One can just imagine the charge sheet
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/defence/10697895/Navy-warship-accidentally-fires-torpedo-at-nuclear-dockyard.html
Here is a story from not long ago, all Stingray related, to see what the incident might have looked like.
Please, lets not laugh.
Glass houses and all that
Defence is a dangerous business
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10689412/Army-suspends-live-fire-on-Salisbury-Plain-after-stray-shell-fired-over-Wiltshire-villages.html
Would anyone like a ham sandwich?
It’s OK Boss, APATS and I have already agreed that we’re all as guilty as sin.
I once engaged the apron of the Lulworth firing point with a Scorpion HESH shell, about 5 yards forward of the muzzle. Combination of the HESH and the fact the apron was covered in shingle made for some pretty spectacular shrapnel effects. All because the ruddy Quadrant Fire Control had been put on 90 degrees wrong (by me).
Still, a whole Torpedo, at a whole dockyard. The Andrew are aiming big with this one. ;)
Did they take the railings off first, or were they knackered by the drill torpedo.
Did they drop the railings first?
“Oh lumee”, “Mr Phillips……..”
http://youtu.be/A6vm-N_w73A
Showing my age here.
It’s a good job that coach-party of nuns had moved on.
And of course in the spirit of inter-service rivalry- one mustn’t forget the RAF Phantom which shot down a Jaguar….(Allegedly, the pilot pressed the trigger rather than shouting ‘bang’)
…and of course the poor RAF erk, who managed to shoot the top row of bricks off a firing range wall, by grabbing the LMG in the wrong place, although in my defence it was left loaded, one up the spout and on ‘auto’…
I’ve also managed to set fire to a fire training bay, whilst undergoing extinguisher training… Picked the wrong appliance, but that’s another story…..
Then there was the tank commander that tracked the searchlight beam during old-time night gunnery to the source instead of the target and, with a 50-60 round burst of Cal .50, destroyed the 2.5 million candlepower AN/VSS-4 searchlight that was mounted on my tank, about 5 feet in front of my nose. I never, ever, ever volunteered for searchlight tank duty after that, and it wasn’t until our M60A3’s were retrofitted with TTS that we lost the searchlights for good.
I have a story about searchlights…
We had a few old ones and a few of us/them thought it would be a jolly good bit of fun to do the old Batman thing.
Except being a load of idiots the conclusion was that black plastic bin bags would do the job of making the correct bat shape.
5 nanoseconds after switching the light on the plastic melted and ruined the lens, apparently.
All third hand of course, I was never anywhere near said incident
@TD – We pretty much knew that was a non-starter on both the 1.5 million candlepower and 2.5 million candlepower lights since we couldn’t shine them directly at the (friendly) infantry on narrow beam since it would blind them as surely as non-eye-safe lasers. We also couldn’t use them against other friendly vehicles which may have optics at all. Imagine scanning for movement to your front with 10X binoculars on a moonlit night when four to five 2.5 million candlepower searchlights suddenly light up your position. Ouch! If they were too hot to shine at our own folks a trash bag wouldn’t have a chance.
Of course my story did more than just ruin the lens…
Exciting, what?
My wife threatened to name our younger child “Negligent Discharge,” but that’s a whole ‘nother story…