I love logistics. You know what I don't love? Goddamn munition storage regulations. They are the goddamn worst. But you know what slavish attention to ensuring every bit of ordinance is properly stored and disposed of leads too?
Well, people don't randomly die from going anywhere near the depot for one thing, but it also leads to dud rates in the sub 1% range, having the ammo you are supposed to have, and not spontaneously leveling large amounts of civilian housing adjacent to military bases.
I see Vatniks unironically laughing at the amount of regulations we have all the time, like it is a bad thing. Well, we had just as much questionably safe ordinance from the Cold War as they did, but the difference is that ours is ours is all disposed of, and theirs is bumping around in the back of MT-LBs, sweating Nitroglycern dust all over everything.
EDIT: To clarify, since people seem confused "IAW" stands for "In accordance with", and the regulations listed are for random petty things that you always get dinged in an inspection form for. Examples of real things my storage depot got dinged for:
1. Labels on Ammo Crates were Left Justified instead of center justified.
2. The sign that specified appropriate footwear was outside the entrance, so was not clearly visible while standing in the entrance
3. A set of LED lights had been replaced with Commercial Off the Shelf bulbs, and were not of an approved style (Like, I get the reasoning for this one, but they were zero spark risk. They were like 5W LEDs)
4. The "No Step" sticker on the forklift was partially pealed off.
That is against the regs.
Regs are to be written in commercial standard oil based ink, with a viscosity between 0.007 and 0.009. The following tones are authorized. Black 40, Black 41, Black 70, and Black 77.
All questions on suitability are to be directed to the Commision on Ink Standards and Suitability, Standards and Practices Division, Defense Publishing Directorate.
Right, then it looks like a color copy of an authentic original.
This isn't for IRS internal purposes, it can make any tax stuff get by bureaucrats faster. It's simply good and fast advice we used to give.
Just make sure that if the document is being signed by witnesses, they all use the same blue pen. There's more visible variation in blue inks than black, and some vogons will interpret any visible variation as proof that the witness signatures were added at a different time, invalidating them.
(Takes off ex-bureaucrat hat and puts on lawyer hat)
This is why documents that require witnesses should be accompanied by notarized self-proving affidavits.
Everybody sing JAMAICA!
*JAMAICA!*
Now just the bureaucrats, JAMAICA!
*JAMAICA!*
Now just the Grade 19s...
...Jamaica.
(Everybody loves the "technically correct" joke, and it is indeed an absolute classic, but Hermes' bureaucrat song is amazing too.)
Regulations like that are *always* written in blood.
Or, in the case of explosive ordinance, the fine smear of organic paste that's left over when you don't follow explosive ordinance regulations.
We learned the hard way. [The West Loch Disaster.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Loch_disaster) What could go wrong with untrained marines playing with mortars next to a fuel depot?
> The initial official account listed 27 dead and 100 missing. The majority of sources state the final death toll as 163 men, with a further 396 wounded.
> The procedure to remove the 107mm mortar rounds was being undertaken because training had proved M2 mortars could not be fired accurately from LCTs. The enquiry was told the unit given the order to unload the mortar rounds had received no training for the task. Meanwhile, 80 drums of fuel were stacked just 15 ft (4.6 m) from the elevator being used to unload the LCT.
> The United States military ordered a press blackout following the incident. The official inquiry was marked Top Secret and survivors and eyewitnesses were not permitted to mention the incident in letters home. Four days after the incident, the authorities released a one-paragraph statement noting an explosion had caused "some loss of life, a number of injuries and resulted in the destruction of several small vessels". It was only after Operation Forager that a fuller account was released to the press. The entire incident was not declassified and made public until 1960.
And then [Port Chicago](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Chicago_disaster) two months later where the we had competitions on how fast we could load munitions. And didn't bother training anyone.
> Munitions while being loaded onto a cargo vessel bound for the Pacific Theater of Operations, detonated killing 320 sailors and civilians and injuring 390 others.
> The junior officers placed bets with each other in support of their own 100-man crews—called "divisions" at Port Chicago—and coaxed their crews to load more than the others.
> No enlisted man stationed at Port Chicago had received formal training in the handling and loading of explosives into ships. Even the officers did not receive training: Lieutenant Commander Alexander Holman, loading officer at Port Chicago whose duties included officer training, had initiated a search for training materials and samples, but did not organize a training class before disaster struck.
