.....can anyone share some good ones?.....I was researching my Dad's old outfits from his Cold War army career and came across a story of them training in Grafenwoer as follows:

" I was assigned to B Btry, 2nd Bn, 5th FA (FDC) from Nov. 1977 to Nov. 1979. Yes, the 2/5 was the last of the 175mm gun battallions in USAREUR (I believe that it converted to 8-inch –– nuke capable –– a couple of years after I PCS'ed to the Big Red One).

One day in July 1979, during an ARTEP in good ol' Grafenwohr, we were having our usual session of life-fire missions when Range Control issued the urgent order over the radio to "Cease fire freeze, cease fire freeze, cease fire freeze!". No one ever wants to hear that; it appears that one of our 141-pound artillery shells ("projoes") failed to explode at the target location.

Over the course of the next several hours, range control and battallion officers nervously looked over the charts, calculations, and FADAC settings in our fire direction center –– as well as that of battalion's (each battery has an FCD, and there's one at battallion level as a double-check). Then the officers checked the artillery piece that sent the round down range for the proper deflection and quadrant elevation settings sent by my FDC.

It appeared that everything was in order, but what happened to the round?

Sometime later that night, a representative from a FRG Army unit came by with something wrapped in a blanket. It was our projoe, with the point-detonating fuse broken off!

What apparently happened was that the round did land at the target location some 14 klicks from our location, but struck something hard in such a manner as to break the fuse off. The round bounced off the hard object and, with the clockwise spin imposed on the shell as it travelled through the barrel of the gun, it veered to the right and travelled another 4 klicks and, at the end of its flight, careened through a couple of tents sheltering our West German comrades, knocking over some stoves before coming to rest outside of the last tent...wrapped up in a blanket!

Let's see: that was almost 25 years ago. I think that those West German soldiers have stopped running by now!"



The shell was later encased in glass and displayed in the B-Btry, 2/5FA day room for all to see. Less the blanket, of course!

One of our brother 81mm mortar platoons dropped an 81mm HE out of impact area onto a paved road in the German countryside.  Just exploded, scarred the pavement in a big circular pattern, didn't crack or destroy the asphalt roadway.  Lucky some Herm in his BMW didn't get hit.



Big pucker factor as Range Control climbs up your ass during a Check Fire, checking the fire mission sheets with grids, directions, corrections and gun data......



The old 175mm "Long Toms", you had to apply a correction for the rotation of the earth due to time of flight and max ordinate (max altitude) for the round.



NJARNJ, 3/102nd Armor, HHC 4.2in Mortars were on Ft Dix for live fire training using a drop in sleeve to fire 60mm rounds, cheaper and useful for small impact areas.  One old azzed round had a deteriorated charge increment.  Round ignited, exitted the tube but only went about 50m, weakly, dropped low enough to bounce off of a pine tree back towards the M106 Mortar Carrier.  Crew ducked inside the track and prayed.   After it landed, never seen 5 guys exit a clown car so friggin fast.



NJARNJ again, mortars firing illumination in support of the tankers qualifying on Table 8.   Battalion forgot to take into consideration Angle T, Gun Target Azimuth and max range for the illum rounds.......



Mortars drop a round to start corrections, shell bursts open, parachute deploys, the burning material cannister hangs off the parachute but the original shell casing continues further down range until it impacts into the ground with a big ol' thud.  You can actually hear the hollow casing tumbling through the air, the whistle noise it makes....



Anyhooo, between Bn Training and Fire Support Officer (FSO), somebody forgot about the max distance beyond burst point the shell travels.   We bounced a friggin' illum casing off of an M48A3 Tank......'Nam vets heard the whistle, hit the dirt.  Others were like, WTF is that", until that "KA-LAAANG" as the 8lb iron tube bounced off the tank turret, followed by "CHECK FIRE" being yelled into the Company and Battalion radio nets.......



We used to hear stories about extending the max range by dumping a cup of Mogas (Army-grade leaded gasoline) down the tube, then droping the round.  Never tried it.



