Home
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/03/20/report-8th-marine-dies-from-mortar-explosion.html?ESRC=marine-a.nl
Has anyone been following this story from yesterday? It was an incident involving a 60mm mortar, whereby a round detonated inside the mortar tube.
The year I was with the infantry (1980) we also had a 60mm mortar incident--also at a training range in Nevada (Fallon). This incident involved a tube that was lever-actuated instead of pin-actuated (some 60mm mortar tubes in the batallion were lever-actuated tubes). The operator had to depress a lever to fire the round after it was dropped into the tube. The crew got mixed up, and the loader tried to load a round at the same time another crew member actuated the lever to fire a round that had already been loaded. Luckily the loader was not hurt badly, and everybody hit the deck because the fired round was sure to land short.
I wonder if the recent incident was similar to the one I described, only with tragic results?
Has anyone been following this story from yesterday? It was an incident involving a 60mm mortar, whereby a round detonated inside the mortar tube.
The year I was with the infantry (1980) we also had a 60mm mortar incident--also at a training range in Nevada (Fallon). This incident involved a tube that was lever-actuated instead of pin-actuated (some 60mm mortar tubes in the batallion were lever-actuated tubes). The operator had to depress a lever to fire the round after it was dropped into the tube. The crew got mixed up, and the loader tried to load a round at the same time another crew member actuated the lever to fire a round that had already been loaded. Luckily the loader was not hurt badly, and everybody hit the deck because the fired round was sure to land short.
I wonder if the recent incident was similar to the one I described, only with tragic results?