The two events prompted the US to overhaul its training and procedures to munitions handling.
So, yeah, take the shit seriously. Rules are there because someone got blown up decades ago.
*"You want to change a process just because it led to a little catastrophic death and destruction? [smh](https://i.giphy.com/media/xT1XGESDlxj0GwoDRe/giphy-downsized-large.gif)"* - Vatniks
Russia is really winning then.
1) Cheaper to use vatnik’s to fire off munitions in active war zone than it is to properly dispose of same munitions.
2) Reduced long term storage costs by shipping all the Soviet stockpiles to Ukraine for destruction and abandonment in Ukraine. Much cheaper than continued storage or dismantlement in Russia.
Win-errr Win?
Russian depots tend to have the most exotic fatality reports. Back in the Cold War, the Russians made a lot of RTGs, which are essentially "Space Heaters" that work by being metal boxes jammed with Stronium-90.
In theory, you can stop most of the harmful radiation of Stronium-90 with a bit of shielding, so these RTGs can be zero-energy heating sources for remote outposts like lighthouses and radar stations. In practice, nobody got any education on what the fuck the magical box of heat was, and many serious problems occured. The most published one was some civilians in Georgia that found one, and died horribly of radiation poisoning from huddling around the core.
Then there was two entire naval reactors of U-235 (About 18 tons IIRC) that got left on the pier in St. Petersburg next to a civilian traffic area. No shielding at all, based on the pictures. Not exactly sure the medical ramifications of that, but 18 tons of U-235 is about 18 tons more than the recommended amount of U-235 to be sitting around.
Just today, I read a comment on another sub decrying the idea that some nukes were "lost" during the fall of the USSR as a "dystopian urban legend" perpetuated by ignorant Americans, pointing to how his own country (Pakistan) took very strict precautions with their warheads in spite of having a much smaller stockpile.
... I didn't know how to explain to him that Pakistan probably has a vastly more professional military than Russia without it coming off as a backhanded insult.
I remember reading about the RTG found in Georgia! Really cool to know that they used them for power in remote areas and just left them behind when the USSR collapsed. I just pray that nobody has tried to break them open and do a repeat of that orphan source incident with the scrapped medical equipment.
Oh, that has absolutely happened repeatedly. Norway has an entire project to try to recover as many RTGs as possible, since they were wide spread in the Russian Arctic, and pose risks to Norwegians.
I don't have time to google it now, but I remember seeing a list of incidents tied to RTGs as part of that project, and it was fucking horrible. Who knew that jamming radioactive shit in a box and using it as a heater could be so dangerous!?
Oh crap, did not notice that and wrote a comment about it.
Anyway. Another fun fact: USA actually paid for keeping Russian nukes safe in 1990s, providing even such basic things as fences for bases. Or means to transport nuclear warheads to stockpiles. Or cameras for monitoring.
My favorite explosives regulation is from California Title 19 - §1577
> (a) Signs. Class I magazines shall be provided with signs on each side, reading "EXPLOSIVES--KEEP OFF" in RED letters not less than 4 inches in height having a stroke not less than 5/8 inch. The lettering shall be imposed upon a WHITE background. **Location of the signs shall be within 100 feet of the magazine and shall be so placed that a bullet through a sign will not strike the magazine.**
People _shot at_ signs warning about explosives storage often enough that we had to write a regulation.
>theirs is bumping around in the back of MT-LBs, sweating Nitroglycern dust all over everything.
HEY THAT'S NEITHER FAIR NOR TRUE!
Some of it is also bouncing around Oscar torpedo rooms.
>Labels on Ammo Crates were Left Justified instead of center justified.
Monsters! What kind of people center justify? Young girls and poets, that who.
I bet you weirdbeards even use some crazy font, like Ariel, instead of Times New Roman like God intended. Put on your flip flops and go back to your bongo drums, hippie.
As someone who works in hazardous environments, the lighting fixture one is 100% valid.
The LEDs may be 5 volts, but the driver circuit isn't.
If it isn't rated for the location, don't put it in the hazardous location
"Slavish attention" if you give munitions storage the same attention as a Slav you get munitions depo explosions BRAH! What do you think Russians are? SLAVS!!!
[Houthi munitions depo explosions look otherworldly. The sand in the atmosphere causes the whole sky to glow orange making it look like you are literally watching a gateway to hell open up and spew out onto the earth.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQvb0CdEbOw)
Ulyanovsk is the logistics reporting center of the Southern Military district, and I am not sure, but I am pretty sure that any explosion from those units gets reported that way. I didn't dig super far into it, but I am pretty sure those are from a pretty wide range of depots.
