Big Don, I was an East Coast sailor....and in the Med it was called Parmalat. The little milk boxes were red and white. Milk is very heavy as it turns out. A sister squadron of mine had a mishap hauling milk to the deck of the USS America. The mishap occurred due to a mistake in calculating liters to gallons and computing pounds. They took off from a land base on a rolling takeoff several thousand pounds over gross weight and had problems on approach to the carrier deck. No one was killed but it was a very ugly crash.

Mugs, 5 inch naval rounds are, as I recall, like huge bullets. They are primered rounds. So dropping them is a bad thing. I was nervous about moving these after this incident, due to the EOD guys explaining this to me.

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Naval rounds are quite inert until fired. I have dropped 4.5" shells when feeding the twins on a Leander in live firing exercises. SHell and Cartiridge are seperate. Feeding the first few rounds is easy but they start to get heavy after you have loaded five or six in a minute.

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I could be wrong about the specific round however they were packaged in a crate that held around 20-30 and they appeared to be primed rounds, not like a big gun rounds that have seperate charges. I do know that EOD was concerned about them more than any other ammo we moved (or in this case dropped). I also recall some concern about certain types of ammo being sensitive to EMI.

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"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

76mm is the largest fixed round that the Navy uses, IIRC. 105 & 120mm tank ammo would be used by the Marines, so that could have been what you had.
BTW: an "ordinance" is a law; "ordnance" blows up.

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I've seen ordinances blow up, but I'd better not talk about politics.

I see, you are refering to the propellant charge, Dropping it won't set it off, you need to strike the primer to do that. I don't know what US ammunition handling regs are but in the RN the 4.5" primers weren't put into the round until it was stowed in the Magazine.

As for EMP the only thing that would be effected maybe is the Proximity Fuse for AA use. these wouldn't be in shells being trnsported, they would be in the Magazine. In Peacetime I wouldn't thing any of the shells would be fused or propellant primed unless you were going to take part in a live firing exercise.

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5" used to be the standard AA gun in the US Navy, I don't know if any ar estill in service, I am not up on US Navy ship types.

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Its clear my knowledge on ordinances is probably better than on ordnances. We were moving ammo all the time though as ships were uploaded or down loaded for various reasons. I don't know what the shelf life on some of this stuff was but perhaps that was part of it too. I was on a supply ship that included ammo, oil, and groceries etc. These occurrences were back in the mid 80's so I suspect the load out for more modern ships is different today.

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"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

We had 4.5 inch ammo stowed with 1960s dates on it. When Nubian (one of the Tribals) I was on paid off for a Refit we dumped all the 4.5 inch ammo and small arms ammo over the side in a 'restricted' area in the Irish sea. It was cheaper than de-storing it with all the safety and security rituals it entailed.

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There's a lot of ammo in the seas! We were transiting the Straits of Messina when a WW II submerged mine popped loose its mooring and made its way down the strait. That got a lot of folks attention!

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Mines get dragged up by Trawlers all the time in the North Sea, nd they wash ashore. There were millions of them laid.

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One of our A-6 outfits had a mishap when one of the final checkers pulled the flag but not the pin on the release safety on a cluster bomb, anti-armor variety. (A tempo of operations error. We were doing fortyeight hour continious sorties.) The front of the bomb released but the back held fast and the weight and airstream caused the bomb to bend the rack far enough to pull the fusing wire out of the front.

Aircrew even had visual confirmation from the wingman, who then backed off, that the arming propeller was indeed spinning.

And you know the local primates are *really* bored when...

They call out that a A-6 has to land with a dangling live cluster bomb hanging off a hardpoint and your first thought is, "Oh I gotta see this!"

All the E-4 and below who still had their flightdeck gear on and a couple of the more incorrigible E-5's emptied out of the shop and I recall Chief Baker yelling after us his "misgivings" over the wisdom of this idea. Said if any of us got killed we were all in trouble. Though he didn't specifically order us not to go.

Do you know how hard it was to get a good view of that trap? They had about a half dozen landing landing officers and another dozen senior enlisted using threats and harsh language trying to keep the deck edges and catwalks clear of peeking heads.

A fool's errand when you consider the circumference of five and a half acres of flightdeck and the fact that you have a couple hundred teen-agers who live on the flightdeck and know all the nooks and crannies and who want to see if this bird going to explode or not.

Led by AT2 Barry and AQ2 Zak we shimmied up an escape trunk to the portside catwalk and a dozen friends and I were even with the three wire, hiding under a TOW parked bird (so GOD couldn't see us) amongst the hose reels when that bomber pilot caught it perfectly. And far from being disappointed, we applauded the safe landing. We just wanted to see it.

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I hope it was a day trap! That story is scary enough without being at night. I was on vultures row watching night traps in a light rain. On a bolter the aircraft would leave a trail of sparks when the hook skipped, and the aircraft would dip of the deck and stagger into the air. Parking on a wet non-skid was almost as exciting as several aircraft skidded to their various positions! One of the most impressive things I saw in the Navy. With no visable horizon to refer to the aircraft looked on each pass like it was out of control. Of course, I knew better but the visual illusion was strong. Big Don, you guys were really hanging it out if something had gone wrong.

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"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

Our hopper dredgers "found" (...) 2 of these German WW1 beasts this year in one week time, in the North Sea. The largest variant of them. In perfect condition, oil perfect and all, so very dangerous. Had they gone kaboom, all vessels in a 500m radius would have sunken...

We find ammunition all the time while dredging. Bullets, grenades (gas and generic), bombs, torpedoes...Many of it WW2, but also older and sometimes more recent stuff.

I should get myself some of the (safe) stuff once, I like these things but they usually don't pass through my hands. I happen to be in areas that either have nothing of interest (I'm going to Dhamra, India next, where I guess there's nothing noteworthy regarding objects in the sea) or the dangerous stuff...

