is intact. Roy decides we should blow it up so no one will get hurt. The procedure was to mark duds in some fashion and report their location to EOD. We figured we'd just save everybody a lot of time. Roy set the dud up on its fin assembly and wiggled it around to make sure it was well seated. It looked like a minature V2 sitting on it's launch pad. Both of us had M1 Rifles and good old Roy always had live ammo. We backed off about 200 yards and took aim. The object was to hit the warhead and explode the rocket. Roy shot, I shot. Roy shot, I shot. I hit the GD thing but not the warhead. I hit the rocket body. It knocked the rocket down, warhead pointing our direction. The rocket WAS NOT a dud. Someone had disposed of a live round that had never been fired. It fired it when I hit it. It took off like a bat out of hell, scooting across the ground and coming right at us. It is a good thing the ground was soft. The nose of the rocket managed to dig in a little now and then and that slowed it down a little. Roy and I are GETTING hat. Knowing we out of the so called line of attack we stoped and looked back. The rocket came to rest under MY jeep unexploded. I told Roy this was his mess, to move my jeep. I wasn't getting in it. I never did anything quite so stupid in my entire life. To this day I wonder if it would have had enough impact at that point to have exploded if it hit my jeep and how would I have explained that. divide et impera----divide and rule
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