Some also did the 100MPG Taping of the razor blades to the round to make it whistle in flight.  

Great stuff.....

Wonder how many casualties our military has taken in peace time from training accidents?.......gotta be a pretty big number.....

on the grenade training range at Sill, guy from 2'nd platoon, Spc. fatbody, older guy. weird old "Milton-from-Office Space" kinda persona..honestly has no business being near anything explosive)  has his two m67s in his dick beaters, thumbs the clip, throws the spoon and drops the grenade. We all scramble as the DS snags it, chunks it over the wall and POUNCES on Tubby.
that guy was one ate up, Joe.
i knew we were gonna be fucked with him. he had big gigantor pink marked XXX all over his brain bucket from  the instructors NO-GOin his ass on the traing sims.

Quite a few.

Great Uncle 1943, Training exercise.  RIP Sir.

When i was in the Persian Gulf in 98, we did an UNREP (underway replenishment) in the southern part of the Gulf and while cruising back North we
radioed to the Carrier we were going to go through the designated bombing practice area that they jets used live ordnance as training missions in this
area. Well the Carrier said we were good to go and no danger would come our way.

Well I was in berthing laying on the deck next to the buklhead between me and the water cuz it was crowded and all of a sudden
we hit something that made a huge PING and you could here it hit the hull all the way down the ship as we passed.

Turned out a Hornet fighter pilot didnt know we were in the drop zone and was dropping LIVE FUCKING ORDNANCE and we hit one that just so happened not to detonate.
If it had detonated I wouldnt be here today nore a good amount of the Combat Systems guys that were in berthing at the time.

We were in a fwd berthing about 80ft from the forcastle of the ship and about 7-8 feet below waterline.

I guess a month later the pilot hitched a ride from his carrier on a mail run to personally apologize to the Captain and some of the crew. I happened to be on his Carrier
due to heat stroke and recouping there.

Watched a kid jump from a trailor as it started to take off onto the hood of my 915.

I laughed.

Back in the 80's we were doing a single ship airdrop in our C-141 at some DZ in Louisiana with a time over target of about 3 AM. We were dropping a jeep trailer...

Doors open, our Nav starts counting, "5...4...3...2...1...GREEN LIGHT!   NO, WAIT !!!"

Unfortunately, upon hearing the words "GREEN LIGHT", our copilot flipped a switch releasing the extraction chute, while I pulled the manual release  handle as a backup.

When the Nav said "NO, WAIT", the extraction chute was in mid-swing and there was no stopping the drop.

Turns out the Nav didn't have a fucking clue where we were and we were nowhere near the DZ.

Someone in the bayou's of Louisiana got themselves a trailer courtesy of Uncle Sugar and a dipshit navigator.

"The front fell off"



 

Was that at Dover?

If my memory serves me, that was an operational mission....not a training mishap.

More than a few just from my squadron.  It's a dangerous business.

Tag for when I get home.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Ugh.  I remember hearing about that when it happened.  Really stomach-tightening for about an hour or so until we found out it wasn't a KC-10.  Miracle noone got killed on that.



IIRC, it was all the Pilot's fault, too.  Got too slow, too low and never told anyone and stalled it out.



 

That happened to me in basic at Ft. Jackson in '85.  I went to throw a live M67, and my foot slipped (it was wet).  Grenade landed SHORT.

Only time I ever saw a Black DS turn White.

For some reason, they did not let me throw anymore.

had a kid walk up to my M113 with an unexploded but fired 203 HE round talk about pucker factor. In the mid 90s when i was with 3rd ACR we had 6 guys killed over 3 training cycles, only time I've seen a training cycle canceled for a mandatory safety standown

I think they had an engine problem and shut down the wrong one.    That left them with insufficient power to make it to the airfield.



It reminds me of the Ron White joke.  To paraphrase, how far will a C-5 go on two engines?  All the way to the scene of the crash.  



