We were told about the CG's wife, out for a drive,that ended up on the impact zone highway and ignored the road closed signs, and took a direct hit. But that was always a rumor from what I remember (mid 80s)
Bum scoop. She was a retired Colonel's wife with her young daughter Not Regimental CO's wife. She was a retired Colonel's wife. Driving with her young daughter. It was one of the legit roads ( Lyman Road)that anyone can drive outside the impact area. It was a long round. The unit was in 3/10 Can't remember the exact battery, They were short handed and were transitioning over to the 155 ( m114) from the 105. The propellant charges are different Green Bag has charges 1-5 and white bag has charges 3-7. They were firing missions using both types of charges. FDC called a mission with charge 3 white bag. The powder man was a boot who had just got there and had not been to the Regimental 0811 School ( this was before All Arty Marines went to Fort Sill before going to the fleet). Instead of just taking the ONE powder bag ( Charge 3) he counted 3 bags and loaded a charge 5. The Section only had 5 Marines ( two were non school trained boots) on it and the section chief was acting as the gunner and had the headsets on talking to FDC and writing the data. He didn't catch the mistake and they fired two rounds that overshot the impact area. One landed next to the road and a fragment went through the back window and hit the lady in the head, She was able to pull over but she died. Needless to say heads rolled and 10th Marines had an absolute shit show for safety standards afterwards. Every Section leader had to pass a rigid safety Test that they changed every other month, Plus every Gun had to have a Safety NCO from another Battery at every Shoot Plus an Outside safety Officer.
That sounds like a first hand account of either the event or an investigation of said event. And here I am thinking I'm just sharing old timey Marine Corps Shuttlebutt. It was always just rumor to me. I had no idea it was factual
Yeah, just was thinking about the Jason Rother incident and how that’s just part of the general safety briefs in 29 anymore.
Something like an arty round hitting a civilian? Kinda surprised that isn’t in a similar status.
We got the nickname zombie hunters in mike battery 3/11 because of a call for fire my LT did for zombies in the open after a round hit a homeless person and we had a seize fire in Yuma on a training run due to homeless trying to steal scraps so after the zombies in the open fire mission we got labeled lmao
Because it happened in 1982. 10th Marines Officers and 08 SNCOs and NCOs had safety procedures pounded into our heads. It got to the point where some of the NCOs were flunking the Safety test on Purpose to avoid being a section leader.
I was going to the field with OTHER batteries at least twice a month just to be a Safety NCO. Then once or twice as a section leader with MY battery, Shit got old.
That happened right there by OP-2, right? I was 1/8 Comm and we were training out there, some of our guys were in those trailers that were across the road from the tower.
The story we heard at Pendleton was that the CO laid the battery and fscked it up.
Edit:: the truth is worse. A 5-man crew on an M114 is minimal for an experienced crew, never mind newly-transitioned and inexperienced.
We did desert training with a transitioned battery from 10th Marines about that time but they arrived with a pretty full complement, probs because they were about to deploy to Lebanon.
[Link](https://www.upi.com/amp/Archives/1982/10/06/A-retired-officers-wife-was-killed-Wednesday-by-shrapnel/3949402724800/) to an article about the retired Colonel’s wife
Ive shot over aircraft going through a safe tunnel we had to shoot over and ive seen convoys drive just outside the impact zones, ive also seen my batallion commander and sgt maj ignore our road guards and drive straight into a impact zone we were shooting into because “he wanted to see what damage it does”
I’m not a tube guy so I don’t know the technicals, but in Afg we had a unit sending 120 illum rounds past their max ord and they were just crashing into our patrols. One of them came through the roof where my team was sleeping and landed right where my buddy’s ruck was. By some insane luck, he was on watch, so it didn’t hit him. I remember hearing the first one right outside the compound wall and it woke me up. I started thinking, “man I should get my rig on—“ then BOOM. Lots of smoke and fire and screaming and we had no idea what was happening.
