Posted on 04/12/2008 12:33:55 PM PDT by Calpernia
Jefferson Township, N.J. (1010 WINS) -- A piece of artillery that was apparently misfired by the military crashed through the roof of a home miles away Friday and injured a young girl's cat, which had to be euthanized, officials said.
No people were injured when the 2-pound piece hit the Jefferson Township home about 2 1/2 miles from the Picatinny Arsenal and landed in the girl's bed, said Peter Rowland, arsenal spokesman. She wasn't home, but her cat was sleeping on the bed.
Excerpt
(Excerpt) Read more at 1010wins.com ...
ping
Cat mentioned
Fore!!! Oops, our bad!
At least no one was hurt (save the kitty of course).
The artillery crashing into the child’s bed sent chills down my spine.
OOops
Catastrophe!
Wait till I tell this story to my cats.....they are going to freak out.
You have to admit hitting a sleeping cat in a house from 2 1/2 miles away is no easy feat to be sure! ;-)
Ya think?
My gun club is actually just a few miles from McGuire AFB. (another part of the Ft. Dix military complex.) We've actually agreed not to allow anyone to fire a .50BMG because we did the math and if you fired directly over the last berm at the rifle range it would come down in the AFB and still be delivering enough energy to kill someone.
Now it seems the actual concern is that they might return fire.
Very weird story. Here is an example of an "artillery piece" that weighs almost 8 tons:
Perhaps the writer means a projectile, or a projectile fragment, hit the cat. The M198 pictured above can send a 95-pound HE projectile almost 14 miles downrange.
Was it a politician’s home?
>>>Now it seems the actual concern is that they might return fire.
LOL!
If it was, their aim was really way off.
The article says that the “projectile” was 6 x 4 inches, and weighed 2 pounds.
I’d like to know what kind of “artillery” fires something that size and weight”?
Well the cat had already used up 8 of the 9 lives available, so it obviously had an exciting life.
WHOA! This is not good.
Let the cat jokes begin!
Just guessing, but, a two-pounder?
Methinks when an artillery round lands on a sleeping cat, that uses up all nine lives instantly.
Whoever was the safety officer for that shoot has gotta be crapping in his or her pants right about now.... IIRC, the story was that when a round from Ft. Sill was 1800 mils out of safe and landed in Lawton, the safety officer ended up as a guest of the government in Leavenworth. Of course, that's the famous incident where a 240mm howitzer round landed in the intersection of Sheridan and Gore in the '50s.
We lived at Picatinny Arsenal for a number of years ... army brat here.
Training round?
28:06:42:12
You have to admit hitting a sleeping cat in a house from 2 1/2 miles away is no easy feat to be sure! ;-)....................
Thats a hell of a shot. Difficulty factor way up there due to additional kentucky windage needed for roof deflection.
Which is why it was still called "The Impact Area" in 1967, when I went to OCS at Sill.
Stupid reporting. THey say the cat was sleeping on the bed, the artillery piece landed in the bed, but don’t say if the cat was okay or not. Idiots. That’s the most interesting piece of the damn story (besides the fact you have artillery busting through the house!)...
From the first post on this thread:A piece of artillery that was apparently misfired by the military crashed through the roof of a home miles away Friday and injured a young girl's cat, which had to be euthanized, officials said.
What part did you overlook here?
Hard to see this happening — they must mean an artillery shell.
From what I can gather from the first sentence of the article, the cat had no complaints after they euthanized it.
Stupid reporting. THey say the cat was sleeping on the bed, the artillery piece landed in the bed, but don’t say if the cat was okay or not. Idiots.
From the first post on this thread:A piece of artillery that was apparently misfired by the military crashed through the roof of a home miles away Friday and injured a young girl's cat, which had to be euthanized, officials said.
I read this to mean that they had to euthanize the artillery piece.
Which had me sobbing uncontrollably.
PPPOOOOOOR ARTILLERY PIECE!!!!!!!! (weeping)
Well, this is bad, but in 1960 an artillery round fell short and killed a whole mess of people I knew who were standing in the chow line in tent city at Graf, in Germany. Now and then stuff happens and luckily it was only a cat and not the girl who was hit.
Possibly a light mortar round?
To measure 4” x 6” and only weigh 2 pounds means that it was only about 1/4” thick. Sounds more like bomb casing shrapnel rather than artillery shrapnel. If it is shrapnel at all.
An officer’s wife at Camp LeJeune NC was killed on base driving to the market from base housing when a shell went miles out of the impact zone and hit the road just in front of her car. About 1988 I think.
I did basic training at Fort Dix many years ago. I can’t say that I miss it.
I think an artillery shell fell short during training at Fort Drum, NY about 10 years ago and landed in a tent or something and killed 2 soldiers.
“To measure 4” x 6” and only weigh 2 pounds means that it was only about 1/4” thick. Sounds more like bomb casing shrapnel rather than artillery shrapnel. If it is shrapnel at all.”
Maybe an arrow?
Second thought: The gun crew will probably get hired by BATFE.
Even that doesn't fit the story.
The weight is too small the size of the projectile, especially a projectile capable of penetrating the roof of a house.
I’d like to know what kind of “artillery” fires something that size and weight”?
Maybe they were trying out one of those electro-magnetic rail guns.
Possibilities might be:
1. A fragment of a 105mm or 4.2" projectile could be that size but the weight seems wrong.
2. Some kind of experimental base ejector might meet that description.
When? I was stationed there 67/68.
As usual the media gets it pretty much all wrong. There is no way that a two pound device is artillery. I am not doubting it was a projectile nor am I doubting that the military fired it errantly. But what is so hard about getting your facts straight before going publishing an article?...it ain’t that hard. They just look foolish in my mind.
Also note that it was not just a cat that was wounded...it was a “young girl’s cat”. They made sure they got that fact correct. That is an attempt to create a more negative feeling toward the military.
Regardless of the stupidity and anti-military slant of the media, heads roll when ordinance is fired into locations where it is not supposed to be fired, especially off post and endangering civilians. Careers will end, and rightfully so.
From a NYT article published today:
“There is active concern that Fort Monmouth, Picatinny and the Philadelphia Naval Yard may go down,” said Representative Robert E. Andrews, Democrat of Bellmawr, who has actively lobbied in defense of the bases. “New Jersey seems to have been disproportionately targeted.”
Why don’t we just close this base and kill two birds with one stone?
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