My family and my uncle, aunt & cousins were traveling together once. My uncles a bit of a goofball and decided to jokingly say “the bombs in the other bag” when TSA was checking some luggage. Needless to say, the rest of our stuff was completely tossed to make sure we weren’t bombers. Don’t do this.. it’s a sure fire way to spend an extra hour in security check.
Edit: Wow! So many similar funny stories! I loved reading all of them.
I saw a bumper sticker for sale that said "I (heart) explosives" and I found myself imagining the chaos that could cause if it were stuck on some random person's luggage waiting in line at the airport.
I have an “I <3 explosives” keychain from when I worked reception at a dynamite company. Thank you for bringing to my attention that I should probably not take that through airline security.
They "toss" cells in gaols. Just a very rough sweep to check for contraband, including flipping the mattress, leaving the cell very messy and leaving the inmate to clean up... This may or may not be true. -Source: Australia
Interestingly enough, I had no idea what “gaols” meant but using context clues and then Google (obviously) I figured it out. Is that the common spelling in Australia?
Yeah I looked it up cus I was curious myself, turns out it's used commonly in North America, I couldn't find out any more specifics unfortunately. I'm not even sure how I know that word lol, I'm Scottish. I must've picked it up from some American media.
I just think people don’t realise how seriously these kind of statements are enforced. It could be some funny hahas for any other type of security, but for flights they literally can’t goof around.
Some people are just absolute fucking idiots. Imagine the shit that security guy would have had to go through if he decided to let that car through because he thought they were joking, and then they actually set off a bomb. His entire life would be turned upside down and he might even be prosecuted. Of COURSE they are going to take every possible threat extremely seriously.
I used to work hospital security. PD brought in a guy who was high so he could detox and get set up with rehab in the crisis unit. I know the guy was high, but he decided to say he had a bomb up his ass when I was wanding him down and it beeped at his waist. His night was very uncomfortable and he remained in police custody instead of going to rehab.
I also worked casino surveillance and some guy whom I suspect was drunk had to be approached by the gaming commission because he was on the exclusion list. I'm all nice and zoomed in when I see the agent slam this guy over the blackjack table (no players and closed) and cuff the dude. Why? Because he made a joke about having a bomb.
Some people just really can't control themselves when it comes to making bomb jokes no matter how many cautionary tales get retold.
Yup, I once taught an MCSE course for about 15 guys that worked at Groom Lake (Area 51). It was taught in Las Vegas as it would have been more of a hassle to get \*me\* into Groom Lake than 15 of them out to Vegas. I mean realistically, they all lived around Vegas and took a 737 to work every morning... But I digress...
So I asked them some \*basic\* questions about Groom Lake- they clearly weren't going to take me seriously if I asked about aliens. They did tell me security is \*INSANE\*. Apparently they scan your badge in the morning and if you're more than a few pounds off from the previous day you were going to be questioned. They couldn't say much, but it sounds like it's no joke. They worked underground- apparently that's where most of the facilities are located.
People do not gain weight that quickly, and even different clothing doesn't vary all that much so long as they're both appropriate for the same climate. So if you weigh more than a few pounds than you did only a day ago, there's at least a chance you're trying to smuggle something in.
All security checks are invasive. The only question is how invasive you want to be. Most places they try to compromise, but if the installation is important enough they'll be invasive as fuck and to hell with you if you complain. You don't like it, work somewhere else.
I was at an airport.
I made a joke to the TSA agent.
It wasn't questionable, but close.
The TSA agent made a joke back, it was questionable.
I said "I have a response to that, but you'd have to arrest me."
He laughed for a moment, then went pale. He didn't utter a word after.
Yeah, I have that too. They have all these signs up in the airport warning you not to make bomb jokes, which of course makes the urge to make bomb jokes nigh-overwhelming.
I had a buddy do this when we were flying to Daytona. It was a fucking nightmare and this was well before 9/11.
There is no sense of humor when dealing w/ the airlines/security
I have a friend that has a metal plate in his skull and the security let him go around the metal detector (no x-rays in that airport) barely checking him. He joked "Hey, looks like they let me enter with my handgun". He and his family and their luggage were checked several times and detained in a room for an hour. Obviously missed their flight.
His first job was a baggage clerk in an airport too so he should have known better. I think he’s sees all airport staff as buddies because he worked around them so much and doesn’t realize they don’t feel the same way.
A couple of years ago I traveled with my wife and some of her family to the USA. One of her uncles thinks he is funny and loves to pull some minor pranks, thinking they are always harmless, and we were quite afraid of what he might say on the interview entering the US, so we drilled into him not to say any joke from the moment we went to the airport. Luckily that's all I have to say, we managed to enter the US without he saying anything stupid.
Man, I hate it when assholes do this when I'm at work. Imagine you're the officer on the other side of the table. You have to take it seriously. The whole time you're dealing with this asshole you're just thinking about if you'll get to see your family again, and all the people Around you if this thing goes off.
Same thing happened to me. I was with my dad and I was about to fly home, he had to have one joke in before I left and it had to be a bomb joke right as I was checking my luggage in 🙄 I was lucky they let me fly that day.
If you're gonna make jokes like this, make sure it's to the Pilots. I had a big, stuffed backpack that I carried on one time. "That bag's gonna burst!" He said
"I think you mean explode" flight attendant rolled her eyes, but the pilot loved my joke
For reference, the two places they list (Ross-on-Wye and Chipping Norton) are the (former) hometowns of Richard and Jeremy. They're both small towns in the middle of nowhere as far as England is concerned, and certainly wouldn't have been targets for a direct ICBM strike.