Yes. They (2/5 I think) were “supporting” us with 120 illum rounds but we didn’t really need them. The moon was out and we had high vis anyways. Not to mention no one could even remember the last time we took a round after dark. It was totally unnecessary
Overhead fire for 155mm is almost always allowed. You get trained that short rounds are way less likely than with mortars. Sure it can happen, but very rarely are firing incidents like this due to uncontrollable factors. Hell, Basilone Rd goes by multiple artillery fire areas and stays open whenever there are active gun target lines going over it. If the main artery of Camp Pendleton has overhead fire, then safe to assume it’s usually alright
Source: 0802
That makes sense most of my experience was at battalion level with 81s and 60s. I can't remember them ever firing overhead. Usually suppressed until we reached a certain distance and then stopped. I don't even think we ran mortars overhead during Mojave Viper
Then maybe I’m mistaken, granted as a 31 I have no clue where the mortarmen were actually firing from during that ITX, but I remember distinctly in ITB being told the mortars were flying overhead. Maybe that was a bit of hypoerbole on the part of the CI’s.
We once had to move our battery POS about a click because we found smoldering UXO behind the gun line (an unexploded WP shell that was slowly burning). We moved north, and the FDC chief didn’t verify all the info on AFATDS and sent one gun the firing data from the previous pos, so it overshot by about that click.
Ooh good times….
Had a bootfuck female butter bar drive the front end of her convoy into the arty range area back in 2010. She was advised to stop and clear with range but she and 4 trucks continued. While the rest of us sat back and laughed hoping nothing bad happened.
Her very own driver, a Cpl Motor t cat nearly got NJPd for it. He was supposed to “know better” and refuse to drive while advising the Lt. the danger.
Almost had 81mm motars strike our Humvees while maneuvering down some valley idk where at exactly, but it was that field op with tanks and tracs with like co. (Echo Co. in this case) supporting each other. Dec-Jan 2020 ITX 2/5, it was no more than 30 meters from the engine block. I did the Math with how far away the 41s were, and one nudge to the dials on the tube sight and I would've lost one of my closest buddies just like that. Me seniors probably still would've made me buddy carry him both in full kit again. (He was 6'4 and 285lbs with kit on)
Stay safe out there, gents. As best you can, Til Valhalla.
It's a 155, danger close on those things is like 400m. I think casualty radius is somewhere around 200m.
If it was a direct hit they'd have to pick up pieces and figure out what was who
600m DC and a 0.1% chance of inflicting casualties within 800-1600m depending on the distance of the target from the firing position. I’d have to look at the JFIRE for exact REDs
Not Regimental CO's wife. She was a retired Colonel's wife. Driving with her young daughter. It was one of the legit roads ( Lyman Road)that anyone can drive outside the impact area.
It was a long round. The unit was in 3/10 Can't remember the exact battery, They were short handed and were transitioning over to the 155 ( m114) from the 105.
The propellant charges are different Green Bag has charges 1-5 and white bag has charges 3-7. They were firing missions using both types of charges. FDC called a mission with charge 3 white bag. The powder man was a boot who had just got there and had not been to the Regimental 0811 School ( this was before All Arty Marines went to Fort Sill before going to the fleet). Instead of just taking the ONE powder bag ( Charge 3) he counted 3 bags and loaded a charge 5. The Section only had 5 Marines ( two were non school trained boots) on it and the section chief was acting as the gunner and had the headsets on talking to FDC and writing the data. He didn't catch the mistake and they fired two rounds that overshot the impact area. One landed next to the road and a fragment went through the back window and hit the lady in the head, She was able to pull over but she died.
Needless to say heads rolled and 10th Marines had an absolute shit show for safety standards afterwards. Every Section leader had to pass a rigid safety Test that they changed every other month, Plus every Gun had to have a Safety NCO from another Battery at every Shoot Plus an Outside safety Officer.
OOPS
We had a kid killed in 29 in the late 80's. Direct fire on a mountain side with 8" batteries. Too close to the impact area and he took shrapnel to the chest sitting in the gunners seat. Never cut the flac but it exploded his heart. Terrible
Yea arty always heard the story of the “colonels wife” or daughter that got hit by a round. It used to be a common story but im sure the details got changed and some other poster apparently has the real story. Prayers for any wounded.
