The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Back in the late 70's some mates at Uni instead of getting work placements used to go to France, one year they ended up doing forestry clearance, every night they drank far too much wine and then staggered back to the clearing they were camping in, picking up souvenirs along the way, slowly they built a low wall around the tents comprising of live ordinance, this continued for six weeks until they came back to the UK.

Legend has it the local village was evacuated whilst the wall was cleared away by some unhappy French authorities.

They were more concerned when it turned out the midges that uses to bite them at night were actually spiders according to one of the local lasses. I did have a picture of the wall and it was really quite impressive.

Les Pompiers had to evacuate the village & let his house burn due all sorts of stuff cooking off

My very point whenever I meet a collector with live ordonance. Of course he claims it is safe cos "it's in a glass cabinet and that nobody will ever touch it" ... but one day the ashtray full of gauloises catches fire and next thing a fireman is on the receiving end of a WW1 dust cover 75 mm round going off... :cool2:

I recently obtain some 8 cm Wgr. 39 mortar additional propelling increments (material in shape of rings into a strechy canvas material) . I un-stiched all of them , replaced the propelling material by cardborad cut to size & retiched the lot. Took me ages but when I set fire to the disgarded material I was glad I did it ...

What is always humbling when you read about the amount of live ordnance that still litters countries such as France and Belgium is, even during the Great War, the amount of stuff that didn't explode was a tiny amount of what had been fired. Seeing and hearing about the amounts recovered gives you the idea of how much was actually expended!

Is it me, or does my post above make no sense at all....? :?

Items of my Grandfathers from WWI RN
Sailors blue knitted jumper , white hat cover , Princess Mary box , christmas card 1914 , cigarette packet , .303 cartridge with silver bullet which has a pencil in it . various hat ribbons British and German , from the German fleet captured at Scapa Flow . A model of a 15" gun turret .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Moltke_(1910)

Dave

Sim G wrote:Is it me, or does my post above make no sense at all....? :?

Perfect sense, don't forget we are all used to your ramblings by now.

Sim G wrote:Is it me, or does my post above make no sense at all....? :?

Made perfect sense...

froggy wrote:Les Pompiers had to evacuate the village & let his house burn due all sorts of stuff cooking off

My very point whenever I meet a collector with live ordonance. Of course he claims it is safe cos "it's in a glass cabinet and that nobody will ever touch it" ... but one day the ashtray full of gauloises catches fire and next thing a fireman is on the receiving end of a WW1 dust cover 75 mm round going off... :cool2:

I recently obtain some 8 cm Wgr. 39 mortar additional propelling increments (material in shape of rings into a strechy canvas material) . I un-stiched all of them , replaced the propelling material by cardborad cut to size & retiched the lot. Took me ages but when I set fire to the disgarded material I was glad I did it ...

Froggy,

There is lots of stories running here about ordances ventures. Some I know for absolutely true, some are pure 'galéjades".

The collectors I used to knwow ere all competent 'démineurs'. Those 'players with' who were not are no longer here to attest!!!

I remember quite a few pleasant stories about...The unpleasant is an other question.

R.G.C

Re-

collectors ... competent 'démineurs' What a deadly combo !!

Sim G wrote:What is always humbling when you read about the amount of live ordnance that still litters countries such as France and Belgium is, even during the Great War, the amount of stuff that didn't explode was a tiny amount of what had been fired. Seeing and hearing about the amounts recovered gives you the idea of how much was actually expended!

It's not actually that small, it is estimated that in the Great War, up to 1916 over 1/3 of shells didn't explode due to manufacturing faults, then there were those that failed to go off due to other causes like soft impact.

I was going around the Somme with a school group (was one of the prefects) went back to round up some stragglers near the Accrington Pals position. When I found them they were pulling up something looking like an 18lb shell, got them to put it down slowly and walk away, they had been warned about this but frankly didn't care