Allegedly live grenade found in Arkansas park

[hillbilly]

Huh.....I wonder where it came from........


http://www.kfsm.com/Global/story.asp?S=5444732



FORT SMITH--Walking keeps you in shape, but a walk around Carol Ann Cross Park in Fort Smith was out of the question around noon Friday because of a potentially dangerous weapon, a live hand grenade.

Bomb squad members have no way of telling how long the explosive device had been in the spillway of the dam, but people go to that park to see the animals, fish and walk on the trail. It's possible hundreds of people could have walked near the grenade before it was ever found.

Cindy Alder strolls the sidewalk along the lake at Carol Ann Cross Park. She gets her exercise here on a daily basis, and it gives one-year-old Aiden a chance to see the geese.

Friday, Fort Smith Police interrupted the pair's usual routine.

"We got so far around and then we were turned around by police officers saying found a grenade going to explode it at any moment so we came back," Alder said.

Construction crews digging near the dam found a potentially dangerous device late in the morning. As a safety precaution, the bomb squad came to secure the area, remove the grenade and detonate the weapon.

Officers closed the popular park for 30 minutes Friday as the bomb squad prepped to blow up a live grenade found near the paved path.

The explosion rattled the animals in the woods, but the bomb squad commander said damage could have been a lot worse.

The grenade "was sitting half in the water and half on top of it where the construction workers digging and if they would have bumped it or hit it, it could have went off and hurt or killed them," Commander Skip Mathews said.

Within two hours, disaster was averted and that short time made a world of difference to people like Alder who may have walked by the grenade hundreds of time without even knowing it. The powerful punch the grenade packed could have changed her life but she's not walking away from her regular route.

Mathews says when the grenade was detonated, the loud noise was most likely a combination of C4, the material used to counter charge the grenade and the actual explosive materials in the device.

Within 30 minutes of the detonation the squad had picked all the equipment and left the park.

The bomb squad also used 'Amazing Grace' the bomb robot used that can be controlled from far away in this exercise.

 

[DRMMR02]

I may be way off here, but it seems like a C4 countercharge and a robot is overkill. It's just a grenade. Not a truck with an unknown amount of homemade explosives. We know what grenades can and cannot do. Granted, sitting there in the water or the fact it might be modifed in some way is grounds enough to not just treat it like a grenade hooked to your MOLLE, but C4? A robot? There must be a cheaper and more efficient way to deal with that while remaining safe.

Then again, maybe I just have no idea what I'm talking about.

 

[Mr. Ouchie]

I'm sure the guys who run the robot don't mind getting to do their thing!

 

[Zero_DgZ]

Let the dogs have their day. In most places the bomb squad doesn't get to do much; It's like the boys at the small town fire hall taking out any excuse to go hit the town with their brand new, fireapple red engine (even if it's just Mrs. Smith and a six inch wide grease fire).

If they want to have fun trotting out the robot and blowing stuff up with C4, let 'em. The public eats up the display (look at these professionals in action! boy are we protecte from potential threats of whatever!) and the bomb squad guys get to have some fun for a day.

Whatever.

 

[Glockfan.45]

"just a grenade" your kidding right? We all know what a grenade can do you recomend some uniformed patrolman just stroll up, grab it, and toss it in the dumpster? I wouldnt want to go anywhere near a grenade that had been sitting in the water for who knows how long. Grenades detonate by means of crushing a metal tube in the center of the charge containing a catalyst. If that tube were corroded who knows how unstable it may have been. Yes the level of their responce probably was not necessary but I say beter safe than sorry. Let the robot take the risk.

 

[hso]

DRMMR02,

Yep, you're way off.

There's no safe way to move old UXO that is 100% certain that it won't go bang at the wrongest moment. The only safe way to deal with it is to blow it in place with percautions based on the detonating charge and the worst case explosion from the coupled charges. Too little charge used to destroy the device and you've blown it somewhere else (and made it cranky .

 

[Geno]

Probably a fake

Or a smoker.

Doc2005

 

[Jeff White]

They usually address people that don't follow all the safety precautions around UXO as the late (insert name here).

Ft Smith is just outside of Ft Chaffee where the Joint Readiness Training Center used to be. There is still a lot of training conducted there. So there is a good possibility it was a current issue live grenade.

The is also an unbelievable about of WWII vintage ordnance showing up as the WWII vets pass on. Relatives are always discovering handgrenades, 3.75" bazooka rockets, 60 and 81 mm mortar shells and other items as they go through the belongings of the deceased veteran.

It's standard procedure to detonate any UXO in place if that's at all possible.

I'd advise all members that if you find some unexploded ordnance, even if you recognize what it is and handled similar items in the service, to leave it where it is and call EOD. You have no way of knowing how it's been stored or who might have tried to modify it.

Jeff

 

[Hardware]

There have been quite a few incidents of live grenades and in some cases, small bore cannon shells found in Delaware driveways lately. Seems folks downstate like to pave their driveways with crushed clamshells. There's a dredging operation that pulls up clamshells for this exact purpose. Well, not far off there is an old live fire range from a former coastal defense fort. They also disposed of small arms ammunition by dumping them in the ocean. Last I had heard they had found several grenades, at least one 3 inch shell and an odd lot of different caliber rounds, some still on stripper clips.

Some of the stuff was blown in place, but others were transported to Dover AFB to be detonated there.

