Found on Saipan near Marpi Point What is it?
Article about: I probably should not touch this but I did. Now somebody tell me what it is?
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Re: Found on Saipan near Marpi Point What is it?
Well myself, I have been a collector of ordnance for around 20 years and spent about 5 years cleaning up various ranges in Nevada and have provided many a pieces to UXO/EOD personal for training and their own collections. I agree that if you have no clue what it is you are looking at then it is best to leave it alone. I simply responded to what was asked and gave my informed thoughts. If you look you can see the fuze well is empty and it also looks as if their is a split in the top of the case. If you look at posts of what some of the members dig up in Russia or other eastern countries and render inert you will see that there is a safe way of doing things, the key is you have to know what you are doing and what it is you are doing it to. Once again I stress that if you have no clue do not touch but if you do things can be handled safely.
Cheers
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Re: Found on Saipan near Marpi Point What is it?
No need for a pm, its not restricted info. As a former police officer i had to attend an ordinary house in a perfectly good area as a mother had heard a loud bang at the bottom of her garden and saw smoke coming from her garden shed, fire brigade were attending as i arrived, we all went to the garden shed and found this womans 22yr old son with terrible burns and injuries to his upper body, he was still alive and i believe still is to this day minus his sight and one hand , the other has fingers missing, apparently he was doing something with an old shell that had been in his fathers shed since the war, it wasnt a large shell i think it was similar to a bofors shell , he had this shell clamped in a vice and i think he was trying to take the warhead off, when something happened and it exploded, i never got to find out why but i had to tell his mother what had happened and was with her when she saw her sons condition lying on the stretcher, this boys father had died of heart failure 3 months before this happened. i dont need to tell you what state she was in.
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Re: Found on Saipan near Marpi Point What is it?
UXOrmytoys (sorry don't know your real name), that is some really cool stuff! Thanks for sharing and congratulations!
I'm green with envy if you actually got to go over there and see Saipan for yourself.
I also collect ordnance, but I have very little knowledge of the WWII variety. So I'm sorry I can't be any help to you here with the ID.
We all know that this stuff can be dangerous. Sadly I had an acquaintance killed by trying to disarm a black powdered American Civil War shell about 2 years ago.
Here's a very recent new article about ordnance in Moscow: The Associated Press: Hundreds of WWII artillery shells found in Moscow
Take care,
Brian
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Re: Found on Saipan near Marpi Point What is it?
When explosives decay due to time or temp, its known as Exudation. This is when the explosive decomposes and begins to seperate. This is usually observed as a crystalised formation around filling plugs, fuze pockets and any other area where it may leech out. These crystals are unstable and the friction of dismantling, dropping or hitting in that area can cause the device to detonate. Thats why we as EOD techs will not try and remove any items from a device showing signs of exudation.
The worst case I've seen was about 50 120mm mortars we found in Iraq. The site was a battle line from the Iran/Iraq war and it appeared a bomb or shell had a direct hit on a mortar pit and the stacked mortars had been blown out of the pit into a large area around it. We were collecting the mortars to stack them for a controlled demolition, we found about 50, condition ranging from new in packaging through to rusty with blue/green and yellow crystals. Initially we were going to move them about 2 miles down the road to a larger stack we were building, but I decided that moving them would be too time consuming and dangerous, so we set a new stack only a few meters from the pit. When we detonated the stack, it was a very dirty, smoky explosion instead of a bright, clean detonation. It was still powerfull enough though, to destroy 1/2 the width of the poor quality road we were using.
To give you an idea of what this area looked like, imagine a long straight road (About 2-3 miles long), wet salt flats either side with nothing else around. Then imagine a war there, all the crap left behind was still there, 20 odd years later. The only thing that appeared to have been removed, was any bodies. We found clothing, boots, webbing (Ex British), weapons, Munitions and lots of other rubbish. It was very strange!
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Re: Found on Saipan near Marpi Point What is it?
by
m3bobby
When explosives decay due to time or temp, its known as Exudation. This is when the explosive decomposes and begins to seperate. This is usually observed as a crystalised formation around filling plugs, fuze pockets and any other area where it may leech out. These crystals are unstable and the friction of dismantling, dropping or hitting in that area can cause the device to detonate. Thats why we as EOD techs will not try and remove any items from a device showing signs of exudation.
The worst case I've seen was about 50 120mm mortars we found in Iraq. The site was a battle line from the Iran/Iraq war and it appeared a bomb or shell had a direct hit on a mortar pit and the stacked mortars had been blown out of the pit into a large area around it. We were collecting the mortars to stack them for a controlled demolition, we found about 50, condition ranging from new in packaging through to rusty with blue/green and yellow crystals. Initially we were going to move them about 2 miles down the road to a larger stack we were building, but I decided that moving them would be too time consuming and dangerous, so we set a new stack only a few meters from the pit. When we detonated the stack, it was a very dirty, smoky explosion instead of a bright, clean detonation. It was still powerfull enough though, to destroy 1/2 the width of the poor quality road we were using.
To give you an idea of what this area looked like, imagine a long straight road (About 2-3 miles long), wet salt flats either side with nothing else around. Then imagine a war there, all the crap left behind was still there, 20 odd years later. The only thing that appeared to have been removed, was any bodies. We found clothing, boots, webbing (Ex British), weapons, Munitions and lots of other rubbish. It was very strange!
Pretty much nailed it man. Japanese Knee mortars are infamous for this..Damn picric acid...But that's more of the pacific front. Haha.
I was called down to an ASP in Pisa for extruding civilian dynamite they had...Easy op, but it was still a free trip to Pisa.
-Adam
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