Not finding a thread on this, but it seems important to me.
“Mishap”??
A 155-millimeter shell fired during a live-fire demonstration for the 250th anniversary of the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton on Saturday prematurely detonated, dropping fragments of the shell on a California Highway Patrol vehicle and motorcycle that were part of Vice President JD Vance’s protective detail, according to a patrol report.
No officers were hurt in the mishap, which dropped shrapnel onto the vehicles parked on a ramp to a major freeway that had been ordered closed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The governor had objected to the plan to fire over the freeway, Interstate 5, and ordered a 17-mile stretch closed — against the guidance of military officials, who had said it was safe for it to remain open.
According to the patrol report, one officer described what sounded like pebbles hitting his motorcycle and the area around him, and two others saw a two-inch piece of shrapnel hit the hood of their patrol vehicle, leaving a small dent. The report says shrapnel was also found on the road near the motorcycle.
Mr. Newsom had warned that the Marine Corps’ plans to fire artillery shells over Interstate 5, the West Coast’s main north-south artery, could pose hazards for motorists on the stretch between Los Angeles and San Diego.
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Good thing that woke lib guv closed the highway, right?
What if someone had been killed? What if J.D. Vance had been killed?
Whose stupid idea was it to do this? I was kidding the other day when I posted that trump shouldn’t give Patriot missiles to Ukraine because he needed to save them to use on Chicago and San Francisco.
The decision to fire live artillery shells from the oceanfront training area was described as unusual by an active-duty Marine artillery officer and a former Marine artillery noncommissioned officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared reprisal…
Tony Coronado, the highway patrol’s border division chief, said in a statement, that “it is highly uncommon for any live-fire or explosive training activity to occur near an active freeway.”
It really gives insight as to how Trump views the American people, add to that his AI video showing him as king dumping shit over the US people from a US taxpayer funded fighter plane.
People get fired for such mistakes. Former artillery Ops Chief here. I was in charge of the FDC for artillery.
When someone ‘shoots out’, as it is known in artillery, the immediate command is, To the rear of the piece, fall in. Every artillery man stands at attention behind their gun, nothing on the gun is to be touched, nobody moves, until all the firing settings are inspected. That includes the fuze settings.
I’ve never in my career shot out, thankfully, but this is serious shit. I’ve heard stories of a battery shooting out at Camp Lejeune and civilians being injured. At Lejeune because space is tight, the trajectories do cross over civilian areas.
I wonder where the firing point was (the gun emplacements), and also where the impact area was — where the rounds were supposed to fall.
I’ve shot at Pendleton before but we never ever shot over I-5.
Where the hell were they shooting? Into the ocean? That’s ridiculous.
You’re assuming that the blame lies with the crew manning the gun. But they were firing exactly where they were ordered to fire. That’s the problem. The people who should be fired for this start with Hegseth.
Not just the gun crew but also the FDC, battery CO and XO.
Yes, and above them too, but if I were in that FDC I’d have had to certify that the clearances (muzzle distance to anywhere a person could be) and also the firing data were safe before shooting.
Looking at the map there’s maybe a ½ mile from the beach to I-5. Not a lot of distance.
And FYI I shot the M-198, which later was replaced by the M777 which apparently this was.
If they shot from the beach and over I-5, I think they’d have to shoot what we called high angle fire (back then, 1980-1993 was my time).
More: if it were me in that FDC, then all the safety parameters would have to check out.
Still, it’s not wise to be live firing over I-5 unnecessarily. I wonder how often the Marine Corps has done that? Offhand, I do not know but I sure hope the answer is, never done it before.
Some flunky probably asked, can it be done? And then some 08 (that’s the artillery MOS family for the Marine Corps) checked it out and said yes, it’s possible, we can do that.
For artillery fire, many military bases are so small that rounds travel over roads on bases, and at some bases rounds travel over civilian areas like the PX and commissary.
I expect that at least one head will roll regardless.
Will it be the head who insisted on an unsafe show, or the head who put a premature end to that part of the show?
Maybe the head of a Marine who didn’t insist, with sufficient force, that firing over I5 should not be part of the show, will roll. The truth could take years to come out, but I suspect we’ll eventually learn that said Marine was put in an impossible situation, perhaps being told that if he did not follow orders, he would be punished.
Maybe that’s the more polite part of what the administration flunky, insisting Vance and Hegseth see a first-rate show, told the responsible Marine.
Training accidents happen. And I expect you’ll agree with this: It is extremely important to avoid accidents both inside and outside of our bases, but we reasonably have a higher standard when it comes to preventing accidents that would hit outside the base.
I haven’t been in military bases all that often, but I5 is different from any road I have ever seen inside a base. Plus I’m thinking that vehicle drivers inside bases are a lot more likely to have been trained on driving under fire than those on I5.
It’d be even funnier if it wasn’t so stupid. Living on either side of White Sands means routine announcements that US-70 is going to be closed for some amount of time due to activity on the missile range. (Which really sucks if you need to get from one side to the other, as the only other two routes around the Tularosa Basin is either US-380 almost two hours north or having to go through El Paso and the Guadalupe Mountains. So you’ll either be early or late since US-70 is still the only real option.) As stupid as the idea was, the maximum idiocy has to be being angry at Newsom for shutting down I-5 while the Marines were being idiots.