 

[Rovi]

I'd imagine it's also seen as an excellent 'live' training exercise for the bomb disposal people and the police.
No amount of artificially created training scenarios can match the 'reality' of the real thing, even if it is 'only' a hand grenade.

 

[erh]

".........WELL............!!!!"

"I don't know about YOU..."
But try looking at it this way..: I for one, used to find it FAR MORE NERVE WRACKING; dealing W/ "Golf-Ball's" than dealing W/ 155mm Howitzer shell's..!
The first 1 makes your hands or legs or face "Go away..."; the other just makes a Cloud, Crater & a "Hot Spot" were you once occupied space..!
'Jus my own .02 cents...

 

[Lucky]

Did anyone ever read about those Spetsnaz infiltration teams? Granted there were lots of types of Spetsnaz, but some of them, I understand, would go into foreign countries and bury stockpiles of weapons, ammunition, and money. Then whenever Spetsnaz of any type were in the country, even for rowing in the olympics or something, they'd know where the stockpiles were, just in case...

 

[DRMMR02]

That's actually not THAT out of the question. The Sovs did a lot of WEIRD stuff during the Cold War. I wouldn't put that past them.

 

[Wesker]

I would have pulled the pin and thew it

 

[Texfire]

Darwin in action. Sure it probably wouldn't go off in your hand, but you don't know 100%. How much do you value your life? Your limbs? How small a chance is small enough?

When we respond to hazmat calls we suit out in the highest level of PPE available until the threat is positively identified. Is it probably overkill 99% of the time? Yes, but we don't want to hit that 1% situation and be wrong. Risk management is the phrase we live by, and picking up a unknown grenade is on the wrong side of the risk/benefit equation.

And the EOD folks think the same way we do. What is the safest and most efficient way to deal with this threat? Okay do it.

Tex

 

[Hardware]

I just recalled a case of civil war fused cannon shells being discovered in Raleigh NC back in 95 or so. They were found in Crabtree Creek bed. The slope of the bed had eroded the shells and exposed what was left of the case. Two boys playing in the creek found them. Due to their proximity to an office building they decided to move them to Fort Bragg and detonate them there. As I recall EOD said they were still "highly explosive."

Not bad for 130 year old ammunition.

 

[American By Blood]

Probably a fake

Or a smoker.

Maybe. Or it might be from a Spetznaz infiltration team like someone else sugested. Could also be part of a drug gang or sleeper cell's private stash.

My money's on bored kids, though. Some of the less reputable gun/militaria shows have vendors who sell "dummy grenades" that haven't been fully demilled. The bottoms haven't been drilled and the trigger mechanisms are still intact.

All a 13 year old boy needs is a .410 primer, some fuse, some powder, some wadding, and a copy of Kurt Saxon's "The Poor Man's James Bond" and he can re-arm that thing in no time flat.

 

[Zero_DgZ]

Grenades detonate by means of crushing a metal tube in the center of the charge containing a catalyst. If that tube were corroded who knows how unstable it may have been. Yes the level of their responce probably was not necessary but I say beter safe than sorry. Let the robot take the risk.

I'm interested to hear where you heard that. Most modern grenades ("modern" as in "from around or slightly before the Crimean War") utilize a pyrotechnic fuse that provides the delay, which is ignited by a percussion cap struck by a hammer that is restrained by the spoon and the pin. After the fuse burns down it ignites a series of primary and booster explosives in an initiator until there is sufficient energy to set off the high explosive filler.

Boom.

 

[Glockfan.45]

look up the "pencil detonator system".

Quote:
Grenades detonate by means of crushing a metal tube in the center of the charge containing a catalyst. If that tube were corroded who knows how unstable it may have been. Yes the level of their responce probably was not necessary but I say beter safe than sorry. Let the robot take the risk.


I'm interested to hear where you heard that. Most modern grenades ("modern" as in "from around or slightly before the Crimean War") utilize a pyrotechnic fuse that provides the delay, which is ignited by a percussion cap struck by a hammer that is restrained by the spoon and the pin. After the fuse burns down it ignites a series of primary and booster explosives in an initiator until there is sufficient energy to set off the high explosive filler.

Boom.
__________________
Never mess with the guy who brings a scythe to a gunfight. Because he's probably got a reason for it.

 

[Leanwolf]

As Jeff White said, U.S. Army Fort Chaffee is just outside Ft. Smith, Arkansas. I took Basic Training there in 1959. As everyone is making a guess, I'll make a guess that some soldier, at some time, managed to swipe a grenade from the base, and later, got scared and tossed it away one night in the park.

As for Spetznaz, I don't know about that, but it is well known that during the Cold War, the KGB had various operators in this country who did hide arms, ammo and communications gear, etc., in caches all over this country. Very few of them have been recovered.

I'd still place my bet on a scared soldier who swiped the grenade from Fort Chaffee.

FWIW. L.W.

 

[p35]

The French Army bomb disposal units get a lot of practice disposing of dud shells fired during WWI. The farmers in the old battlefield areas plow them up. I've heard that some still go off when dug up. Nothing to be casual about.

 

[JesseL]

look up the "pencil detonator system".

Done. Found no evidence that pencil detonators were ever used in grenades. Also found that the device carried the catalyst in a glass vial inside the copper tube, when the vial was crushed it dissolved a wire that restrained a striker for the detonator. Although I wouldn't want to play with one, it has little to do with the state of the catalyst's container.

 

[AndyC]