 

No, one engine was shut down and they pulled back a running engine, leaving them with two producing thrust.  However... if they had the flaps set correctly, the plane could have been safely flown on two engines.



All pilot error.



 

Damn....just damn.

So is said pilot flying rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong now?



 

Hell of an error.  I just watched the simulation on Youtube.  Talk about pucker factor knowing what was coming.  I am just glad there no fatalities.



 

had a kid walk up to my M113 with an unexploded but fired 203 HE round talk about pucker factor. In the mid 90s when i was with 3rd ACR we had 6 guys killed over 3 training cycles, only time I've seen a training cycle canceled for a mandatory safety standown

Damn, we have been getting some weird double posts that come minutes apart.  It has happened to me several time lately too.
 

I don't think he's flying anything now.  Most everyone on the jet was injured, some severely.



 

Someone in my unit put a 120mm tank round through the water town at Ft. Irwin on a night fire mission back in the early 90s'.

Had a 155mm drop short 150 meters in front of my OP in 29 Palms.

I watched a Dragon snap its wire and fly off like an escaped parrot over a hill towards main post at Graf.













































 

A nasty one:



During a Combined Arms Exercise (CAX) at Marine Corps Base Twentynine Palms, CA....



While operating as a gunner on an M1A1 MBT, co C, 2d Tank Bn, I saw a fellow Marine get his head crushed between the breech block and the turret ceiling of his tank.



On an M1A1 MBT, the main gun is stabilized, enabling accurate fire on the move. During a live-fire exercise at night, this particular Marine was having problems loading the tank's main gun. Rather than stand behind the breech to solve the problem, said Marine leaned his upper body over the breech block to remedy the situation. The tank commander (TC) at the same time orders the driver to back up. Unknown to both the driver and TC, there's a giant bomb crater behind the tank. When the rear of the vehicle backs down into the hole, the fire control system compensates by depressing the main gun. Inside the tank, the breech block is elevated to the max(turret ceiling) with this poor Marine's body, mostly his head actually, in between.



In the end, he lost an eye and most of his teeth. He endured multiple surgeries and was left with extensive scarring on his face.



...literally a few weeks from EAS'ing.





Stay safe, Marines. Never get complacent nor forget your training. We've all been taught never to lean forward over the breech.

Lost a Coastie a few months back. Fell off a ladder during a high risk boarding exercise (hook and climb) Fell in the drink (won't say more about it since it's still an ongoing investigation AFAIK) He went down 40 ft and drown.
 

Yeah, had a jump out of a C-130, and one guy's 'chute didn't deploy (cigarette roll).

Also, when playing around in Ft. Knox one of the cadets I knew got his leg crushed by the breech of an Abrams when they raised the gun to full elevation.

One of the guys in my platoon got hit with shrapnel when dicking around with grenades at a patrol base in Afghanistan.


There's lots of fun stuff that goes on.

From what I've read, it was classic cockpit communication breakdown.

The AC bit the bullet, but his crew let him down.

We were coming in from the field problem w/ LFX's. I came in that a.m. to pull CQ, the rest of the company came in hours later. Then they sent all the joes back out to clean up the training area. So later on our PSG is standing at the front desk talking with me when the range cleanup detail comes in.



A n00b a month out of OSUT, who is in our platoon walks up, plops his ruck down that he used as a trash can on cleanup, and asks our PSG what he should do with "this" (as he pulled it out). Well "this" was a fucking UXO mortar round, and it was a big one.



All I know is SFC Schueller saw it coming out, recognized it, yelled a warning and yanked my ass over the desk and threw us both right out the front door of our barracks in .124 of an second. Another 130 men instantly flew out the rest of the doors about .750 seconds later. And one dumb fuck private was still standing there holding the bitch, left to die, and wondering wtf just happened.



Aftermath, the kid became an instant perma private and said stupid ass delayed us going home for hours since we had to wait on EOD.
 

Worst training incident..

