A former Marine, 1971-75: Artillery shell exploded prematurely over California freeway during marines celebration | California | The Guardian A live artillery shell exploded prematurely during a marines live-fire demonstration that launched over a southern California freeway in celebration of the military branch’s 250th anniversary, raining shrapnel down on a California Highway Patrol vehicle and a motorcycle that was part of JD Vance’s detail, according to a police report. ... An officer described hearing something that sounded like pebbles hit his motorcycle and the area around him, according to the patrol report. Others saw a 2in (5cm) piece of shrapnel hit the hood of a patrol vehicle and leave a small dent. The report says shrapnel was also found on the road near the motorcycle. The CHP closed a 17-mile (27km) stretch of the highway for periods before and during the Saturday exercise, in a surprise announcement early on Saturday morning. The last-minute closure caused severe traffic delays on Saturday morning and early afternoon. The exercise was canceled after the shell prematurely exploded, CHP said, and the area was swept for shell fragments ... Finding "fragments" is a challenge because the exploding shell maximizes small, high velocity particles, deadly close to the explosion. That the Marines did not preemptively schedule road closure ... I knew a very few Marines who were that dumb. Sea tale: A recruit found his rifle did not 'go bang' and ran up to the sergeant pointing the barrel in the sergeant's face. The sergeant raise his hand to point the rifle up and it went off. They pulled the sergeant off the recruit as he was pounding the recruit's chest with the rifle butt and each strike fired the rifle. There was an unambiguous lecture about never pointing a rifle at what you don't want to shoot. Bob Wilson
When Vance finally arrived and made his speech at this latest sh*t show of unprecedented incompetence he said: "It is not our diversity that makes us stronger, it is our common purpose." My Twitter reply to that quote got a surprising number of likes, some from former Trumpers: "A common purpose of being part of the last days of White Supremacy because 93% of the people in the world are not white men and we're getting closer and closer to the moment that 7% are realizing they're no longer going to ever be able to run the world again." -- Meanwhile in Russia instead of missiles that cost millions of dollars that Trump won't give Ukraine, the Ukranians have developed super cheap long range drone delivery systems of swarms of short-range ballistic drones that are wiping out Russian oil infrastructure, which is going to force whole region in the country without heat this Winter and hundreds of people are marching in the streets in Russia in protest even though that will get you killed by Putin. As in enough is enough for so many of us in this world and we're to the point that we got nothing left to lose but to die trying to fight to end this insanity! -- Meanwhile, on the Epstein front the Arizona Attorney Genral has filed a lawsuit for refusing to swear in a duly elected Democrat who is the last person congress needs to force the release of the files without Republicans stopping it while the most conservative major newspaper in the Wall Street Journal posted a receipt of Epstein celebrating the selling of a sex-trafficked child to Trump as if it was some kind of sick Publisher's Clearing house sweepstakes:
From Google: Blast: The initial explosion creates a powerful shockwave, known as overpressure, that can cause injury. Fragmentation: The casing is designed to break apart into many high-velocity pieces (fragments). Fragment characteristics: Fragments are propelled at velocities ranging from approximately 960 to 1555 m/s. The velocity and mass of fragments vary, with the highest velocity fragments coming from the cylindrical part of the shell due to its higher charge-to-mass ratio. Lethal radius: An estimated 50-150 meters for a high-explosive projectile. Casualty radius: An estimated 100-300 meters, where fragments can cause injury or damage. The fragments will be mostly small and irregular and velocity will drop off rapidly. We don't know the altitude of the premature exploding shell but likely greater than 300 meters (328 yards.) The best way to recover fragments is with a magnet but you'll all pickup a substantial amount of other ferrous material. Very few fragments would be large enough to be lethal at 300 m and then the report: An officer described hearing something that sounded like pebbles hit his motorcycle and the area around him, according to the patrol report. Others saw a 2in (5cm) piece of shrapnel hit the hood of a patrol vehicle and leave a small dent. The report says shrapnel was also found on the road near the motorcycle. There is a good reason why we don't fire live artillery over US citizens. Bob Wlson
From Google: Blast: The initial explosion creates a powerful shockwave, known as overpressure, that can cause injury. Fragmentation: The casing is designed to break apart into many high-velocity pieces (fragments). Fragment characteristics: Fragments are propelled at velocities ranging from approximately 960 to 1555 m/s. The velocity and mass of fragments vary, with the highest velocity fragments coming from the cylindrical part of the shell due to its higher charge-to-mass ratio. Lethal radius: An estimated 50-150 meters for a high-explosive projectile. Casualty radius: An estimated 100-300 meters, where fragments can cause injury or damage. The fragments will be mostly small and irregular and velocity will drop off rapidly. We don't know the altitude of the premature exploding shell but likely greater than 300 meters (328 yards.) The best way to recover fragments is with a magnet but you'll all pickup a substantial amount of other ferrous material. Very few fragments would be large enough to be lethal at 300 m and then the report: An officer described hearing something that sounded like pebbles hit his motorcycle and the area around him, according to the patrol report. Others saw a 2in (5cm) piece of shrapnel hit the hood of a patrol vehicle and leave a small dent. The report says shrapnel was also found on the road near the motorcycle. There is a good reason why we don't fire live artillery over US citizens. Bob Wlson