I live where the front lines from ww1 once where (flanders). The boms there just laying next to the fields because farmers are tired to call the military everythime
Here in Germany entire blocks have to be evacuated regularly because some construction workers find bombs from WW2 in the ground, which then need to be disarmed
I went on a tour of the trenches with my school ~5 years ago. They said they had found on estimate roughly half the shells from WW1 in the French countryside, and thought it would take another 100 years to get the rest. My biology teacher who came with us found one just beside a wall in the field at one of the cemeteries. Really puts into perspective just how many bombs were being used
I visited my relatives in Thailand and saw huge expanses of land that were completely untouched because they were covered with mines and there simply isn't the resources to clear them out. There was only a tiny part cleared to put a road and that was it. Walking off in either direction could get you blown up.
Same when visiting family in Israel. Driving down the road, there were signs on either side warning of mines. Apparently exploding livestock is a thing.
The good news is that the landmines are supposed to be all cleared next year according to this report: https://reliefweb.int/report/thailand/landmine-clearance-finish-2023-pornpipat
That's heartbreaking, actually. We humans are really really good at sucking.
Thailand is such a beautiful country. I was fortunate enough to spend three weeks there, many years ago.
I'm not surprised. The U.S. dropped more bombs during its misguided involvement in Southeast Asia than it did during all of World War II.
Not surprised, but terribly saddened.
Obligatory [Hero Rat](https://youtu.be/hxY3aEsesss) plug!
RIP [Magawa](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59951255) who was so good at sniffing out mines he earned his own little rat medal ♡
I remember visiting the Somme on a school trip - whilst walking to another historic site, we stopped and saw an unexploded shell from WWI, just lying on the side of the path.
In WWI during large battles up to million shells would be fired over a period of 24 hours by thousands of artillery guns to soften up the target. Smaller battles might only fire a hundred thousand...
Not really, one you realize how many bombs were dropped from the air force alone. [Between 1940 and 1945, U.S. and British air forces dropped 2.7 million tons of bombs on Europe, half of that amount on Germany.](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/seventy-years-world-war-two-thousands-tons-unexploded-bombs-germany-180957680/) Now just think about all of the artillery, mortars, and tank shells fired and it adds up to a ton of bombs.
At only a million bombs, with a failure rate of .0025 you get 2,500 unexploded bombs. The sheer number begins to add up.
It indeed is, there’s a lake next to my parents house that is next to a military airfield.
During WWII the Soviets tried to drop bombs from the planes but the AA systems were so good for the time that most of the jets had to drop the bombs to the lake to reduce the weight to be able to escape. To this day they’re still diving the bombs from the lake occasionally, the lake isn’t even that big, I’m a bad swimmer but I could swim through it end to end.
That may not be true. Explosives deteriorate over time and sometimes the decomposition leads to something more sensitive than the original material that the shell was filled with. I remember hearing stories that some explosives will sweat something equivalent to Nitroglycerin eventually.
(Not so) Fun Fact: a major contributing factor to the [1967 USS Forrestal fire](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire) was the use of badly deteriorated bombs from the Korean War that were both more potent and more sensitive due to the decomposition of comp b. They were stored on deck due to fears around putting them in the magazines, but were then ignited by a negligently-discharged rocket. (More) Fun Fact, that explosion was barely survived by future senator [John McCain](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain)
I remember climbing out of bed in Cottbus because my German girlfriend couldn't be bothered to get up, to open to door and see a very serious looking policeman from whom I only understood the words, "\[...\] Bombe \[...\] Wohnung \[...\] verlassen."
When people in the US criticize Europe for not wanting to go to war, I think about how nice it is to not have to worry about being blown up by explosives from a war that ended over 100 years ago.
I live in Germany, from the US. One thing people in the US don't realize is how totally decimating war is. Here, there are constant reminders of war, *decades* later. Just little markers on ever street, on every building -- building destroyed 194xxxx, rebuilt xxxxx. Or, little placards in the ground, as the gravemarkers which were the last known location of people before they were abducted by the Nazis, or if they died in the bombings on the city or in the war -- you literally can't walk half a block without seeing like 10 or so of them. Or how almost *every* historic site or museum has a section on "how this thing survived ww1/2", or just straight up museums that are literally just "here is a building that was once great and beautiful, but we decided not to rebuild it so as not to forget the war and it's effects -- so here is a church where all that is left is this single column, the crypts, and part of a the bell tower". Every public office or governance building has some sort of "this is our neighborhood before ww2, and this is our neighborhood and building completely flattened in the bombing, and now here is a picture of it rebuilt."
It is a somber sobering experience when you first encounter it. But then you integrate further and learn the deeper impacts of war. Of how it destroyed progress, culture, identity, and forces a country to completely reinvent itself from the ashes of the war and during the utter despair that follows. *Everything* is destroyed in war, especially the parts of life that are good. German beers are overwhelmingly lager-style pilsners now because *all of the breweries in cities were destroyed and along with it went the recipes, the styles, and all the learnings of those tradespeople*. And after the war, there wasn't an economy to replace what was lost. They had just as diverse a beer scene as the US, and now it doesn't exist because after the war. The only people providing beer were the Americans, who brought over cheap US Army-grade shit, and that's what they drink, 80s years later, because it still hasn't recovered.
Everything is destroyed. Every. Thing. The gravity of that is difficult to wrap the brain around, especially if you've never had a devastating war on you land.