Hmm, two years ago, while shooting the rifle range at quantico...One guy a few spots down had his hand on the pole that the carriage rides on.....Well, this was the 500, and shots are a little harder to hear for some people...His buddy noticed it, he did not...He pulled down the carriage and im not sure if it went over his hand or what but all the tendons and guts were ripped out of one of his fingers, really nasty.

Around 1986 I was on guard duty at Campbell Army Air Field on Ft Campbell in the early morning hours.

A Huey came in to do a hot re-fuel. The only problem was a Blackhawk was already in that "parking spot".

So, basically a Huey tried to land on top of a Blackhawk that was powered up.

The skids on the Huey went one way and pieces the of Blackhawk's rotors went the other.

I didn't see how they got the Huey to land with no skids. I don't remember how that worked out.


During Air Assault School in 1986 an instructor was demonstrating Australian repelling (head first instead of butt first). This is when they very first started using Blackhawks. Something when wrong and he fell 90 feet.  


This one was June, 1996 on Ft Campbell. Two Blackhawks were doing a demonstration for AUSA. They were supposed to come in low in front of the bleachers and two squads were supposed to fast rope out.

The first Blackhawk stopped short and the second one got too close. The rotors touched. Both choppers fell in a heap. People died. A fire fighter I met later said one on the pilots was impaled by the control stick and it took hours to get him out.

ETA: I found the video of the crash.

This thread is making me depressed.

That is true, yes.  Shitty CRM situation overall but the pilot was ultimately at fault since he was the one flying.



 

I was with the 547th Combat Engineers during one of their Bn. exercises of building bridges (Motto:  Bridge Builders!), blowing stuff up etc.  It was at the Lampertheim Training Area (Germany).
Some idiotic Lt. directed that a Bailey Bridge site be dug immediately next to some cross-country high tension power lines.  Bulldozers dug out a simulated small riverbed and they began the heavy manual construction of the bridge sections by hand.  Bailey Bridge assembly is nearly all human muscle.  They brought in a crane to swing each section to the edge of the "river bank" so it could be pushed by hand across.  The crane made contact with the power line and every man in the Company that was in contact with metal was severely electrocuted.... and that was about 80 men.
I heard screaming on the Battalion radio net and hauled ass to the nearby site and there were bodies down everywhere.  Some guys still had uniforms smoking.  I parked next to a jeep whose paint had flaked off in huge sheets - and whose tires had melted.  I started calling for USAREUR MEDEVAC helos and we couldn't get enough.  It was hard to get people to believe how many seriously injured we had.  Most of the injuries were bad burns.  A lot of guys couldn't see (although all regained their vision later IIRC).  It took some talking to get the MEDEVAC pilots to land anywhere near the power lines - but once they saw the horrific scene from a hover - they found spots they felt they could get in and away from.  It was a huge mess.  Every UH-1 helo within the region got called in.  Some were dumping passengers and cargo out the door as they landed to make space for the injured.
I think we lost 3 men, about 11 were discharged for permanent injuries and and lot of guys took a while to recover.  The Lt. was Court Martialed. How the Company C.O. escaped a Court Martial is beyond me.


 

http://www.zpub.com/notes/osprey.html

Just like they do CAX at 29 Palms, there is a wargame training exercise at MCAS Yuma called WTI: Weapons and Tactics Instruction.

There is always a lot of fun HE flying here and there, and involved units are instructed not to pick up anything that isn't theirs. Too much UXO around, right?

I broke my foot one day during WTI and got a lift over to BAS, but as I arrived the ambulance was bringing in a young Marine who hadn't absorbed the lesson above. He had been trooping around in the boondocks and had found a ~1" x ~6" brushed metal cylinder with a wire or thin cable coming out of one end, and he picked it up and commenced to asking if anyone knew what it was. He got a lot of "Put. That. Shit. Down. PFC!" Instead of doing just that, he grabbed the wire/cable in one hand, bowed up and jerked on it.

