Exposure to Shock during Training

[rero360]

Umm. . . With commander's initials I can have a 2000 pound bomb dropped 500 meters from my location.

[Scuba Steve33]

Bro, do you even jump?

I wish. I did go to Air Assault School though. :/ haha

I was a member of 4th ANGLICO and one of our squads while in training was calling an air strike and when the pilot said he was popping up I noticed a jet pop up about a mile or two away in front of us... I instantly called abort and the jet peeled up right in front of us... A split second later or if the pilot didn't respond fast enough he would have dropped a 500 pounder about 1000 meters in front of us... The splash (or kill range) of it is 1600 meters it would have been about 25 dead Marines.... So training that day was very real...

LOL I've had 2000 pound JDAMs drop much closer to us than that in country.

[Apex_RS4]

Umm. . . With commander's initials I can have a 2000 pound bomb dropped 500 meters from my location.

Yeah in a TIC/Combat situation. No commander will approve that training drop.......juice isn't worth the squeeze during training.

[rero360]

Just saying, blast radius isn't that big, I don't have the minimum distance for training handy, so I can't say what it is, for me the TIC distances are what matters.

[tozan]

LOL I've had 2000 pound JDAMs drop much closer to us than that in country.

You may not have used the 30 to 40 year old bombs we had... We only could have hoped for what you guys have today... And for the record I have no interest in arguing with another Vet maybe my memory is a little off maybe it was feet not meters... But the point is the same we would have been screwed... The blast radius was not round it was more like candle flame shape so it was much longer than it was wide...

[Scuba Steve33]

You may not have used the 30 to 40 year old bombs we had... We only could have hoped for what you guys have today... And for the record I have no interest in arguing with another Vet maybe my memory is a little off maybe it was feet not meters... But the point is the same we would have been screwed... The blast radius was not round it was more like candle flame shape so it was much longer than it was wide...

What type of 500 pound bomb were you using? The kill radius of a 500 pound bomb is nowhere near 1600 meters. I don't even think the MOAB is that deadly. You said the radius wasn't round, so were you using something other than HE? I was infantry so I don't know a lot about different bombs and munitions and stuff, but I know a little from the experience I had with them and like I said, 500 pounders and 2000 pounders were dropped regularly and we were much, much closer than a kilometer most occasions.

[rero360]

Scuba: I'm not sure if the info is fouo or not but the blast radius of most munitions will vary in sive and shape depending on angle of approach and a few other things, stuff for the pilots to take into consideration, not us dudes on the ground.

[tozan]

What type of 500 pound bomb were you using? The kill radius of a 500 pound bomb is nowhere near 1600 meters. I don't even think the MOAB is that deadly. You said the radius wasn't round, so were you using something other than HE? I was infantry so I don't know a lot about different bombs and munitions and stuff, but I know a little from the experience I had with them and like I said, 500 pounders and 2000 pounders were dropped regularly and we were much, much closer than a kilometer most occasions.

I guess maybe you missed the part above where I said maybe it was feet... I am an old vet give me a break... The size of the bomb or blast is not really important, if it is to you then I am sorry I have my details wrong... I forgot to ask the pilot exactly what he was dropping that day and we called in a lot of different stuff over the years.

What is related to this post is the pilot pulled up he said we most likely would have been in bad shape or dead... Which is the relationship to the OP not the size of the bomb or blast...

Scuba: I'm not sure if the info is fouo or not but the blast radius of most munitions will vary in sive and shape depending on angle of approach and a few other things, stuff for the pilots to take into consideration, not us dudes on the ground.

Scuba is spot on there are a lot of factors involved with explosives hitting the ground... Do a search on ANGLICO Air Naval Gunfire (howitzers) Liaison Company USMC we did recon operations and were used to help direct invasion forces of all branches of the military in what ordinance to use and how to use it...