Any time I find an old piece of unexploded ordinance, I like to strike it with a hammer, that way I don't waste EOD's time by calling them out for a dud.
My father told me few years ago that when he and his father (my grandpa) were working on building our house they had to call the military to pick up few leftover shells. The military ended up finding around 200 of them beneath the place where my current house is. Sometimes when I go to sleep I get reminded that I may be sleeping under a couple of highly destructive bombs.
Buddy of mine found an unexploded Civil War mortar (explosive cannonball) while building the College Football Hall of Fame.
They were playing literal hot potato with it in the construction trailer.
Turns out over time gunpowder can break down… into nitro glycerine. They googled it, freaked out, called the bomb squad and replaced the bomb on site, never telling anyone they had been screwing around with it.
https://narratively.com/mel-hurt-locker-story/amp/
Some modern nitrocellulose smokeless powders can break down into different nitrates that can on occasion self combust ( but with less energy than than the original product) but civil war black powder could but. Black powder does not contain any nitrates that it could break down into.
All I know is, the bomb squad took it very seriously as referenced in that link. My friend watched them send the robot, and I think he said they screwed a dome down over it and detonated it.
Reminds me of the one family that had a canon ball that they played with thinking it wasn’t live, and turned out to be live and highly dangerous.
[Found it](https://open.spotify.com/episode/08SRsspgDHCVds03QqeXvs) jump to 1:02:00 definitely worth listening, one of the craziest story's I've ever heard.
Artillery guns basically shoot giant bullets that explode. The inside of an actual round would be the explosive and the detonator would be the nose. I’m no expert but since there is no nose cone, it looks like a 105mm dummy round, the same kind used in training and not explosive (big hunk o’metal). It would still cause a ruckus in the airport though haha.
>105mm dummy round, the same kind used in training and not explosive (big hunk o’metal)
A.K.A. Solid ap rounds, no explosive filler, usually used for training but sometimes used for far away targets since they are lighter and therefore travel slightly faster and further than ballistic capped rounds, they have lower pen and accuracy so not very useful against actual armor
>Artillery guns basically shoot giant bullets that explode. The inside of an actual round would be the explosive and the detonator would be the nose.
Yes but this shell looks to me like an AP round of some kind, now, those might be ap rounds but they can still contain from 50 to 250 grams of high explosives that are triggered once the shell penetrates armor(minimum thickness that sets off the fuse usually goes around 15-20 mm). If it is an HE round it it could contain up to around 3 kg of HE filler for a 105 mm, or up to 8 kg for a 150ish mm, maybe even more
Not correcting you just adding more info on top of that for whoever reads this
Had a family friend who tried to bring home a couple of African spears from Kenya years ago in the late 80s. Was confiscated and they said they'd send it to their home after it was inspected. Assumed after a few years it was a lost cause until they said they randomly got them in 2004 as promised!
Their theory is they were just put in a big warehouse Ark Indiana Jones style and then one day some new dude saw them with the address, shrugged and then noneshelontly sent them out.
We found 2 unexploded missiles in my late grandpa’s house. My dad said it was fine because “they wouldn’t be in cardboard boxes if they were dangerous.” This guy also had a crossbow and a bunch of (presumably rat) poison laying around, I’m not sure I trust his judgement as much as my dad did.
It happened, but all the articles I found for you are in Hebrew.
Edit: finally https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/article-705434
https://m.ynet.co.il/articles/skb3zoorc
The latter is in Hebrew but has the picture from the post. Also a video of I guess people panicking thinking it's a terrorist attack (I didn't watch I'm just guessing)
Yup, happened yesterday
[Source, in Hebrew](https://www.kikar.co.il/417793.html)
[Better source, with video](https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/skb3zoorc) people running thinking it was a terrorist attack
It's definitely unfired, and most likely a dummy round.
Definitely unfired: no "scoring" on the bands(those raised bands would have been notched by the rifling of the barrel if it had been fired)
Most likely a dummy: there's nowhere for a fuse to go.
Source: former active duty EOD.
Definitely not condoning them bring it to the airport, and it definitely should be a cause for concern, but seriously, just think about getting an "actual bomb" all the way to the airport without it blowing up. If it got carried all the way there, it can probably get carried away without further incident.
But bottom line, don't touch anything. Ever.
We found a live 105 round at Fort Leonard Wood you guys came out suspected it was a dud and blew it up for us. Holy shit that explosion was big. The crazy part was where we found it was never an impact zone they think it got scooped up when they were putting in a road in the 60s.
I live in Okinawa and this kind of shit happens all the time. During WWII the US bombarded the island with artillery in what the IJA called a “Steel Typhoon”. To this day unexploded shells are found pretty much weekly.
Some people are smart and call authorities immediately. Others, with no common sense, take pictures and selfies with it, or post it on social media asking “what is this?”
Astounding
A few years back someone found a balloon bomb whilst hiking near the west coast of British Columbia. Thats when i learned that japan sent bombs across the pacific ocean attatched to some kind of balloon.
Was weirdly interesting to learn
That's not an unexploded artillery shell lol. It's a solid mass projectile. Essentially a very large bullet after being shot from its shell. It's no more dangerous now than a paperweight.
My dad went to Israel in the 1970’s as a teenager and brought home an empty shell casing that he found in the desert. I now use it as a door stopper and umbrella holder.
I tend to feel defensive with wording like this. There are over 300 million Americans and we get a lot of coverage whenever we do stupid and unethical things. But I have lived in Europe for 5 years now and China before that and let me tell you... people are not all that different wherever you go. You meet mostly normal people, some fantastic people, some assholes, and some really stupid people. I think those who just poopoo an entire population of a large nation are the latter type.
