Posted on 07/20/2007 4:03:18 PM PDT by Hi Heels
Old missile launcher found near NYC Fri Jul 20, 3:11 PM ET
JERSEY CITY, N.J. - An old anti-tank missile launcher was found Friday on a lawn in Jersey City, just across the river from lower Manhattan.
The launcher was inoperable and posed no hazard, police said. They turned it over to Army officials at Fort Monmouth.
Army personnel identified the yard-long tube as an AT-4 anti-tank missile launcher, said fort spokesman Timothy Rider. Such launchers can only be used once to fire a missile, and soldiers determined that this launcher had been fired, he said.
"It can never be reloaded, but it still has the mechanism that can be useful for training," Rider said, explaining that soldiers can learn to carry it on their shoulder and take aim.
Police and Army officials are investigating how the device ended up on the lawn. Officials said it appeared to be about 20 years old.
I was wondering why the neighborhood fireworks were especially loud this year.
Such launchers can only be used once to fire a missile, and soldiers determined that this launcher had been fired, he said.if the tube is EMPTY... that should be their FIRST clue that it's spent. it's pretty much a given, no determination necessary.
What the heck, a yard long tube...my 4th of July launcher is 36" long as well
Media hysteria machine in action. Once again, they had to rescind a previous jump into ‘conclusionville’.
Damn drama queens.
If I recall, the AT-4 waas Swedish-made, and consisted of a launcher and an 84mm (some say this is where it got it’s designation, from the size of the warhead) High-explosive-anti-tank (HEAT), shaped charge round, and had a range of 1,000 meters. The US Marine Corps (and the IDF) referred to the AT-4 as “the Bunker Buster”.
If it was found on a lawn in New Jersey directly across from Manhattan, it was most definitely found in a spot which sits astride, or dead-on, the flight path to Newark (Liberty) International Airport.
Perhaps some of our Muslim friends in Jersey City (where they are legion) training for a potential attack on an aircraft?
Something to look into, i should say....
LOL! Succinct as usual.
P.S. That is NOT to say that this does have a terrorism angle, just that it is a possibility.
It’s also quite possible that someone brought this home as a souvenir from a Reserve weekend or something and just decided to ditch it, or forgot about it.
‘my 4th of July launcher is 36” long’
Does it take the rest of the year to reel it back in your Dockers?
Sorry! Just a pile of “Faulty Wiring”, move along.
Some alternate sub-headlines:
- Kids These Days!
- Teen Pranksters Flush T-P-ing and Leave Dad's War Souvenir
- Recycling: For the Children
- Martha Stewart: Create Herbal Gardens Out of Anything
- Burglaries Decrease When Watch Dog Replaced by Missile Launcher
LOL, good one
(Spent LAWS launchers are a dime a dozen, so I don’t see where this is any different. Somebody is starving for a story)
Please tell me that was sarcasm.
Used AT-4’s and LAWS’s are not considered munitions, and may be ordered through the mail by anyone. Bit of a non-story.
Correct. They contain no explosive or propellant. They are not considered to be a weapon by the BATF.
There are places online where you can buy a spent LAWS. I owned one of these when I was a kid, which was brought back from Vietnam by a friend's father. Looks like they are now collector's items worth hundreds of dollars. I'll have to see if it's in my old closet at Mom's house.
-ccm
yup...
About starving for a news story?
How come people of today are are so stupid?
I don't think it was. Your perspective stems from lack of knowledge. Empty LAW launchers are not even slightly dangerous. In the 50s and 60s, we got to play with dummy WWII ordnance without ignorant adults getting into a panic. We had bazooka rockets, mortar shells, field telephones, you name it. We had great fun, and nobody got hurt because this stuff isn't dangerous. In this day and age, only stupid and ignorant people are the real dangers.
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