# "Artillery Shell Detonated Over Interstate 5 During Marines’ Celebration" (California) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 19, 2025, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artillery-shell-detonated-over-interstate-5-during-marines-celebration-california/1024105 "2025-10-19T23:35:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 24
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2025, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artillery-shell-detonated-over-interstate-5-during-marines-celebration-california/1024105/24 "2025-10-20T14:35:56Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > No prob, honey. 😘 > > I’m glad you’re able to fill us in on the context. Thank you my dear. For the rest, I met with @ThelmaLou 1½ years ago at a mini Dope Fest when my wife and I were in San Antonio TX. Pictures were posted here, ➜ [Texas Hill Country Dope Fest! (San Antonio TX, “SATX”) - #63 by Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-hill-country-dope-fest-san-antonio-tx-satx/996915/63) ■ . I was pretty big then; I’ve since been on a serious diet and have lost 125 pounds. I’m approaching my Marine Corps weight… And so… I like plotting things on Google Maps and sometimes I use lat/long coordinates for more precise locations. I prefer DD coordinates (decimal degrees) to DMS coordinates (degrees, minutes, seconds) — DDs are simpler, shorter. In my own shorthand notes I use ▲ to denote the DDs. From articles I determined the approximate coordinates for where the M777 guns were, and where the CHP car ended up with shrapnel: △ M777 shot out from ▲ 33.2876, -117.4625 △ CHP found shrapnel@ ▲ 33.2978, -117.4645 The approximate range between those two points is just under ¾ mile. In artillery we use the metric system and that range is roughly 1200 meters. For artillery, that range is nothing. For artillery safety, for example, we use (used to use, back in the 80s and 90s) safety areas around friendlies. Typically for training it is (or, was) a 1,000m radius safety circle around someone’s position. Any rounds that were predicted to approach the bounds of that safety circle, we would call out with a warning that they’d be ‘danger close’. And if any round actually fell near that boundary and we in the FDC did not predict that, then that friendly would call us on the radio to alert us. Fortunately in my years, that was a rare occurrence. In all my years we never, EVER, had people close to and in front of the muzzles of the guns. So I do not know offhand what the min required safety distance would be, and I’m pretty sure that the min safety distance would be dependent on the elevation of the tube — the QE, quadrant elevation in artillery parlance, which is the angle of the tube with respect to the 0° angle flat horizon. The lower the elevation (QE), then likely the farther the min safety distance would have to be. Makes sense, right? These guys were shooting at Pulgas, or Las Pulgas, one of the arty impact areas at Pendleton. I’m talking with some friends I served with, trying to get some information. > [@Bullitt](#): > > 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. This includes the FDC, who may have sent the wrong fuze setting to the gun line. It could have been a faulty fuze (highly unlikely), or my guess right now is someone put the wrong fuze setting onto the fuze which gets screwed into the projectile. The projectile was likely standard HE, or high explosive. If memory serves, a 155mm standard HE projectile weighs 96 pounds. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artillery-shell-detonated-over-interstate-5-during-marines-celebration-california/1024105)._