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[tigertiger]

Big boom from a depth charge on you tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1flVlL4Mf8k&mode=related&search=

[tobyker]

I know remarkably little about depth charges, but surely that isn't one? I thought you bunged them off when the ship was moving. That looks to me more like some kind of underwater demolition job, with the ship standing off a SAFE? distance away to watch the fun. Does anyone know excactly what it was?

[PSSHIPS]

It looks like a volcanic eruption, the only other thing weapon wise may be an ASROC?
 

[tigertiger]

I have no idea if the vid is genoiune.

In the background I think I heard a countdown.

It could have been a test, perhaps of a new DC, so staning off and countdown would be correct.

Nice big bang though.

[Martin (Admin)]

There are other similar videos on YouTube of arms dumps destructions, I wonder if this was an off shore one?...... the black stuff is worrying!

[Bartapuss]

Would'nt want to be on the receiving end of it  :-[

[DavieTait]

Its a controlled detonation guys. This is a French Navy minehunter destroying a WW2 era ship full of bombs that had become dangerous ( thats why the black in the detonation , all the old explosives ) and that was a mile away !!!!!

I found this one myself a while back and checked with some RN guys I know and they'd been shown it last year.

Davie

[Colin Bishop]

There's another one waiting to happen in the Thames Estuary -- ss Richard Montgomery. If that one goes up the Thames Gateway will be closed indefinitely! See: http://www.mcga.gov.uk/c4mca/mcga-environmental/mcga-dops_row_receiver_of_wreck/dops_receiver-of-wreck_richard-montgomery.htm

[Daryl]

That one has been the subject of an interesting article in Navy news a few months ago. the Navy Diving units who cover that part of the UK is keeping and eye on it. I think thats another way of saying, we havn't the money to deal with it or I'm not sure of how to deal with it.

Every now and then munitions from it pop up and they deal with htem.

Daryl

[DavieTait]

If she went up it would take half of the container port with it along with the refinery !!!!! I heard once they estimate it would be the equivalent to a small Nuclear weapon going off ( around 1000t size or a tactical warhead !! )

[tobyker]

Thanks Davie - I thought it was something like that. The one in the Thames is a big problem - let sleeping dogs lie seems to be the only answer (and tiptoe past them!)

[Colin Bishop]

I think that the hope with the Richard Montgomery is that, with time, the explosives will degrade to the point of harmlessness. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

[catengineman]

With the refinary on one side of the Thames and then they had a ferry port at Shearness and there is Thames Port container  port could the monty be such a BIG problem as "they" say.
When I was on a tug working the Thames and Medway rivers 'we' used to cut over Grain edge to use the tides as normal on several occassoins we had to round the monty buy the cardinals, 'IF' she was such a danger then would the planning permission for ports and permission for tugs in tow to be quite so close be granted?

Just my thoughts

Richard,

[DavieTait]

The problem is that planing permission for building these terminals wouldn't have paid much notice to the wreck nor the state of the munitions on board. I think the attitude was nothing happened yet and nothings likely to either , however , the latest RN dives have said that the condition of the munitions onboard were giving some grounds for serious concerns. The reason is simple they used cordite in some of the munitions , cordite when it degrades releases the Nitro-Glycerine which is very unstable.

There was a brand new ( as in 6 months old ) beam trawler fishing in the English Channel 20 years ago and she was lucky to be near Portsmouth when she made contact with a WW2 era Mine , her gear hit the mine which detonated (over 40 years since it was laid..) lifting the whole ship up on the blast. She only just made it to port and when they got her to dry dock she was written off due to the serious damage to her hull. She wasn't a small ship either , she was around 140ft and the mine still had almost the same explosive power as new.

[Bryan Young]

There are other similar videos on YouTube of arms dumps destructions, I wonder if this was an off shore one?...... the black stuff is worrying!

We used to do a lot of "arms" dumping. (Areas on charts are signified). All sorts of "stuff" is ditched...but NOT nuke as far as I am aware.
But in deep water the pressure does funny things. During an "ammo-dump" the ship doing the dumping does not just make one pass over the area. It can easily take a week of going back and forth over the same area. All sorts of odd reactions occur...not least the odd boom and bang heard and felt by the Engine Room staff. And that is the audio version, visually you can see all sorts of weird colours coming up to the surface even in 3,000 fathoms. Some of it pongs a bit.
But if you are dumping over 1,000 tons of this stuff at any one time I guess you must expect some sort of reaction! Perhaps one of the more "committed" members of this forum could find out more using the "freedom of information" act (or not). BY.

[Doc]

It's been my (limited) experience that explosives very seldom deteriorate into a non reactive mass of harmless 'goo'.  If anything, age makes most explosives much more 'touchy', less stable, etc.  Having a little knowledge of how bombs are constructed, submersion in salt water over long periods of time usually results in a breach in the bomb's casings.  Mixing water with explosives can result in their being less dangerous, sometimes.  In other cases, they become even more dangerous.  Just depends on what the explosives were to start with.  I can't see any reason why I would want to ever get closer than absolutely necessary to any explosive devices that I don't have immediate control over.  Not that I want control over any of that stuff if I could possibly help it!  In other words, it would be the only time you would see me setting olympic records for running, and it certainly wouldn't be toward anything like that.
Removing submerged explosives isn't exactly something anyone would look forward to, but if it happens to be that close to people, I think someone should give it serious consideration.
 - 'Doc

[Bryan Young]

Not completely sure which post you were referring to, but as another example:
returning from the Falklands in '82 my ship was "stuffed to the gunnels" with Argie ammo. Most of it was of the missile persuasion and all had "history" logs. Started off in Russian, went into Arabic and then into Spanish. (Does that tell you anything?).
But on the way home a lot of this "stuff" began to sprout weird multicolured "mushroom" type fungii. None of it smelling very nice either!. Finally got back to Plymouth in one piece but the "boffins" took one look and had the ship evacuated. God alone knows what happened after that but it must have been "fun" for the discharging team! And it all had to be dumped somewhere.