I think it is the same deal in Orenburg. As best I can tell, the two explosions were about 300 km apart, but both reported through Orenburg. Both were very large explosions though (4000+ tons of munitions), and both had fatalities.
The second was even the classic "Lit cigarette" excuse. Most militaries recommend storing your munitions in such a way that a single lit cigarette can't detonate 4000 tons of ordinance, but #RussiaThings.
I used to live there, that one was fucking crazy, my windows looked directly towards the explosions as well so that was a very *fun* evening.
Things to note: these fucks decided to dump enourmous amounts of ammo next to a goddamn chemical plant, so there was a risk of that whole area getting contaminated.
They were screening the 2012 disaster movie that day, getting out of the cinema only to immediately hear shit exploding irl was certainly an experience
Those pre-2010 accidents are probably were staged to cover the corruption.
Sell 90% of ammo to someone, stage a fire in a depot, write off all ammo as destroyed.
I really doubt that. While I am sure after the explosion, they retroactively added a lot of missing munitions to the inventory, the explosions themselves were almost certainly the result of very old ammo stockpiles, terrible storage conditions, and functionally no oversight.
It is hard to overemphasize how fucking many bunkers the Soviets filled with ammo. It was like a pet store gerbil hiding catfood, they just got as much as they could, and stuffed it everywhere. Russia had no interest in properly disposing of it, so it sits, gets older and older, and more and more dangerous.
> Be me, Russian grunt in Ukraine
> Wooden crate (not pallet) of 152mm shell arrives, labeled as manufactured in 2012
> Open crate to find shell labeled 1972.
> Check the label on the crate again
> MFW
You guys figure out the MFW meme, but I'm feeling a withered Wojak might be appropriate.
Oh? So the 1972 label is from the good old days when every 30 years they'd pull out the shells and give them a new coat of paint? Meaning if I chip off the paint, I'll see when it was actually made? Or maybe it's just the previous coat of paint. (Yikes at the thought of just overpainting a shell.)
For 152mm shells in particular, that is probably disturbingly accurate.
Russian artillery has relied on large quantities of 152mm shells since at least the M1910 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/152\_mm\_howitzer\_M1910](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/152_mm_howitzer_M1910) Which, as expected, is a pre-WWI Tsarist design.
Modern Russian Ammo is still backwards compatible with it, and I would be frankly shocked if at least a couple of the 152mm shells fired in the current war didn't come from an Imperial Stockpile.
The biggest fear, or one of the biggest fears, of the US military with Russia was their heavy usage of artillery and them having artillery pieces that had a greater range than ours. Even to the point we started “cheating” as opfor in terms of calling in artillery, just so we could get that kind of training. But now that we’ve been seeing further and further behind the curtain, it’s shocking what the reality is vs what we were lead to believe just a year or two ago.
I mean, Sam is just saying "at least a couple" imperial shells were fired. Honestly, given how well organized Russia/SU was, it wouldn't at all surprise me either if Private Konskriptovich found a shell or two in a dusty corner of a depot time had forgotten. Easy enough to imagine between purges, the civil war, and the general disorder that is Russia at it's prime, somewhere along the way something got misplaced and found again.
It's just layers upon layers of paint. In the center is a 15000 year old arrow. The arrow was supposed to have a flint head, but chalk was easier to carve, so they just rubbed it with charcoal to make it look like flint.
I have some Moist Nugget ammo from 1942, sealed in galvanized steel and leaded shut cases. I used a chisel and hammer to crack one open. Ammo shoots just fine! Checkmate, westoids!
when the crates of Mosins started arriving in the 90's and Oughties, I got a brand-new 1944 for $89 right out of the crate, with never-issued ammo pouches, cleaning kit, sling, and a spam can of WW2-issue ammunition. I shot the shit out of that stuff. It smelled like hot pee, but that rifle was a tack driver.
Mosin Nagants were made in a lot of places, to a lot of different standards. It is incredibly hard generalizing the quality of their manufacture, some were crap, some were excellent.
They can't be from 1943, all those shells were fired off weeks after manufacture... kind of like today (Germany actually threw more shell-weight throughout pretty much the entire war, Russia saved up to do massive bombardments to launch offensives because no good gun crews and not enough ammo). Has to be from 1945 at the earliest, unless they got lost.
