Quoted:
Probably a bomb.....

Quoted:
Probably a bomb.....

Quoted:


In the mid '80s a unit in Germany was being given a class on using cratering charges.  They decided to use a live charge instead of a dummy/training unit.





Guess what happened?





IIRC, the blast killed 11 Soldiers.

Quoted:
This begs the question

Non-exploding Bomb?

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I don't remember that.  Where did that happen?

We had shaped charges to use if we had to destroy the warheads.

http://208.84.116.223/forums/index.php?showtopic=29901

DK, I think you're mis-remembering. The only accident around that timeframe where three were killed working with anything even resembling ashaped or cratering charge happened at Hohenfels in 1987. I don'trecall anything at Hood involving a demolition materials accident.Couple of live-fire and artillery deaths, but nothing involvingEngineers, EOD, or demolitions.

The accident at Hohenfels involved the M180 Cratering Charge, which wasa Rube Goldberg (Heath Robinson, for our UK-centric brethren...)contraption if I ever saw one. Looking back, I still can't quitebelieve we ever fielded such an abortion.

An M180 consisted of a tripod-supported launch rail, which had fourthings strapped onto it. From ground level up, the four things were a15-lb shaped charge, a modified clacker from a Claymore mine, and thena cratering charge with a rocket motor attached to it. The way thething was supposed to work was this: You erected the tripod, assembledthe explosive bits, and then connected the firing system to any otherM180s you were using. When you fired the device, the rocket motorignited, driving the cratering charge down the rail to impact theClaymore clacker, and that then detonated the shaped charge, creating ahole into which the cratering charge would then follow, and which wouldthen detonate when the fuse in the charge burned down.

I have told new Soldiers about this thing, and they refuse to believewe ever had such a device as an experiment, let alone general issue. Ihave fond memories of watching the cratering charge and rocket goskipping merrily along the ground, after the shaped charge failed topenetrate the surface on a peacetime training shot. We were supposed touse the damn things to render roads and airfields unusable to theenemy, but I never encountered a single one of those things that waspenetrable by a mere 15-lb shaped charge, especially in Europe.Asphalt, maybe. Concrete roads and runways, as commonly built inGermany? Like hell they'd have worked...

The accident at Hohenfels apparently occurred because the unit was toolazy to draw the training aid from the TASC before conducting trainingon it. What they did was set up a live munition, and when theinstructor demonstrated how the cratering charge would come down therail and hit the clacker, he hit the clacker. Which had been set upwith a live cap, and was in a live shaped charge. The results of this Ileave as an exercise for the reader...

Suffice to say, three wound up dead, and a bunch of others wereinjured. There was some controversy about what happened––One survivingwitness insisted that the instructor had not moved aside the safetybail on the clacker, and had simply pushed the handle down with thesafety bail in place, which should not have generated enough energy toset off the electric cap in the shaped charge. It apparently did,however, and the resulting safety review left us without the M180 as apart of the arsenal. I'd always been more than a little dubious aboutthat thing, anyway. The holes it dug weren't anything special,either––You get far better results with a relieved-face road crater,anyway. Though, it does take more time and explosives...

Quoted:
I get that it's used for cratering...but why do you need a cratering bomb?

The only thing I could think of was for making enemy runways unusable.