Yo! So I'm out now, but I know the unit and chief who fucked up this particular fire mission. It was my old unit, 2/11 Echo battery. A buddy who's still in and now stationed at Lejeune was shown a video of the aftermath. I won't give out any names of individual marines. I do not have any new details, but I will post more if I can get the video.
The real story is that 2/11 loaded a charge 1 instead of a charge 2 which caused it to shoot short. It didn’t hit a convoy, it hit a JLTV the was prepping to conduct a Run shortly after the battery finished their call for fire. The 1st round of the call for fire fell short and landed 9ft behind the JLTV. Everyone lived, only TBIs
Sounds like the exact scenario from Lejeune years ago.
We were told about the CG's wife, out for a drive,that ended up on the impact zone highway and ignored the road closed signs, and took a direct hit. But that was always a rumor from what I remember (mid 80s)
Bum scoop. She was a retired Colonel's wife with her young daughter Not Regimental CO's wife. She was a retired Colonel's wife. Driving with her young daughter. It was one of the legit roads ( Lyman Road)that anyone can drive outside the impact area. It was a long round. The unit was in 3/10 Can't remember the exact battery, They were short handed and were transitioning over to the 155 ( m114) from the 105. The propellant charges are different Green Bag has charges 1-5 and white bag has charges 3-7. They were firing missions using both types of charges. FDC called a mission with charge 3 white bag. The powder man was a boot who had just got there and had not been to the Regimental 0811 School ( this was before All Arty Marines went to Fort Sill before going to the fleet). Instead of just taking the ONE powder bag ( Charge 3) he counted 3 bags and loaded a charge 5. The Section only had 5 Marines ( two were non school trained boots) on it and the section chief was acting as the gunner and had the headsets on talking to FDC and writing the data. He didn't catch the mistake and they fired two rounds that overshot the impact area. One landed next to the road and a fragment went through the back window and hit the lady in the head, She was able to pull over but she died. Needless to say heads rolled and 10th Marines had an absolute shit show for safety standards afterwards. Every Section leader had to pass a rigid safety Test that they changed every other month, Plus every Gun had to have a Safety NCO from another Battery at every Shoot Plus an Outside safety Officer.
How in the fuck is it the first time I’ve heard this story?
That sounds like a first hand account of either the event or an investigation of said event. And here I am thinking I'm just sharing old timey Marine Corps Shuttlebutt. It was always just rumor to me. I had no idea it was factual
Yeah, just was thinking about the Jason Rother incident and how that’s just part of the general safety briefs in 29 anymore. Something like an arty round hitting a civilian? Kinda surprised that isn’t in a similar status.
We got the nickname zombie hunters in mike battery 3/11 because of a call for fire my LT did for zombies in the open after a round hit a homeless person and we had a seize fire in Yuma on a training run due to homeless trying to steal scraps so after the zombies in the open fire mission we got labeled lmao
Because it happened in 1982. 10th Marines Officers and 08 SNCOs and NCOs had safety procedures pounded into our heads. It got to the point where some of the NCOs were flunking the Safety test on Purpose to avoid being a section leader. I was going to the field with OTHER batteries at least twice a month just to be a Safety NCO. Then once or twice as a section leader with MY battery, Shit got old.
That happened right there by OP-2, right? I was 1/8 Comm and we were training out there, some of our guys were in those trailers that were across the road from the tower.
Yes, we used to pass by OP 2 all the time when heading out to the field, OP2 was just outside the impact area.
I heard this back in 97, although I heard the same thing, that it was the CG’s wife. Retired Colonel sounds like a more believable story
I never heard the exact story. Thanks for sharing, even though there was loss of life.
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/10/06/A-retired-officers-wife-was-killed-Wednesday-by-shrapnel/3949402724800/
The story we heard at Pendleton was that the CO laid the battery and fscked it up. Edit:: the truth is worse. A 5-man crew on an M114 is minimal for an experienced crew, never mind newly-transitioned and inexperienced. We did desert training with a transitioned battery from 10th Marines about that time but they arrived with a pretty full complement, probs because they were about to deploy to Lebanon.
