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| Europe |
| Ill-Secured Soviet Arms Depots Tempting Rebels and Terrorists |
| 2005-07-16 |
| ICHNYA, Ukraine - The ammunition is stacked in mounds in a clearing, exposed to rain and sun. The crates that hold it are rotting. After more than a decade in the elements, many have ruptured, exposing high-explosive rockets and mortar fins. This is the overstuffed ammunition depot behind the security fences at Military Unit A1479, a small base in the Ukrainian forest under military guard. At least 5,700 tons of ammunition, grenades and explosive powder have come to rest here, according to an unclassified NATO inventory. Almost all of it is unwanted. Much of it has expired, and some is considered too unreliable or too unsafe to use. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #6 I'm also wondering if this stuff is good ammunition, or the corrosive sort of ammo that you can buy cheap from former Warsaw pact suppliers, where you have to clean out the gun with windex after each batch shot at the range. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-07-16 14:15 |
| #5 So, just thinking out loud here... if the stuff is that old, and that unstable... what would be wrong with the authorities looking away some dark night, and letting some ambitious jihadi or would-be arms merchant sneak in and try and lift a couple of pallets worth, on the sly. I mean, explosive work accidents aren't neccessarily a bad thing, and this would reduce both the inventories of bad guys and old munitions in one fell swoop. Bit noisy for the closer neighbors, though. |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2005-07-16 14:02 |
| #4 When I was young there were these Civil War/Spanish Am War/ WW-1 bunkers south of US Hwy 2 that went for miles. (note I don't say where). Nobody really dared enter them to examine or clean them up. Every once in awhile one would explode... Not sure if they ever cleaned them up. (Of course not much use to terorists... one wrong move and bang... the stuff is just too old.) |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-07-16 11:48 |
| #3 Military Unit A1479, Now there's a creative name for ya... |
| Posted by: Raj 2005-07-16 11:15 |
| #2 So everytime there's a thunderstorm, the neighbors get a fireworks show? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-07-16 03:55 |
| #1 ...Dear God, what a mess this must be. Even US military ammo, probably the safest and most stable in the world, gets twitchy as it nears the end of its shelf life, and that is under conditions of proper storage, inspection, and maintenance. From what I know of Soviet era ammo, this stuff may well kill you if you look at it crosseyed. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2005-07-16 01:53 |