Hundreds of Rockets Left For Anyone to Grab

The orange stickers are to do with Dep of Transport (DOT) regulations, it probably says "Class A explosive". As we already covered "Class A" covers a lot of things, in fact everything a normal person would consider to be explosive from a single pistol round to a 10,000lb TNT bomb. Both the rocket motor and the warhead both qualify as Class A.

It is my belief that these tubes would not have contained armed rounds, probably just the rocket motors. Although I've never worked with MLRS munitions, I suspect they are fused in the field.

[edit on 2-6-2006 by planeman]

Im not very uptodate on military weapons and so forth currently in use..

But rockets..

maybe someone can help me.

There's the cruise missles.
There's the missles from ships, the small launchers field troops have.

They look like pretty big missles, in comparrison to say.. a jeep mounted missle laucnhers.

What situation now a days does the US use large rockets, compared to cruise missles, or ship fired missles?

Those aren't cruise missiles or anything like that. They are unguided rockets for the MLRS ("Multiple Launch Rocket System") which is basically an artillery piece.

As you can see in the photo, the launcher at the back contains two six-tube pods (cells). These pods are what was on the train. They probably weren't "ready to fire" though. These weapons are widely exported and the technology in them is not much different from Russian, Chinese or anyone elses' technology so no real secrets there.

EDIT. Customers of this MLRS type:
Bahrain
Denmark
France
Germany
Greece
Israel
Italy
Japan
South Korea
Netherlands
Norway
Turkey
UK

Note. It is made by a group of companies in France, Germany, Italy and the UK.

Relevant technical info
In the fully armed state, each of the rockets (six to a pod) contains 644x"M77" cluster munitions which are released above the target. So Each pod contains 3864 grenade like bombs. Each rail wagon might be carrying 46,368 bombs! Lol.








[edit on 3-6-2006 by planeman]

[edit on 3-6-2006 by planeman]

Holy schnikies!

So, Planeman, what I don't get is how these things can be transported but not armed.

How can you transport munitions but have no fear of them blowing up?

If you could explain a bit more as to how these things are armed, or at least the steps the military you do after they get the shipment, or when they load them into the rocket artilary piece or whatever, that'd help me out.

Actually, a picture diagram would be the best for me, I'm a visual kinda guy.

I'm glad we know what they are, and I'm glad they don't appear to have been a big threat. Now I'm just getting curious as to how they work.

-O

FAS has some good info on how they work. Good information on guided MLRS systems and redstone would have the time line and such.

Originally posted by The Big O
Holy schnikies!

So, Planeman, what I don't get is how these things can be transported but not armed.

How can you transport munitions but have no fear of them blowing up?

If you could explain a bit more as to how these things are armed, or at least the steps the military you do after they get the shipment, or when they load them into the rocket artilary piece or whatever, that'd help me out.

Actually, a picture diagram would be the best for me, I'm a visual kinda guy.

I'm glad we know what they are, and I'm glad they don't appear to have been a big threat. Now I'm just getting curious as to how they work.

-O

I'm retecent to give anything that amounts to a "how to make an IED out of a rocket/warhead" and I am the first to admit that I have never dealt with MLRS. However, certain things are generic to munitions so I can make some sensible guesses - I'm sure the specifics for MLRS are out there on the web if you look.

The rocket itself is made like this:


The rocket propellant is in the rear, the fuse to detanate it is in the nose. without a fuse it is VERY difficult to explode the warhead. As previously mentioned the rocket fuel, although technically a Class-A explosive, is not in itself all that good as a bomb. For safety reasons, it is normal to transport munitions without the fuses in place. These would be put in in the field, probably shortly before the pod (6 rockets) is placed into the launcher (I'm guessing based on equivilent procedures for howitzers). The fuze itself is only armed after exiting the tube(?).

PS. After some basic research I retract my suggestion that they aren't transported with warheads in place.

Excellent work Planeman, that picture is exactly what I wanted to see. Now I can see how those things are relativley harmless if the fuses are with them.

Before seeing the image, I didn't quite understand what you were saying, but now I think I have a pretty good grasp of it.

-O

Well...just a follow up on this story.

Evidently, the local CBS affiliate "investigated" this when it went down six months ago. The odd thing is, we called the CBS affiliate and were told it was a "non-story."

I also got a kick out of them stating "Several people called 911, but the calls were basically ignored for long periods of time." We weren't ignored, they told us they were "aware of the problem" and that "it wasn't deemed an emergency."

Anyway, here is the link to the story, it aired on the news last night.

On the main page, cbs46.com, you can click on the news story "CBS 46 Investigates: Rockets on Rails" and see the video. They air some of the 911 calls, and overall, I thought it was interesting to watch. I can tell you one thing, there was NO SECURITY, on the ground that day. It wasn't until the helicopter showed up that anyone at all was looking at the rockets.

Here is the copy of the letter sent to Congressman Jim Marshall from the military. The Mr. James Barth mentioned in the letter is one of the gentlemen I work with, and the person who first pointed the rockets out to us. He is also the one that took the pictures that are used in the video.

What i found hilarious is the "change" they said they are implementing, "now shipments must be concealed by a tarp or container." I guess you gotta take what you can get. At least I know these things couldn't have blown up without the fuses, which we now know were not included in the shipment.

Guess it goes to show that contacting Congressman really does make a difference sometimes.

-The O

[edit on 7-11-2006 by The Big O]

[edit on 7-11-2006 by The Big O]