Until that day I had never heard the term "degloved". Think of an EMT or nurse taking off a pair of surgical gloves. That's how they described his injury. His hands had been skinned by the explosion as if someone had peeled the skin off like gloves. FUCK. I sat on the gurney with my wee broken foot and watched the docs treat this poor dumb bastard. He was burned on his chest, belly, both arms, both hands obviously and his face a little.

Turns out that little metal cylinder he found was the detonator from a "Smokey SAM", a Stinger simulator.

No joke.....very sobering.

Motor T filled a water jug with antifreeze and didnt mark it and put it in my truck to haul to the field. Well at about 0200 in the morning on our third OP move that night, I found out it wasnt water.

A depressing number. It's an outdoor full contact sport for sure.



 

When I was in Abn school, we were on our fourth jump and I was in the collection area watching the last few sticks jump out of a C141 when we saw a jumper with a cigarette roll.  We screamed from the ground for him to pop his reserve, but he bounced.  We found out later that what had happened was that there were TWO guys...the first one was a towed jumper, being bounced against the side of the jet.  The second guy hit him and popped off his static line and the first guy wound up inside the second guy's chute, collapsing it.  The second guy had pulled his reserve but he was in a spin and it just wrapped around the cigarette roll.  We were TOLD they both lived, but I can't imagine they were ever the same again.  Both were ROTC cadets, college students.
They rushed us all back to the rigging shacks, got us back up in the air and made us do our fifth and final jump that day.

On New Orleans in probably 87 one of the Deck Guides was leading a chalk of Marines up an outside ladder to the flight deck to board a 46. As he came above the plane of deck (he was looking back at the Marines)  a Cobra pivoted or some shit and he got clipped in the head by the tail rotor , they carried him down to to the hanger deck on the elevator and worked on him there as about a Bn of Marines watched.

6/502nd Inf, Berlin Brigade, before I got there, lost a Troop during a water crossing on the Wannsee.  Fell out of the Boston Whaler somehow, went down with all his gear and weapon, none of it ever recovered.   There was a Helmet and Boots Memorial at BN HQ for our Trooper who never came home.



5/502nd Inf Berlin Brigade, lost an 11B on a live fire range.  Squad Movement to Contact Live Fire. Somehow got out of his lane, in front of a SAW Gunner, caught a bullet thru his K-Pot, DRT, unfortunately.  



We being the only unit with 81mm Mortars still in the line companies, used to accompany the Rifle Platoons for these Squad MTC, follow the main force, set up our mortars off to the flank, then drop HE on the objective while the 11 Bang Bangs did their fire and maneuver.  Sucked carrying the mortar system with HE rounds, plus live small arms, the 3Kms to the LD.

In basic training (Ft. Mclellan, 1989) during a halt on a road march, some guys were joking around standing in a circle. One guy had a slung M60. One of his buddies made a smart comment so the guy with the 60 poked him in the junk with the barrel of the PIG and pulled the trigger. The muzzle blast of the blank, through the blank adapter, blew the guy's dick off.

Ouch.

Our platoon was down 2 guys, one a medical discharge the other a general (less than honorable) discharge.

Never mind. Doesn't matter anymore.

3 guys in our sister battalion at Fort Hood were running down one of the mountains in their deuce. They were in blackout drive. They took a wrong turn(that mountain has trails everywhere) and crossed into an intersection just as an Abrams in blackout entered the intersection. The Abrams went up and over the cab, crushing them all.



While I was at Bliss for training in 96 or 97, some German troops were out running around in the desert on motorcycles. One hit a patch of deep soft sand. DRT. Another feel out from dehydration, and his buddies gave him beer. He got more dehydrated and died. A female Marine was killed out there the next cycle, she was ground guiding a five ton up to a loading dock, and got between the truck and dock somehow.

Our unit was pretty lucky, overall, while I was there.  Mostly minor stuff, think the worst was a guy getting a foot caught in the turret of a M163 (IIRC, might of been a Chaparral) and getting half of it torn off.  Most of the mishaps were amusing, more than anything else like a vehicle recovery op that turned into an absolute fiasco.  Cost Uncle Same a pretty penny, too.