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There is a reason they call overboard "in the large store" on a ship...

Personally, I wouldn't put anything in "the large store" if it wasn't smart from an environmental (if only optical) point of view, certainly if the item at hand wasn't just picked up from said large store.

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Jack, as a flightdeck sailor, I've done worse.

If you want to do something that qualifies as "butt-clenching adventure" run under the belly of a taxiing A-7. The pilot doesn't know you're there, too far forward and you get injested, so you have to duck under past the nose wheel, you have less than three feet of clearance between the belly of the bird, which of course is hot and thundering, and the deck. Not to mention what happens if you either trip or get a part of you run over by the main mount.

(For you Armymen and Jarheads out there, the main mounts are the "big tires")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A-...lightdeck.JPEG

Is a picture of the clearance you'ld have.

You sometimes just have to be on the otherside of the deck during operations in a timely fashion. I'm sure you're aware you can't run behind a turning jet for several hundred feet and running in front of a taxiing aircraft upsets the flightcrew, who then tend to overreact.

Just ask Mugs. I'm sure back in the day that if he was taxiing a bomber down a flightline and some dipstick of an airman ran right under his nose he would have had something to say to both the tower and that man's command.

We merely spared the pilot the concern by running where he couldn't see us. Pilots just never understood (or appreciated) that logic.

What they finally drew the line at was the blue shirts started to take running starts at taxiing A-7's while holding chocks, the rigid aluminum ones, and then skidding underneath the belly will driving their legs.

(For you non-avition types, the chocks in question are seperated by a rigid, square toothed bar that you used to adjust the width between the two chocks. You could grasp the bar with both hands and still have clearance for your knuckles. They were using these as "skids")

I saw that about three times. GOD saw it once and that was the end of it.

Then there was "gulling" but that is going to be my next "flightdeck thread" story. (No birds will be harmed in that story.)

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Science fiction was never meant to be an educational tool. - Editor Amazing Tales

How do you walk fast underneath such a low clearance? I mean, you can't do it on your hind legs solely unless you happen to hold the world record speed limboing... I assume you more or less crawled underneath? That is, knees not touching the ground, so on hands and feet?

Is the outside of the belly so hot when the engine is turning? Can imagine that, given even a simple car hood heats up...

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Nick, by the time you are close enough your adreneline levels are running high and it's more of a quick duck under while traveling sideways with your legs wide apart. Though putting a hand to the deck was not uncommon. Plus you never saw anybody much out of their teens doing it. (Could be that's how they got out of their teens. By not doing that.)

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In your rush to call everyone "entrenched" or closed-minded or "limited" you fail to note that the "limit" here has a very natural boundary: that point at which the evidence stops. - JayUtah

Science fiction was never meant to be an educational tool. - Editor Amazing Tales

In the Thames Estuary just off Sheerness is the wreck of the Richard Montgomery. It's a WW2 Liberty Ship. It ran aground and broke its back. Only part of the cargo was taken off and there is still over 3000 tons of explosives aboard. At low tide the masts and tops of the superstructure can be seen. Every few years Navy divers go down to check it out. Apparently the explosives are largely dynamite based and impervious to seawater but the primers and detonators will probably have deteriorated to a safe condition by now.

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Big Don, I look forward to reading more of your flight deck stories. One of my best buds was an A7 driver. Most of flight decks I was on were small boys, but I spent a few weeks on various carriers. I have the utmost respect for the flight deck hands. Small boys presented different issues for flight deck ops. Most interesting on small decks were ops during night or during high sea states. Usually flying helicopters to deck landings was no biggie, however at night with high seas it had serious pucker factor.

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"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

Jack, I've seen helos launch and recover off supply ships in absolutely terrifying sea states!

Stuff that made me really glad I was on a carrier. Much less trying to land a rattling violation of aerodynamics in a tennis court pulling moves a mechanical bull would envy.

All I did was run around and try not to get eaten by "stuff". Shoot, we've been doing that since the pleistocene. You fly!


They won't even let me drive.

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In your rush to call everyone "entrenched" or closed-minded or "limited" you fail to note that the "limit" here has a very natural boundary: that point at which the evidence stops. - JayUtah

Science fiction was never meant to be an educational tool. - Editor Amazing Tales

Take a look at a Tribal Class Frigate (Type 81)
They were the first 'small' warship designed with a hanger. It was in the deckhouse under the flight deck. In fact the Flight Deck was the lift. When the blades were folded the helicpter was 'struck down' into the deckhouse and a sectional 'roof' was slid over the top. In size the flightdeck was actualy smaller than the diameter of the helicopter rotor blades.

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Thats a tight fit. Lynx helos? The tightest deck we could land on with CH-46's was a Spruance Class, when on deck we had about 10ft from blades to hangar. Often after being tied down the ship would manuever and we could feel the aircraft pulling on the deck chains, a very uncomfortable feeling with blades turning and waiting on the deck for a green deck.

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"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

Smaller than a Lynx a Wasp
Leanders were the first ships designed with a 'proper' hanger and flight deck, Some flew a Lynx in their later years.

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Our flightlines were a bit larger than yours, BigDon!

We did get a real scare one day when we pulling into parking in an austere location and a bunch of kids came running out of the woods towards our cockpit and right past (about 3 feet) from our props, still spinning in ground idle.

We did an emergency stop on all engines, which isn't exactly good for them, but isn't exactly instantaneous, either, still taking half a minute before those props finally ground to a halt.

Can't blame the kids, as they didn't know any better, and just wanted to see if we had any extra food we could spare. We did spend about 10 mins with a local airfield rep, explaining to the kids the boundaries and why they were so important to their life and limb.

The next they, they kept their distance.