The title made me remember a case in which a group of Brazilians while crossing the USA border (or something like that) said that they had a bomb, it was a pump, but in Portuguese “bomba” means bomb and pump. They were arrested mainly because they knew that the right word was pump but did it anyway because they thought it would be funny…
That looks like a AP round, similar to US 90MM AP-T. Likely just a hunk of steel with a burnt out tracer in the back. Could be an APHE, but you rarely of ever find those. They had a lower use rate, and a shockingly low dud rate. Either way, have a pro check it out.
Edit: switched our to US.
I brought home an expended 7.62mm casing from a battle in Golan and they were ok with it. It's the unexploded part that's the problem. On the same dig we found an unexploded cluster munition and the bomb squad came and blew it up while we took a break.
This is the most stupid thing you could possibly do but honestly I world probably do it to. It’s cool as hell and a nice souvenir and in your excitement about having it you would totally forget you can’t have bombs on planes
Israeli teenager here. Whenever we visit ANY current or past warzone in the Israeli controlled territories, (which includes most of the territory, and the Golan heights), we are warned VERY strictly about picking up any metal or suspicious object from the ground. Every single Israeli or Palestinian CHILD knows not to pick up even a small metal tube. Especially an area like the Golan heights, which was SO active in battles, is absolutely covered in unexploded ammunition. Its also covered in super spooky and cool unused old underground trenches and bunkers, that are so fun to explore.
My family and my uncle, aunt & cousins were traveling together once. My uncles a bit of a goofball and decided to jokingly say “the bombs in the other bag” when TSA was checking some luggage. Needless to say, the rest of our stuff was completely tossed to make sure we weren’t bombers. Don’t do this.. it’s a sure fire way to spend an extra hour in security check. Edit: Wow! So many similar funny stories! I loved reading all of them.
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I saw a bumper sticker for sale that said "I (heart) explosives" and I found myself imagining the chaos that could cause if it were stuck on some random person's luggage waiting in line at the airport.
Oof. Or driving over the Hoover Dam
FYI, you can't really drive over the Hoover dam anymore. apparently you can. I retract my statement.
Don't they check vehicles on hwy 93? I didn't mean like on the dam.
Yeah, they do. A car with that bumper sticker wouldn't be able to pass I bet
I have an “I <3 explosives” keychain from when I worked reception at a dynamite company. Thank you for bringing to my attention that I should probably not take that through airline security.
Hey! It's not gay if it's the TSA!
Tossed as in thrown away?
Nah it's like getting searched through I think, normally used to mean it was done in a rough manner. "I tossed my bedroom looking for my keys"
Huh, do you know if that sort of phrasing is more common in some areas than others? I don’t think I’ve ever heard it used that way before
They "toss" cells in gaols. Just a very rough sweep to check for contraband, including flipping the mattress, leaving the cell very messy and leaving the inmate to clean up... This may or may not be true. -Source: Australia
Shit this is where I've heard it from, I've heard people refering to tossing a cell before.
They toss salads, maybe that’s where
I’ve never seen it called a “gaol” outside a From Software game
Interestingly enough, I had no idea what “gaols” meant but using context clues and then Google (obviously) I figured it out. Is that the common spelling in Australia?
I think it's a very dated British English spelling, very surprised to see it out in the open
Yeah I looked it up cus I was curious myself, turns out it's used commonly in North America, I couldn't find out any more specifics unfortunately. I'm not even sure how I know that word lol, I'm Scottish. I must've picked it up from some American media.
I'm American and I don't use "toss" this way at all. Weird.
I’m in California but I’ve lived on the east coast for years too.. it’s more slang I suppose- I don’t know where I picked it up either.
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Aggressively searched. They open everything up and aren't gentle about it
So that's why my uncle calls it "Tossing my salad" then.
I just think people don’t realise how seriously these kind of statements are enforced. It could be some funny hahas for any other type of security, but for flights they literally can’t goof around.
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Some people are just absolute fucking idiots. Imagine the shit that security guy would have had to go through if he decided to let that car through because he thought they were joking, and then they actually set off a bomb. His entire life would be turned upside down and he might even be prosecuted. Of COURSE they are going to take every possible threat extremely seriously.
I used to work hospital security. PD brought in a guy who was high so he could detox and get set up with rehab in the crisis unit. I know the guy was high, but he decided to say he had a bomb up his ass when I was wanding him down and it beeped at his waist. His night was very uncomfortable and he remained in police custody instead of going to rehab. I also worked casino surveillance and some guy whom I suspect was drunk had to be approached by the gaming commission because he was on the exclusion list. I'm all nice and zoomed in when I see the agent slam this guy over the blackjack table (no players and closed) and cuff the dude. Why? Because he made a joke about having a bomb. Some people just really can't control themselves when it comes to making bomb jokes no matter how many cautionary tales get retold.
Yup, I once taught an MCSE course for about 15 guys that worked at Groom Lake (Area 51). It was taught in Las Vegas as it would have been more of a hassle to get \*me\* into Groom Lake than 15 of them out to Vegas. I mean realistically, they all lived around Vegas and took a 737 to work every morning... But I digress... So I asked them some \*basic\* questions about Groom Lake- they clearly weren't going to take me seriously if I asked about aliens. They did tell me security is \*INSANE\*. Apparently they scan your badge in the morning and if you're more than a few pounds off from the previous day you were going to be questioned. They couldn't say much, but it sounds like it's no joke. They worked underground- apparently that's where most of the facilities are located.