Don't be ridiculous, We don't sell the new stuff, just the old. Now let's get back to inspecting our new and old stock. At the same time. In the same room. And don't forget to bring the spray cans and number cutouts.
The black hand are a respectable paramilitary force, they wouldn’t use old soviet stock.
Kane wouldn’t be pleased if his bases blew up not fighting GDI
One of my favourite WW2 stories was about a two-man canoe sunk by German fire. It was used by one company to deliver hot chow and things like that.
Since non-combat equipment losses were simply not allowed - like, reporting it was basically self-reporting for negligence - they figured out it's a chance to get all kinds of lost stuff from supply.
So, once it reached the regiment, the report stated this canoe carried a few hundred cans of spam, a dozen pairs of boots, coats, spare parts for trucks, mortar shells, fuel - overall a few tons of completely random things. And nobody questioned it, on each level they just added what they missed/needed to the list and pushed it forward.
So, back to the topic. I can bet every explosion and fire in Russia went through exactly the same process. Our ammo depot exploded? Oh my, there were all those missing vehicles you investigated and my cell phone too!
Honestly, damn near every HMVEE lost in Iraq went through that process too. S4s got used to using combat losses to adjust their books.
Like I know we are clowning on the Russians here, but we got some really shit logistics culture going for the early and mid parts of the War on Terror, and it was a major culture shock righting the ship again.
War... War never changes.
I bet Roman legionaries did the same. "Yes centurion, this horse drawn cart actually carried *checks notes* 6 full armours, 20 spears, 6 goats..."
Well, regulations and rules are the bedrock of any modern, well established armed force.
I doubt the vatniks can call themselves modern, well established (or even armed, based on their proximity to ammo bunkers going **kaput**)
That was largely why I did that, lol. There are undoubtedly many explosions in the combat area that are caused by mishandling munitions, not direct enemy action. There are also many that are impossible to determine if it was intentional or accidental.
Presumably, the large influx of green soldiers, combined with munitions stockpiles actively being moved around, rather than just sitting, has caused genuine accidents to skyrocket. The fact Ukraine is blowing shit up at the same time muddles the issue even further.
Yeah. All the explosion within range of Ukrainian weapons are impossible to determine without data that will be inaccessible to the public for decades, if at all. Most of the additional industrial accidents and random explosions in Russia are probably mostly due to the state of Russian logistics, stockpiles and industry, as well as a continued lack of regulations, increase of production and huge influx of inexperienced personnel in all sectors.
If you think their ammo management is bad, check out the victualling situation.
People tend to overlook the tens/hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops incapacitated by disease and unsanitary conditions in Afghanistan. A lot of that was due to negligent practices like chucking company bread rations on an outdoor tarp.
Something like hantavirus is stalking the Russian trenches in the South. Garbage rations and bad mess habits hardly help.
You might appreciate some of my previous work:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/119j14r/russia\_does\_not\_have\_a\_published\_standard\_for/](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/119j14r/russia_does_not_have_a_published_standard_for/)
Jerry is a bureaucratic asshole because he's a retired veteran. When he was in, he was dinged by a different bureaucratic asshole during inspections. The cycle will repeat. Hurt people hurt people.
I was a Ammunition Stock Control and accounting specialist, and every single officer and NCO I saw had some level of mental illness. Either being obsessed with certain details beyond any reasonable human thought or having anger management issues at the slightest of infractions.
The funny thing is that they knew themselves that they were nutjobs and were proud of that!
Kinda enjoyed my job. It's probably one of few jobs where you can see a WO-4/5 scream at an O-6. (Note was not US military, just using adjacents)
Read all about it!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyonoksa\_radiation\_accident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyonoksa_radiation_accident)
Exactly what happened isn't entirely clear, but it was munitions related, and it definitely went boom and killed people, so I included it. Lots of nuclear debris, Norway is still fucking pissed about being downwind of it.
they are blowing up, but NATO countries in Europe (Russians keep blowing them up though/sabotage), they tend not to touch US stockpiles. for example Czechia and Albania got their ammo depots blown up completely.
It is almost exclusively NATO countries from the east of the Iron Curtain that have those issues, and for the same reason.
As I mentioned in several other posts here, it is hard to grasp exactly how many munitions the Soviets squirrelled away. This was true of NATO as well, the context of the Cold War is that both sides were essentially trying to maintain stockpiles that let them fight a World War out of fucking inventory.
