Navy ship accidentally fires on Polish port

Navy ship accidentally fires on Polish port

www.cnn.com

Washington (CNN) -- A crew member aboard a U.S. Navy ship accidentally fired a machine gun into the Polish port city of Gdynia on Wednesday while cleaning the weapon, Navy officials said Friday.

Three rounds were fired from an M240 machine gun into the town but no injuries or damage were reported, officials said.

The gun, aboard the USS Ramage, a Navy destroyer, is used to defend the ship in close combat.

Navy officials said a crew member was cleaning the weapon when it accidentally discharged.

The incident happened as the ship was in port after retuning from an international exerc

(visit the link for the full news article)

Really?

Wow, that is going to cause some tention, how afraid those people must've been upon hearing shots fired from a US Navy ship no less.

Somebody is gonna loose their jobs on this one. I wonder what the reasoning was for somebody to be mounted on the machine gun in the first place?

Or are these systems automated?

Any thoughts ATS?

~Keeper

www.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Well I will take a wild guess and say that he was mounted at the gun to clean it. I mean it just seems crazy that you would need to be near the thing to do that but, hey that’s the world we live in.


Now for the serious note. He should be either demoted or outright relieved of duty for not taking better care with a weapon. Weapons are no joke and it should be all seriousness around them. I have fire arms and could not imagine cleaning then while loaded, that is crazy to me.

I do not know the militaries procedure for cleaning a weapon but I am sure this guy received the training needed to do so properly and with care. For all I know they do clean weapons while they are hot, seriously I cannot imagine that taking place it seems alien to me. Regardless this is a big screw up of an accident. Sort of hard to explain why you were so careless that you might have taken a life.

Raist

reply to post by tothetenthpower


The Major would be surprised if the good people of Gdynia noticed. The M240 is a medium automatic weapon no different than what is used by Army and Marine ground forces in iraq and Afghanistan. Depending on time of day, and direction fired, only the clumsy fool who initiated the errant discharge noticed.

Recruits, always follow procedure when cleaning your weapons.

Dismissed.

reply to post by Major Discrepancy


Out of curiosity, what are those procedures? That is if you happen to know.

I am curious about if they clean a weapon loaded or not. To me that idea is alien and I can only see mishaps like this taking place if that is the case.

If it is simply that he failed or forgot to remove the ammunition his punishment should be greater than if he was supposed to clean a hot weapon.

Raist

Might not have been the guys fault. Might want to wait till you find out what actually happened. Glad you desk jockeys aren't in charge of the judicial system.

IMHO It is absolutely ASININE to clean a loaded weapon.
"'Nuf Said"

[edit on 30-10-2009 by Muundoggie]

reply to post by mrwiffler


The story clearly states what happened, the man was cleaning the weapon and it discharged.

Why are we cleaning loaded weapons?

~Keeper

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Well yes, but do we really know whether he was actually cleaning it or maybe he was unloading it so he could clean it...

reply to post by mrwiffler


The Major assures you, if a weapon is discharged without a clear and present target that meets the criteria outlined in the standing orders for friendly port ship defense; it is the fault of the assigned crewman. If a weapon discharges during any cleaning or servicing; it is the fault of the assigned crewman. Weapons are not cleaned while loaded. Weapons are not serviced while loaded. The Major would be more sympathetic to scenario involving a watch change whereas a weapon for shipboard defense would be turned over to the new watch. It is conceivable that the oncoming watch in the act of ensuring that the weapon was ready to fire could have discharged a three round burst. The Major is also quite sure that the responsible party, or parties will have a stripe or two less to iron, and a half month's pay or two less to spend frivolously after the Skipper gets done with them. Regardless of the circumstances.

Dismissed.

reply to post by mythatsabigprobe


Well that's a good point.

Ok, perhaps my previous statement was a little harsh, considering we all trust the MSM anyway right?

But really, isn't there an "off" switch on these? A safety?

~Keeper

It should be obvious to anyone, military or not, that you cannot clean a loaded weapon if the cleaning requires any dismantling. If that is the "official" version, we can be sure that there is another "real" story that is being suppressed.

On any ship, hand weapons are locked when not needed and light deck armanent is secured and pointing up when not engaged. So an inadvertant shot caused by someone simply "wiping down" the weapon would go into the air, not to shore.

So what really happened?

I would say that the sailor in question is in for one serious bollocking!

2nd line

Well, accidents happen, although it seems to me that this one happened because the soldier in charge of cleaning the weapon did not follow proper procedure. I hope he will not be discharged or demoted, but a fitting punishment must be found and applied. While on an exercise with the Hellenic (Greek) Army, we were required to shoot with 1940-1950 era tanks on a target approximately 2 km out in the sea. I managed to shoot a twin gun of what was back in the 40ies and 50ies an Anti-aircraft cannon about 10 m in front of us in shallow waters. The reaction from my superiors was 5 days detention from my Captain (he was yelling at me, I was yelling at him, oh and I was his right hand Sergeant), the detention was raised to 20 by my company commander and could have been raised even more to 40 days if one of the Generals watching the exercise had intervened. What did I get in the end? Nothing, zip, nada ... I was to useful to my Captain, so we never reminded our Commander about the whole incident and all was well. But hey, that's the Greek army for you: where logic and reason stops, you know that your in the Greek army.

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
reply to post by mrwiffler

 

The story clearly states what happened, the man was cleaning the weapon and it discharged.

Why are we cleaning loaded weapons?

~Keeper

Maybe he didn't know it was loaded?

Good thing no one was harmed.

It is a belt fed machine gun. Kind of hard not to notice the long belt of ammo feeding into the side of the weapon. It fires from the open bolt position if I remember correctly. To render the weapon safe there are two depression points at the rear of the top cover. You depress them lift the cover up and remove the belt. Unless a partial stub of a belt was left under the cover I dont see how you can have an AD while cleaning the weapon. Methinks carelessness/goofing around had a part in this.

As said before


no sailor , marine or trooper would EVER clean a loaded weapon.

first rule - safety the chamber , with inspection.

Sounds to me like an intelligence agent, crew member or other notable and noteworthy VIP was being pursued back to the ship and a three round burst was fired to warn the pursuers off.

The person probably being chased back to the ship was likely an extra-terestrial, in possesion of the Chem-Trail formula, with the plans on the exact date we are going to invade Iran to coincide with the exact date of the 12/24/2011 prophecies in his possesion. He was likely being chased after someone in the Polish city recognized his picture from Ground Zero and the Pentagon on 9-11 and noticed he was carrying a rifle similiar to the one that shot JFK.

This is ATS people, can we not squeeze a conspiracy out of this story?

Bah...

This is no where near as bad as firing a torpedo into a car parked on the pier because you forgot to unload the tube prior to air slug tests.


EOD had to respond to that one.




[edit on 30-10-2009 by RoofMonkey]

Someone got careless. You never clean a weapon while its loaded. Also guns do not simply go off. It was human error. Saying the gun 'accidentally' fired itself only encourages the looney anti gunners.