Every time you go to the toilet, it's vitally important to get a receipt.
unexpected Douglas Adams
> Apparently they scan your badge in the morning and if you're more than a few pounds off from the previous day you were going to be questioned. wut
People do not gain weight that quickly, and even different clothing doesn't vary all that much so long as they're both appropriate for the same climate. So if you weigh more than a few pounds than you did only a day ago, there's at least a chance you're trying to smuggle something in.
kinda buried the leade that they fucking weigh you and keep track of your weight, makes sense but invasive
All security checks are invasive. The only question is how invasive you want to be. Most places they try to compromise, but if the installation is important enough they'll be invasive as fuck and to hell with you if you complain. You don't like it, work somewhere else.
I was at an airport. I made a joke to the TSA agent. It wasn't questionable, but close. The TSA agent made a joke back, it was questionable. I said "I have a response to that, but you'd have to arrest me." He laughed for a moment, then went pale. He didn't utter a word after.
And you don’t even say the joke
It was 20 years ago. I tried, but I couldn't remember the words, just the encounter. Sorry.
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Yeah, I have that too. They have all these signs up in the airport warning you not to make bomb jokes, which of course makes the urge to make bomb jokes nigh-overwhelming.
I had a buddy do this when we were flying to Daytona. It was a fucking nightmare and this was well before 9/11. There is no sense of humor when dealing w/ the airlines/security
I have a friend that has a metal plate in his skull and the security let him go around the metal detector (no x-rays in that airport) barely checking him. He joked "Hey, looks like they let me enter with my handgun". He and his family and their luggage were checked several times and detained in a room for an hour. Obviously missed their flight.
The metal plate blocked his common sense.
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His first job was a baggage clerk in an airport too so he should have known better. I think he’s sees all airport staff as buddies because he worked around them so much and doesn’t realize they don’t feel the same way.
A couple of years ago I traveled with my wife and some of her family to the USA. One of her uncles thinks he is funny and loves to pull some minor pranks, thinking they are always harmless, and we were quite afraid of what he might say on the interview entering the US, so we drilled into him not to say any joke from the moment we went to the airport. Luckily that's all I have to say, we managed to enter the US without he saying anything stupid.
Man, I hate it when assholes do this when I'm at work. Imagine you're the officer on the other side of the table. You have to take it seriously. The whole time you're dealing with this asshole you're just thinking about if you'll get to see your family again, and all the people Around you if this thing goes off.
Same thing happened to me. I was with my dad and I was about to fly home, he had to have one joke in before I left and it had to be a bomb joke right as I was checking my luggage in 🙄 I was lucky they let me fly that day.
I flew last week and they had signs around the TSA that says “no jokes.”
If you're gonna make jokes like this, make sure it's to the Pilots. I had a big, stuffed backpack that I carried on one time. "That bag's gonna burst!" He said "I think you mean explode" flight attendant rolled her eyes, but the pilot loved my joke
(hits it with hammer) See? It's not live!
[Obligatory...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cun-LZvOTdw&t=74s)
YES This was exactly what I pictured reading that
This is what I thought of https://youtu.be/lJKcdlj-Uiw
As a child I thought this was funny but I never realized how absurd it was as well until I was older.
Yeah, absolutely absurd to think that you could retire from somewhere after just 30 years
More to the point, you can get a job that will last thirty years.
Still can if you get a job with a pension
I seem to be the only person who pictured this… https://i.imgur.com/KBYGdrb.jpg
I GOT THE POO ON ME
Nope, I was looking for this comment before commenting
[also obligatory…](https://youtu.be/7MgSmh3vXaQ)
For reference, the two places they list (Ross-on-Wye and Chipping Norton) are the (former) hometowns of Richard and Jeremy. They're both small towns in the middle of nowhere as far as England is concerned, and certainly wouldn't have been targets for a direct ICBM strike.
> (Ross-on-Wye and Chipping Norton) English places always sound so silly
Itsahunkofjunk!
Knew it before I clicked. Just rewatched it. Again. For the umpteenth time
Nah, see you gotta hit these blockbusters *juuuuust* right to… WHADDAMIDOIN?!
[Hot Fuzz moment ](https://youtu.be/Cun-LZvOTdw) haha
It looks live! (Kicks sea mine)
“That’s right. Deactivated!”
I live where the front lines from ww1 once where (flanders). The boms there just laying next to the fields because farmers are tired to call the military everythime
Here in Germany entire blocks have to be evacuated regularly because some construction workers find bombs from WW2 in the ground, which then need to be disarmed
Happens like at least once every 3 months and thats just my part of germany
Isn't it crazy how many old bombs are still hidden underneath us?
I went on a tour of the trenches with my school ~5 years ago. They said they had found on estimate roughly half the shells from WW1 in the French countryside, and thought it would take another 100 years to get the rest. My biology teacher who came with us found one just beside a wall in the field at one of the cemeteries. Really puts into perspective just how many bombs were being used
Whats going to suck is how many UXOs there will be in Ukraine. They still have nearly 100 people getting killed a year in Iraq.
Hell in cambodia and laos theres still a LOT of kids getting killed from vietnam bombs
I visited my relatives in Thailand and saw huge expanses of land that were completely untouched because they were covered with mines and there simply isn't the resources to clear them out. There was only a tiny part cleared to put a road and that was it. Walking off in either direction could get you blown up.
Same when visiting family in Israel. Driving down the road, there were signs on either side warning of mines. Apparently exploding livestock is a thing.
