Quoted:
Ok, what was the story behind this one? I'm almost afraid to ask seeing the arty round sitting there (low order of detonation looks like).
M1 abrams on patrol finds an IED the hard way (the hard way being locating it before it goes off. getting blowed up is an easy thing to do)
EOD comes out with QRF to blow it in place, asks the abrams to go sit in a cordoning position 150m away.
now, it was (unit) SOP for the loader and TC to have their rifles tethered on the top of the turret. readily accessible when you need something maneuverable.
so, EOD blows it (2x155mm russian arty) and a chunk of shrapnel comes down high angle and hits the rifle an inch or 2 in front of the D ring. nobody was hurt, but im pretty sure the loader loaded his pants.
the leftover chunk of shell there was a gift from EOD, they pulled it out of the crater and dropped it off on our TOC table. we were cleaning that HE shit up for weeks lol