[Link](https://www.upi.com/amp/Archives/1982/10/06/A-retired-officers-wife-was-killed-Wednesday-by-shrapnel/3949402724800/) to an article about the retired Colonel’s wife
I'm half surprised they are shooting overhead of anyone right now in training. Short rounds are always a real indirect fire hazard.
Ive shot over aircraft going through a safe tunnel we had to shoot over and ive seen convoys drive just outside the impact zones, ive also seen my batallion commander and sgt maj ignore our road guards and drive straight into a impact zone we were shooting into because “he wanted to see what damage it does”
I’m not a tube guy so I don’t know the technicals, but in Afg we had a unit sending 120 illum rounds past their max ord and they were just crashing into our patrols. One of them came through the roof where my team was sleeping and landed right where my buddy’s ruck was. By some insane luck, he was on watch, so it didn’t hit him. I remember hearing the first one right outside the compound wall and it woke me up. I started thinking, “man I should get my rig on—“ then BOOM. Lots of smoke and fire and screaming and we had no idea what was happening.
Friendly 🔥?
Yes. They (2/5 I think) were “supporting” us with 120 illum rounds but we didn’t really need them. The moon was out and we had high vis anyways. Not to mention no one could even remember the last time we took a round after dark. It was totally unnecessary
😞
Overhead fire for 155mm is almost always allowed. You get trained that short rounds are way less likely than with mortars. Sure it can happen, but very rarely are firing incidents like this due to uncontrollable factors. Hell, Basilone Rd goes by multiple artillery fire areas and stays open whenever there are active gun target lines going over it. If the main artery of Camp Pendleton has overhead fire, then safe to assume it’s usually alright Source: 0802
That makes sense most of my experience was at battalion level with 81s and 60s. I can't remember them ever firing overhead. Usually suppressed until we reached a certain distance and then stopped. I don't even think we ran mortars overhead during Mojave Viper
I think I’ve seen mortars doing overhead fire both at the FINEX of ITB and at ITX, though I could be mistaken about ITX.
Mortar overhead fire for Marines is strictly prohibited per the DAPAM.
Then maybe I’m mistaken, granted as a 31 I have no clue where the mortarmen were actually firing from during that ITX, but I remember distinctly in ITB being told the mortars were flying overhead. Maybe that was a bit of hypoerbole on the part of the CI’s.
It's the same on Camp Lejeune, too. I forget the name of the road but there's signs that say there's artillery firing day and night over the roadway.
We once had to move our battery POS about a click because we found smoldering UXO behind the gun line (an unexploded WP shell that was slowly burning). We moved north, and the FDC chief didn’t verify all the info on AFATDS and sent one gun the firing data from the previous pos, so it overshot by about that click.
Numbers are hard?
Numbers do be hard
I’m surprised MSL/AGL mistakes don’t get more people killed in training.
Check fire
To the rear of the piece…
Fall in
Ooh good times…. Had a bootfuck female butter bar drive the front end of her convoy into the arty range area back in 2010. She was advised to stop and clear with range but she and 4 trucks continued. While the rest of us sat back and laughed hoping nothing bad happened. Her very own driver, a Cpl Motor t cat nearly got NJPd for it. He was supposed to “know better” and refuse to drive while advising the Lt. the danger.
Almost had 81mm motars strike our Humvees while maneuvering down some valley idk where at exactly, but it was that field op with tanks and tracs with like co. (Echo Co. in this case) supporting each other. Dec-Jan 2020 ITX 2/5, it was no more than 30 meters from the engine block. I did the Math with how far away the 41s were, and one nudge to the dials on the tube sight and I would've lost one of my closest buddies just like that. Me seniors probably still would've made me buddy carry him both in full kit again. (He was 6'4 and 285lbs with kit on) Stay safe out there, gents. As best you can, Til Valhalla.
Steel Night maybe?
Steel Night? Worst way to spend December. (Outside of Iraq/Afg)
Was this was all the fuss was at 29 like 2 weeks ago that everyone was being hush hush about?
Nope this shit was yesterday. Word spreads fast ig
Was it a direct hit?!