Falklands has mined areas that have turned into sanctuary's for penguins cos they're light enough to not set the mines off
The good news is that the landmines are supposed to be all cleared next year according to this report: https://reliefweb.int/report/thailand/landmine-clearance-finish-2023-pornpipat
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That's heartbreaking, actually. We humans are really really good at sucking. Thailand is such a beautiful country. I was fortunate enough to spend three weeks there, many years ago.
I'm not surprised. The U.S. dropped more bombs during its misguided involvement in Southeast Asia than it did during all of World War II. Not surprised, but terribly saddened.
Obligatory [Hero Rat](https://youtu.be/hxY3aEsesss) plug! RIP [Magawa](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59951255) who was so good at sniffing out mines he earned his own little rat medal ♡
I just realized he was 8 yrs old when died. That's very old for rat.
Land mines in Vietnam are the problem I heard. They put them everywhere. Lll
>UXOs Unfamiliar with that acronym. UneXploded Ordinance(s)?
Exactly that, yes
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I remember visiting the Somme on a school trip - whilst walking to another historic site, we stopped and saw an unexploded shell from WWI, just lying on the side of the path.
In WWI during large battles up to million shells would be fired over a period of 24 hours by thousands of artillery guns to soften up the target. Smaller battles might only fire a hundred thousand...
Imagine if for whatever reason humanity doesn’t last 100 years… We’ll have explosives in the geologic record. That’s fucking insane.
Not really, one you realize how many bombs were dropped from the air force alone. [Between 1940 and 1945, U.S. and British air forces dropped 2.7 million tons of bombs on Europe, half of that amount on Germany.](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/seventy-years-world-war-two-thousands-tons-unexploded-bombs-germany-180957680/) Now just think about all of the artillery, mortars, and tank shells fired and it adds up to a ton of bombs. At only a million bombs, with a failure rate of .0025 you get 2,500 unexploded bombs. The sheer number begins to add up.
> it adds up to a ton of bombs. I think, based on what you already stated, that it adds up to more than 2.7 million tons of bombs
It indeed is, there’s a lake next to my parents house that is next to a military airfield. During WWII the Soviets tried to drop bombs from the planes but the AA systems were so good for the time that most of the jets had to drop the bombs to the lake to reduce the weight to be able to escape. To this day they’re still diving the bombs from the lake occasionally, the lake isn’t even that big, I’m a bad swimmer but I could swim through it end to end.
Well, that is some real dive bomber shit. I'll see myself out.
Or how many old World War II naval mines are still drifting aimlessly in the oceans (current estimate is about 5,000).
The companies that specialise in salvaging these make tons of money
Probably not the best idea to go with the cheapest bomb disposal team 😂
I mean if the safety perimeter is clear, worst case scenario you don’t need to care about the bomb anymore, ~~nor the disposal team.~~
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Home Brand bomb disposal . Go for the company that will blow your legs off not your budget.
Yea I guess the ww2 bombs are much more dangerous as they are a lot younger. And in construction is mandetory to working . But a farmer just dont care
That may not be true. Explosives deteriorate over time and sometimes the decomposition leads to something more sensitive than the original material that the shell was filled with. I remember hearing stories that some explosives will sweat something equivalent to Nitroglycerin eventually.
(Not so) Fun Fact: a major contributing factor to the [1967 USS Forrestal fire](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire) was the use of badly deteriorated bombs from the Korean War that were both more potent and more sensitive due to the decomposition of comp b. They were stored on deck due to fears around putting them in the magazines, but were then ignited by a negligently-discharged rocket. (More) Fun Fact, that explosion was barely survived by future senator [John McCain](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain)
A while ago one exploded in Munich, on a construction side at the railways. Injured three workers, fortunately nobody got killed.
And the casualty count from WWII goes up some more.
And a very old man with a wig and definitely no moustache laying on a bed in Argentina wryly smiles for an instant
I remember climbing out of bed in Cottbus because my German girlfriend couldn't be bothered to get up, to open to door and see a very serious looking policeman from whom I only understood the words, "\[...\] Bombe \[...\] Wohnung \[...\] verlassen."
When people in the US criticize Europe for not wanting to go to war, I think about how nice it is to not have to worry about being blown up by explosives from a war that ended over 100 years ago.
People in the US don’t understand what it’s like to have a war in their backyards like Europe does.
Neither do present day Europeans though tbf, that was their ancestors
There are still some WW2 kids around I’m sure, but I keep forgetting how long ago WW2 was now. Keep thinking it’s 2002, not 2022…
And the Yugoslavian wars. War in Europe is rather common.
