Bomb sweeps missed anti-tank weapons, mortars: documents

[Mike Baker]

LINK

Bomb sweeps by Canada's Defence Department on former military ranges failed to turn up a number of potentially explosive remnants of past training exercises, say newly released documents.

At least two former military sites scoured by the department were later found to be riddled with anti-tank weapons, mortar shells and a live 500-pound air-drop bomb.

Some explosives were buried mere centimetres underground, show documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act — raising questions within the Defence Department about why the weapons were missed the first time around.

"Live munitions and munitions debris was found in other areas where it should not be, based upon clearance specs," says a 2007 report on the former Tracadie air force range in northern New Brunswick.

The Defence Department was forced to redo its cleanup of the Tracadie range after local residents complained to Ottawa about finding unexploded explosive ordnance, or UXOs — military jargon for weapons that have yet to detonate.

More on link.
-Deadpan

 

[aesop081]

They're still finding stuff from WW1 over in France and its been how many years ?

Its not because its "mere centimeters underground" that it was so when the sweep happenned.

 

[George Wallace]

Any farmers in the crowd?

How often do you find rocks in your fields?

It is a natural action that the soil changes with the seasons, bringing rocks and.........shells and bombs to the surface. 

As CDN Aviator pointed out; bombs and other ordnance are still coming to the surface in Europe, from wars long gone by, even before WW I.  Do Canadians think it should be any different here?

It is really a bad idea for DND or the Canadian Government to open up former Defence Ranges to the Public.  It is almost criminal for the Government to comtemplate the sale of these Ranges to the Public. 

 

[PanaEng]

Imagine going over an area assigned to you wit a mine detector (metal detector) and this area has been used for over 50 as a multi-weapons range - meaning that the metal fragment content is extremely high. You start off, as directed, with sensitivity setting on the detector set to relatively high. Within the first couple of meters you would have encountered dozens of hits and you dig down to find something the size of a paper clip. Now, a faint indication from the detector can be a nail sized shrapnel fragment at 10cm or a 20lb round at 1m depth. However, pretty soon you start getting tired of all the pea-sized nuggets at 20cm under surface and start lowering the sensitivity of the detector - then you miss the 500lb bomb buried at over a meter deep. A couple of frost and thaw cycles and some erosion and that bomb could show its face. Or it could get buried deeper and rust away never to be found again.

As a previous poster said, I don't think a former range can be returned to civilian use in a short time period if ever.

Chimo!

Frank

 

[tango22a]

When I was in Calgary on course in 81 they were sweeping the Sarcee Ranges in preparation for their return to the Sarcee Band . The DND was supposedly going to Guarantee NO UXB to a depth of 30 inches. I was told they were using flails and CEV to sweep the area. All it would take would be someone putting in a foundation for a dwelling to exceed the guaranteed depth. You never know what a back-hoe might dig up or detonate. Result- lots of negative publicity and probably a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Unfortunately you can never tell what you may encounter on a Military Firing Range.

tango22a

 

[OldSolduer]

I was on that sweep in 81 in Calgary. OP BILBO it was called.
17 days of doing nothing but walking the range.

 

[tango22a]

After going on to Wainwright to fire 76mm from Cougars in 85, we had a tracer start  a fire on the range. IIRC it burnt off several acres as the Base FD refused to go on range to put it out as they didn't know what other UXB was out there....don't blame them one bit. Every so often as the fire spread you could hear an explosion as the heat detonated any left-over munitions. As I said in a previous post you never know what you may encounter on a Military Firing Range.

tango22a

 

[Kat Stevens]

When I was in Calgary on course in 81 they were sweeping the Sarcee Ranges in preparation for their return to the Sarcee Band . The DND was supposedly going to Guarantee NO UXB to a depth of 30 inches. I was told they were using flails and CEV to sweep the area. All it would take would be someone putting in a foundation for a dwelling to exceed the guaranteed depth. You never know what a back-hoe might dig up or detonate. Result- lots of negative publicity and probably a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Unfortunately you can never tell what you may encounter on a Military Firing Range.

tango22a

There was never any mechanical clearance, all on foot, extended line, visual and mine detector work. It was only much later, 94 ish, that hydoaxes were used to cut the brush, and they caused more problems than they solved.  First time in history we couldn't get a CF training area to burn.  Us Sappers turned a few heads at the MIR when we showed up in the middle of summer with frostbite on our backs from the propane tanks for the tiger torches.

 

[JackD]

ha! i remember that! It was so complelely idiotic - yeah as being one of those in charge of the burn crew, i was darned worry you guys would come down with heat prostration - not to mention get caught in some back-fire - and you got frost burns from those tanks on your back. Mind you, the whole show was silly. The group i was with (8 Ch)  as their 'éxpert'', had one casualty due to a porcupine falling on one guy's head. In the end, i was extremely ticked to have to run the vehicles back to Chilliwack as a: the lead driver (the only one too, for the entire distance) - and B: the road move commander - with someone nice enough to blow an engine and mechanic's support that ended at the B.C. border. There was no way I was going to (and there was no possible way to) tow the truck down the canyon. and so i got merry Hell for leaving it at the cadet base - it was just another time i told my superiors to f-off. Oh yeah, i was supposedly to transport the bulldozer back to base too - on what i said, the back of a deuce and ahalf? It was just another summer that i spent doing extra duties... and developing a baddddddddd atttitttuddde...