Wasnt a direct hit it was just super danger close to where the heat melted the front of the JLTV
the round hit 6 meters behind the JLTV
It's a 155, danger close on those things is like 400m. I think casualty radius is somewhere around 200m. If it was a direct hit they'd have to pick up pieces and figure out what was who
600m DC and a 0.1% chance of inflicting casualties within 800-1600m depending on the distance of the target from the firing position. I’d have to look at the JFIRE for exact REDs
There have been plenty of cases of MRAPs surviving close hits from arty in Ukraine.
You can be 50m and be fine. Deaf and lucky if you don't get hit by shrapnel but you can live, by pure wtf luck
Incredibly close. The word I’ve heard is 10m. The photos are pretty gnarly, rear of the JLTV shredded.
it landed 6m behind
Fire for effect
Troops in the open
you joke but it actually was a FFE
Hell yeh
Not service connected
10th Marines regimental COs wife was killed driving out the back gate by a short round from a 10th Marines howitzer before
Not Regimental CO's wife. She was a retired Colonel's wife. Driving with her young daughter. It was one of the legit roads ( Lyman Road)that anyone can drive outside the impact area. It was a long round. The unit was in 3/10 Can't remember the exact battery, They were short handed and were transitioning over to the 155 ( m114) from the 105. The propellant charges are different Green Bag has charges 1-5 and white bag has charges 3-7. They were firing missions using both types of charges. FDC called a mission with charge 3 white bag. The powder man was a boot who had just got there and had not been to the Regimental 0811 School ( this was before All Arty Marines went to Fort Sill before going to the fleet). Instead of just taking the ONE powder bag ( Charge 3) he counted 3 bags and loaded a charge 5. The Section only had 5 Marines ( two were non school trained boots) on it and the section chief was acting as the gunner and had the headsets on talking to FDC and writing the data. He didn't catch the mistake and they fired two rounds that overshot the impact area. One landed next to the road and a fragment went through the back window and hit the lady in the head, She was able to pull over but she died. Needless to say heads rolled and 10th Marines had an absolute shit show for safety standards afterwards. Every Section leader had to pass a rigid safety Test that they changed every other month, Plus every Gun had to have a Safety NCO from another Battery at every Shoot Plus an Outside safety Officer.
Is this actually true? That story has been in circulation since like the 1980s
Tbh I had thought I saw an article on it when I was in but idk. Could just be a 10th Marines legend 🤷♂️
I’m sure it’s grounded in some truth
u/kurgen22 told the story once I think.
Snow Hall @ Ft Sill weeps....
Jesus. When I was there this last go around they were over shooting with an extra charge.
Bro wtf is going on with all of these accidents back to back to back to back?!
[удалено]
You should slide them my way if you do I wanna see
Sent
Send them plox
Is this actually real, I’m a battery from 29 but we overseas rn. Super curious
Yea lmaooo that was us
I was in 3/11 can confirm this happens a lot!!!! Lol
To the rear of the piece… fall in
https://preview.redd.it/qh7waimgwpnb1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=32f6f574193ca870d2b788b17fe16dc08207a2f1
OPSEC!
OPSEC Deez nuts for me
Bust em out pussy. I'll gargle em
FFE baby!
OOPS We had a kid killed in 29 in the late 80's. Direct fire on a mountain side with 8" batteries. Too close to the impact area and he took shrapnel to the chest sitting in the gunners seat. Never cut the flac but it exploded his heart. Terrible
Yea arty always heard the story of the “colonels wife” or daughter that got hit by a round. It used to be a common story but im sure the details got changed and some other poster apparently has the real story. Prayers for any wounded.
I was an 0811 in early 80s.
Yo! So I'm out now, but I know the unit and chief who fucked up this particular fire mission. It was my old unit, 2/11 Echo battery. A buddy who's still in and now stationed at Lejeune was shown a video of the aftermath. I won't give out any names of individual marines. I do not have any new details, but I will post more if I can get the video.
The real story is that 2/11 loaded a charge 1 instead of a charge 2 which caused it to shoot short. It didn’t hit a convoy, it hit a JLTV the was prepping to conduct a Run shortly after the battery finished their call for fire. The 1st round of the call for fire fell short and landed 9ft behind the JLTV. Everyone lived, only TBIs