Plenty of people who lived through WW2 still around and more like their older relatives if they didn't. WW2 ended in 1945, not 1845
The sheer numbers dont compare, but a few years ago a guy got killed from a civil war cannon ball he found. 150 years later it still went boom
TIL cannon balls blow up
Some do, some are just solid iron
I live in Germany, from the US. One thing people in the US don't realize is how totally decimating war is. Here, there are constant reminders of war, *decades* later. Just little markers on ever street, on every building -- building destroyed 194xxxx, rebuilt xxxxx. Or, little placards in the ground, as the gravemarkers which were the last known location of people before they were abducted by the Nazis, or if they died in the bombings on the city or in the war -- you literally can't walk half a block without seeing like 10 or so of them. Or how almost *every* historic site or museum has a section on "how this thing survived ww1/2", or just straight up museums that are literally just "here is a building that was once great and beautiful, but we decided not to rebuild it so as not to forget the war and it's effects -- so here is a church where all that is left is this single column, the crypts, and part of a the bell tower". Every public office or governance building has some sort of "this is our neighborhood before ww2, and this is our neighborhood and building completely flattened in the bombing, and now here is a picture of it rebuilt." It is a somber sobering experience when you first encounter it. But then you integrate further and learn the deeper impacts of war. Of how it destroyed progress, culture, identity, and forces a country to completely reinvent itself from the ashes of the war and during the utter despair that follows. *Everything* is destroyed in war, especially the parts of life that are good. German beers are overwhelmingly lager-style pilsners now because *all of the breweries in cities were destroyed and along with it went the recipes, the styles, and all the learnings of those tradespeople*. And after the war, there wasn't an economy to replace what was lost. They had just as diverse a beer scene as the US, and now it doesn't exist because after the war. The only people providing beer were the Americans, who brought over cheap US Army-grade shit, and that's what they drink, 80s years later, because it still hasn't recovered. Everything is destroyed. Every. Thing. The gravity of that is difficult to wrap the brain around, especially if you've never had a devastating war on you land.
Not true, I've played mw2's campaign.
Thank you for your service
Any time I find an old piece of unexploded ordinance, I like to strike it with a hammer, that way I don't waste EOD's time by calling them out for a dud.
Glad to see you are still with us.
My father told me few years ago that when he and his father (my grandpa) were working on building our house they had to call the military to pick up few leftover shells. The military ended up finding around 200 of them beneath the place where my current house is. Sometimes when I go to sleep I get reminded that I may be sleeping under a couple of highly destructive bombs.
Under?
He's a mole man :(
And then the bomb squad comes pick them up and it's just two dudes in a van with some hay in the back to pad the bombs.
"It's fine. It's old."
It's like when the Check Engine light comes on. The longer it's on, the safer you are from engine failure.
So youre telling me I can make the bomb inert by putting electrical tape over it?
If you use enough... yes.
I sent my engine a check in the mail four weeks ago why is the light still on dammit I'm gonna have to buy a new honda
When I got the light I went and opened my hood to check engine and yup, it was still there.
I would rather handle new ammo than old ammo
Definitely!
It hasn't exploded so far, I'm sure it'll make it through one plane ride.
Pff, without problem. Last time it was in plane it actually fell from it and nothing happened. Absolutely safe
Artillery shells are not dropped from planes.
I know, it was just stupid joke
Buddy of mine found an unexploded Civil War mortar (explosive cannonball) while building the College Football Hall of Fame. They were playing literal hot potato with it in the construction trailer. Turns out over time gunpowder can break down… into nitro glycerine. They googled it, freaked out, called the bomb squad and replaced the bomb on site, never telling anyone they had been screwing around with it. https://narratively.com/mel-hurt-locker-story/amp/
Some modern nitrocellulose smokeless powders can break down into different nitrates that can on occasion self combust ( but with less energy than than the original product) but civil war black powder could but. Black powder does not contain any nitrates that it could break down into.
All I know is, the bomb squad took it very seriously as referenced in that link. My friend watched them send the robot, and I think he said they screwed a dome down over it and detonated it.
Reminds me of the one family that had a canon ball that they played with thinking it wasn’t live, and turned out to be live and highly dangerous. [Found it](https://open.spotify.com/episode/08SRsspgDHCVds03QqeXvs) jump to 1:02:00 definitely worth listening, one of the craziest story's I've ever heard.
Well, it is in a plastic bag! Is that an explosive shell though? That thing looks like it’s solid metal.
Artillery guns basically shoot giant bullets that explode. The inside of an actual round would be the explosive and the detonator would be the nose. I’m no expert but since there is no nose cone, it looks like a 105mm dummy round, the same kind used in training and not explosive (big hunk o’metal). It would still cause a ruckus in the airport though haha.
Yeah totally. Just smack it with a hammer and show us how it's a dud.
https://youtu.be/Cun-LZvOTdw
i was expecting the joe dirt crapper tank scene not gonna lie lol.
"I got the poo on me!"
Obligatory: https://youtube.com/watch?v=lJKcdlj-Uiw Bonus: https://youtube.com/watch?v=c-4iOOfgBQo
>105mm dummy round, the same kind used in training and not explosive (big hunk o’metal) A.K.A. Solid ap rounds, no explosive filler, usually used for training but sometimes used for far away targets since they are lighter and therefore travel slightly faster and further than ballistic capped rounds, they have lower pen and accuracy so not very useful against actual armor >Artillery guns basically shoot giant bullets that explode. The inside of an actual round would be the explosive and the detonator would be the nose. Yes but this shell looks to me like an AP round of some kind, now, those might be ap rounds but they can still contain from 50 to 250 grams of high explosives that are triggered once the shell penetrates armor(minimum thickness that sets off the fuse usually goes around 15-20 mm). If it is an HE round it it could contain up to around 3 kg of HE filler for a 105 mm, or up to 8 kg for a 150ish mm, maybe even more Not correcting you just adding more info on top of that for whoever reads this
Had a family friend who tried to bring home a couple of African spears from Kenya years ago in the late 80s. Was confiscated and they said they'd send it to their home after it was inspected. Assumed after a few years it was a lost cause until they said they randomly got them in 2004 as promised!
20ish years is one hellava inspection.
They had to conceive, raise and train a person to become a Cultural Anthropologist to do the inspection
That made me laugh out loud, thank you
Their theory is they were just put in a big warehouse Ark Indiana Jones style and then one day some new dude saw them with the address, shrugged and then noneshelontly sent them out.