Above I was referencing a jet coming in pretty fast at a low altitude and dropping a non guided bomb... 1981 Bombs went where they fell... Bombing missions back then were more like spray and pray... The bombs today are far more sophisticated and are able to direct their blast in a very controlled manor.

If you want I can get into what and when and how we used what we had back then....

[penguinofsleep]

wow to all of the above... to me guns have always been one thing, but a bomb is a whole different ball game.

[Scuba Steve33]

Scuba: I'm not sure if the info is fouo or not but the blast radius of most munitions will vary in sive and shape depending on angle of approach and a few other things, stuff for the pilots to take into consideration, not us dudes on the ground.

Oh absolutely and why I said I don't know a lot about them but that on several occasions I've had larger bombs drop much closer, but obviously other factors play into it. I still don't think there's a 500 pound bomb with a kill radius of 1600 meters (or 1000 meters that he stated they were from the blast site).

I guess maybe you missed the part above where I said maybe it was feet... I am an old vet give me a break... The size of the bomb or blast is not really important, if it is to you then I am sorry I have my details wrong... I forgot to ask the pilot exactly what he was dropping that day and we called in a lot of different stuff over the years.

What is related to this post is the pilot pulled up he said we most likely would have been in bad shape or dead... Which is the relationship to the OP not the size of the bomb or blast...

Scuba is spot on there are a lot of factors involved with explosives hitting the ground... Do a search on ANGLICO Air Naval Gunfire (howitzers) Liaison Company USMC we did recon operations and were used to help direct invasion forces of all branches of the military in what ordinance to use and how to use it...

Above I was referencing a jet coming in pretty fast at a low altitude and dropping a non guided bomb... 1981 Bombs went where they fell... Bombing missions back then were more like spray and pray... The bombs today are far more sophisticated and are able to direct their blast in a very controlled manor.

If you want I can get into what and when and how we used what we had back then....

Wasn't trying to give you a hard time, just asking questions (no tone in text sucks). Like I said, I was just a dumb grunt many years after you served so I'm sure things changed, but when you first posted it didn't match up to what I've experienced with 500s and up. Out of curiosity do you know what types of munitions were common use for you guys back then? As far as I know everything dropped for our platoon was just regular HE but like I said I don't have a lot of knowledge on this. One of my best friends was our platoon's FO so I would occasionally bug him for info since I was curious and I'm pretty sure he said standard 500 and 2000 pounders are just HE.

In relation to the OP I don't think your scenario (if it had went bad) would have helped you guys prepare for combat though.

[18Dmedic]

OPSEC/PERSEC. No need to discuss this ****. If everyone does their job, **** hits where it's supposed to. EOS

**** happens in war...**** happens in training. People die. This ain't the Girl Scouts. FIDO.

[Germz]

Safety during training should always be priority one. How do you think new safety rules come into play? the DIRECT result of undiscovered or unrecognized trianing hazards.

You think someone just decided "hey, lets paint a red line in the target pits, and not let anyone cross this arbitrary point during live fire..."? no, its because someone caught ricochet and died...so they analyzed and for the most part mitigated it.

It costs too much money to put a service member through training and death costs to just carelessly write them off.

Like stated earlier, sometimes s*it happens, and we'll go from there. but if you focus on the what ifs instead of what you have currently nothing would get done.

[grim1U]

Former Marine here, we had couple guys get shot in training, one or two fell off the cliffs at Bridgeport, think one drowned. Personally taken freindly fire, didn't get hit though.

I could except all of those tragic deaths because we were training for the real world...

...what I couldn't except we're the Marines that got killed in DUI's, what a senseless preventable waste. *sigh

On a side note, after training, spent my entire time in the same Battalion, so my experience is over about 3 1/2 years of deployment and 3 training cycles leading up to deployment.

[evilbisquit]

My unit got pretty lucky. I can't recall any training related deaths. With that said, the best training I had was the most dangerous. But that's because it's the closest to what you would actually do in a fight. Doesn't really have anything to do with learning how to deal with the loss of a brother. It doesn't really work like that.