One ND killed 2 people

[TonyNorCal]

Sometimes Darwin gets a twofer.

[tacgunner530]

^^^way to show compassion. Wtf!

[IVC]

Sometimes Darwin gets a twofer.

From what was posted earlier by someone who knows what happened, it was not "a Darwin" - they were not doing something stupid such as trying to figure out whether the shell would go off if they kept hitting it with a sledgehammer. It was a malfunction followed by the lack of protocol for such a malfunction.

This is an equivalent of lack of training, not the lack of common sense.

[onelonehorseman]

With something that big, I'd wait at least ten minutes.

No kidding! ... at LEAST 10 minutes!

[JDay]

Better article here.

http://www.ktvz.com/news/explosion-in-tank-east-of-bend-injures-2-possible-fatality/36082806

[WAMO556]

There has been no indication of whether they were firing continuously (which seems unlikely) or responding to a misfire at the time of the mishap.

Overheating (cook-off) or a premature or misfire drill can produce out-of-battery firing, very bad news in an armored vehicle’s main gun.

Mechanical failure can’t be ruled out, also: the gun was 71 years old, which shouldn’t matter much with a steel gun, but the ammunition may have been past its use-by date. That's my .02 cents. Will stand by for the results of the investigation by the sheriffs office who are the lead in this.

RIP

[Oceanbob]

Sad. Very sad. Condolences to family and friends.

[wpage]

Shame. Prayers for the families...

[slamfire1]

I read both articles, not enough information to know what caused the turret explosion. Too bad, these guys got to live the dream, be five years old again and have a real tank to play with. It is sad they died.

I got to talk with a cannon designer, round count does make a difference. He said that at 15,000 rounds, for a 105 mm, the tube, the breech mechanism, the carriage, the recoil mechanism, etc, etc, is scrapped. All mechanisms have a design life and cannons are no different. The risk you have with too many rounds through a mechanism is metal fatigue. What happens after something breaks is highly dependant on what breaks. Duh! But I am very certain that something could break that would kill everyone in the hull.

but the ammunition may have been past its use-by date.

Very perceptive. Most in the shooting community assume gunpowder and ammunition is immortal. Gunpowder deteriorates, and when it deteriorates it has lots of problems. Not merely auto ignition, that is it catches on fire in bulk, but combustion pressure climbs. Lots of guns have been blown to pieces by old ammunition loaded with old gunpowder. I don't know where you can buy new cannon powder, so these guys were probably using old surplus powder or old surplus ammunition. Either way, this could also be an assignable cause to an over pressure event that killed two people.

[MrPlink]

My old room mate is very active in the WWII reenactment community and was friends with the younger gentleman in the tank, Austin.

Total shame.

[Ponderosa2]

Sometimes Darwin gets a twofer.

D**c

[scadvice]

A little OT but...Hopefully, it will remind us to go a little slower clearing a FTF round in practice. I heard one claim of an incident while in the service (late 60's) of a 38 sp round going off, a few seconds later, after FTF. Fortunately, or so I was told, the shooter had not pulled the trigger again on the S&W revolver and it discharged as he was lowering the weapon. I've never seen it happen myself. Has anyone seen that? Quite frankly, I was and still am, skeptical.