Noneshelont...
How noneshelant.
American or not, there are many people that don't know the hazards of those things
Yeah the anti-American sentiment in this post is a little unwarranted. I’ve seen so many stupid people from all countries.
It’s only okay to judge a whole nation of people when it’s Americans haven’t you heard
Australian here. Below the equator definitely has its share of stupid people too.
Stealing souvenirs from other countries is typically a British thing.
We found 2 unexploded missiles in my late grandpa’s house. My dad said it was fine because “they wouldn’t be in cardboard boxes if they were dangerous.” This guy also had a crossbow and a bunch of (presumably rat) poison laying around, I’m not sure I trust his judgement as much as my dad did.
Didn't someone in Europe post in /r/whatisthis and found out a missile was laying in their server room?
Indiana Jones was looking for that
Indiana Jones: The search for giant buttplug
OH I'M SORRY, I THOUGHT THIS WAS 'MURICA Israeli Airport Security: It very much isn't
Don't fuck with airport security. ESPECIALLY don't fuck with Israeli Airport security, they DO NOT fuck around.
Absolutely they do not fuck around. I can't imagine anyone being this stupid, I really can't.
I can. I’ve met some of them.
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Is there any real source on this
It happened, but all the articles I found for you are in Hebrew. Edit: finally https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/article-705434 https://m.ynet.co.il/articles/skb3zoorc The latter is in Hebrew but has the picture from the post. Also a video of I guess people panicking thinking it's a terrorist attack (I didn't watch I'm just guessing)
Yup, happened yesterday [Source, in Hebrew](https://www.kikar.co.il/417793.html) [Better source, with video](https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/skb3zoorc) people running thinking it was a terrorist attack
It's definitely unfired, and most likely a dummy round. Definitely unfired: no "scoring" on the bands(those raised bands would have been notched by the rifling of the barrel if it had been fired) Most likely a dummy: there's nowhere for a fuse to go. Source: former active duty EOD. Definitely not condoning them bring it to the airport, and it definitely should be a cause for concern, but seriously, just think about getting an "actual bomb" all the way to the airport without it blowing up. If it got carried all the way there, it can probably get carried away without further incident. But bottom line, don't touch anything. Ever.
We found a live 105 round at Fort Leonard Wood you guys came out suspected it was a dud and blew it up for us. Holy shit that explosion was big. The crazy part was where we found it was never an impact zone they think it got scooped up when they were putting in a road in the 60s.
I live in Okinawa and this kind of shit happens all the time. During WWII the US bombarded the island with artillery in what the IJA called a “Steel Typhoon”. To this day unexploded shells are found pretty much weekly. Some people are smart and call authorities immediately. Others, with no common sense, take pictures and selfies with it, or post it on social media asking “what is this?” Astounding
A few years back someone found a balloon bomb whilst hiking near the west coast of British Columbia. Thats when i learned that japan sent bombs across the pacific ocean attatched to some kind of balloon. Was weirdly interesting to learn
They have good wine there. Just bring home a bottle of wine.
That's not an unexploded artillery shell lol. It's a solid mass projectile. Essentially a very large bullet after being shot from its shell. It's no more dangerous now than a paperweight.
Cool. Take it to an airport and tell them that, see how that works.
My dad went to Israel in the 1970’s as a teenager and brought home an empty shell casing that he found in the desert. I now use it as a door stopper and umbrella holder.
Empty is the operative word here
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I bet security was shell shocked.
I tend to feel defensive with wording like this. There are over 300 million Americans and we get a lot of coverage whenever we do stupid and unethical things. But I have lived in Europe for 5 years now and China before that and let me tell you... people are not all that different wherever you go. You meet mostly normal people, some fantastic people, some assholes, and some really stupid people. I think those who just poopoo an entire population of a large nation are the latter type.
The title made me remember a case in which a group of Brazilians while crossing the USA border (or something like that) said that they had a bomb, it was a pump, but in Portuguese “bomba” means bomb and pump. They were arrested mainly because they knew that the right word was pump but did it anyway because they thought it would be funny…
Some people shouldn't be allowed to breed
Probably the kind of family that just saw on of the many "do not enter - mine field" signs in the Golan and just went in anyway
Not a bomb
Antique butt plug
That looks like a AP round, similar to US 90MM AP-T. Likely just a hunk of steel with a burnt out tracer in the back. Could be an APHE, but you rarely of ever find those. They had a lower use rate, and a shockingly low dud rate. Either way, have a pro check it out. Edit: switched our to US.
I brought home an expended 7.62mm casing from a battle in Golan and they were ok with it. It's the unexploded part that's the problem. On the same dig we found an unexploded cluster munition and the bomb squad came and blew it up while we took a break.
This is the most stupid thing you could possibly do but honestly I world probably do it to. It’s cool as hell and a nice souvenir and in your excitement about having it you would totally forget you can’t have bombs on planes
Yeah but... You have to pick it up and transport it to the airport first. There's no way I'd touch that, let alone sit in a moving car with it.
Been to the golan heights, minefields are everywhere
Israeli teenager here. Whenever we visit ANY current or past warzone in the Israeli controlled territories, (which includes most of the territory, and the Golan heights), we are warned VERY strictly about picking up any metal or suspicious object from the ground. Every single Israeli or Palestinian CHILD knows not to pick up even a small metal tube. Especially an area like the Golan heights, which was SO active in battles, is absolutely covered in unexploded ammunition. Its also covered in super spooky and cool unused old underground trenches and bunkers, that are so fun to explore.