 

[tango22a]

I am also willing to bet that there are all kinds of UXB waiting to be found in the back areas of the former ranges at Ipperwash. Ah well!!

tango22a

 

[Rodahn]

I am also willing to bet that there are all kinds of UXB waiting to be found in the back areas of the former ranges at Ipperwash. Ah well!!

tango22a

No doubt, in 77 we did a range clearance in Wainwrong, specifically to detonate a 500lb aircraft UXO.... Never did find it, and wouldn't be surprised to hear that it was still missing on the range. We did manage to find lots of other UXO's though...

Chimo.

 

[tango22a]

While on 76mm Range at Wainwright we had to cease fire while a CF5 bombed and rocketed in the danger template for our range. He made up for it with a low pass about 50m over the control tower balls-to-the-wall!! It was worth the pause in our shoot. It was also at this time the Recce Platoon Commander from 3 PARA wanted to put his troops out in the impact area so his troops could be under live fire... the Range Officer near had kittens in the tower.

Cheers,

tango22a

 

[McG]

Traditional Mine detectors are not the best tools for a proper range clearance.  If you want to really find the burried ordnance from artillery to aircraft munitions, then you want to be working with a bomb locator coupled with a GPS and modern data logger.  Unfortunately, our Forester bomb locators are old, don't have these fancy features and do not exist in large numbers.

Another option would be new multi-sensor mine detectors (the US AN/PSS-14 ) which combine metal detectors with ground penetrating radar.  

.... and there is always the option of the ILDS detection vehicle if the ground is open enough.

 

[PanaEng]

Agree with you MCG.
Most of these former military areas including ranges that got return to civilian use were transfered before we had this equipment readily available. Some of them may have to be revisited.

Chimo!
Frank

 

[daftandbarmy]

It was also at this time the Recce Platoon Commander from 3 PARA wanted to put his troops out in the impact area so his troops could be under live fire... the Range Officer near had kittens in the tower.

Typical 3 PARA. Lack of initiaitve, too much blabbing. He should have inserted covertly at night and said nothing to anyone about it ;D

 

[tango22a]

IIRC the Mortar Platoon from 3PARA fired 81mm ILLUM for our night shoot. The same bunch did very well in the Falklands the following year. At the time PRes had no RADNIS for the Cougars, though by 85 it was available.

Cheers,

tango22a

 

[Maclimius]

And in 2001 as RADNIS was being phased out I had the wonderful opportunity to shoot with a nice Black hole from the MBS to my 900m graticule marker. Not so great for a night shoot at battle range. On another note, I just had a chat with an ammo tech buddy of mine currently posted in WX and there is still a 500-LB listed as UXO with an approximate only location on their charting. He tried to convince them on a slow day they should go out and look for it.

 

[armyca08]

The only way to deal wth ranges is to dig the entire thing out sift and then either build something in that big giant hole or backfill it.

You could always do trench training there or something over a number of years - or use it as a garbage dump afterwars.. noone would ever get back to that level, chances of a fire leading to an explosions are relaively small, and dump areas are in high demand -if it was an ordinance range it must be well enough remoed to act as a garbage dump.

 

[ammocat]

I will agree that the only way to be sure that no UXO's remain on a former range is to dig up the entire range and sift it to see what falls out. Unfortunately, this is not practical in the terms of manpower, time, environmental impact or cost. The are several problems with range clearance operations, especially when the range has been in use for an extended period of time. Like everything else in the military, we learn as time goes on and develop new procedure and equipment. There are training areas that were used for training during the first and second world wars where there are virtually no records of what kind of ordnance was used, if duds were produced during training, etc. Now we have procedures in place to try to mitigate the risk, range records to record the type of munitions used, number of rounds fired, record any known duds, etc.

The problem with UXO's is the liability and risk that they pose to any person that comes into contact with them. Turning a former range into a garbage dump would possibly limit the number of people that could come into contact with a UXO, but typically in land fills heavy equipment is used so the risk of uncovering a UXO may be high. This would certainly put people at risk.

 

[daftandbarmy]

The only way to deal wth ranges is to dig the entire thing out sift and then either build something in that big giant hole or backfill it.

You could always do trench training there or something over a number of years - or use it as a garbage dump afterwars.. noone would ever get back to that level, chances of a fire leading to an explosions are relaively small, and dump areas are in high demand -if it was an ordinance range it must be well enough remoed to act as a garbage dump.

An entrepreneur would see this as a golden opportunity to charge other countries' EOD teams (through the nose) to come here and improve their skills by finding our old ammo. Call it 'ATO Disney Land' or something...