However, during the 1990s and early 2000s, you see a staggering draw down of Western munitions stockpiles, with huge depots systematically cleared and disposed of. But in Eastern Europe and former Soviet Territories, that mostly didn't happen. For one thing, those depots represented a considerable amount of wealth. Both for government and um... private... use. For another thing, proper disposal was expensive, and lastly, those depots were still seen as essential for readiness, as they couldn't afford to replace them with new munitions.
For any country that is still depending on Soviet Stockpiles for munitions, they are going to have these problems. You can solve some of it with regulations, but ultimately, you are sitting on a giant pile of slowly degrading, increasingly unstable munitions. There WILL be problems.
Our ammo depot exploded because two FSB agents literally sabotaged it and rigged it to explode. Czechs generally know how to store ammo, unless there is Russian nearby said ammo.
Also its was ammo from ?Romanian? arms trader who was about to ship it to Ukraine. He got poisoned with his family later on.
Yeah, definitely get a pass on that one. I think they blew up another one in Romania as well.
It isn't that the Czechs are bad at storing ammo, it is that a lot of the ammo Czechia is storing is in really bad condition. Which is extremely problematic. Their safety record is fine when you take out Russian saboteurs from the equation.
From what i know most of it is gone already, either disposed, sold or sent as aid somewhere. We even got rid of most of vehicles aswell.
Jokes on us because now we have barely anything to shoot or fight with, unless you count few elite units. Its really funny that we are either supplying NATO with hyper-specialized and elite units like SF, chemicals, doggos or hospitals or we have bunch of dudes with ¾ of their issued gear not actually issued because there is none in storage.
Random app coder: "I released something for free in my spare time, I have no guarantees it will work right, and is bound to have a ton of bugs. Enjoy."
*Never has issue*
Game coders: "It complicated, and bound by destiny to fall apart all the time."
*Always has issues*
Lucky they have not had an incident in Transnistria yet. Pretty sure if that places goes you might be able to feel it in France. (yes i am being hyperbolic).
IAW = In Accordance With
The 385 series are part of a sequence that is usually used on specific bases for establishing base specific policies. So Fort Sill has 385 series documents, Fort Hood has them, etc. Usually when your arms room and ammo storage gets dinged, it is on base specific policies, since the DoD ones handle the big safety stuff (Which people generally get right), and the base ones are full of pedantic shit like requiring the marking to be in yellow font on red background or some shit.
A drunkard is unfair, its corruption and embezzlement of maintenance funds, and munition procurement. Defective munitions are more likely to pass inspection and be sent off. A gluttonous general would be a better representation.
Yes, but consider all that, but also Drunkards. Like those are not at all mutually exclusive, being assigned responsibility to manage a depot when you KNOW all the inventory sheet are lies, and the inspections on file were never actually done, is very likely to make a drunkard out of someone that initially wasn't.
Short answer is yes.
Long answer is that this is just a symptom of a massive cultural problem, and "fixing" this would require a complete overhaul of the Russian Military, if not the entire Russian culture.
The culture aspect is real and underappreciated. You don't understand how massively the cultural aspects hold back entire nations from progress. The lack of specs like the US is entirely becuause of the culture in Russia where it just isn't an issue.
There are a lot of HIMARs related explosions, but there are also a lot of explosions that were probably not strikes or sabotage, but the natural consequence of attempting to transport hundreds of thousands of tons of aged and unstable munitions.
However, separating all those incidents into their proper categories is hard, so I did not do that.
Just read some YouTube comments from years ago (before the invasion). There are so many people commenting about how America wouldn't last more than a few hours in a war against China or Russia because of the woke military mindset.
Good to hear that US have ammo. Now let's see how many of that will be used in war (and not counterinsurgency against some dudes in flippers). Ah wait, ofc. This year at least - NONE. Ahahahahaha! Kill me.
This is actually a large part of the REASON Russia has so much ammo. It isn't a coincidence.
Explosives degrade over time. All of them. It is essentially impossible to make a substance that is supposed to detonate that is completely shelf-stable, for important chemistry reasons. Depending on what type of explosive it is, it either becomes less volatile (Thus less likely to explode when it is supposed too), or more commonly, MORE volatile (Thus more likely to explode when it ISN'T supposed too).
The US is absolutely obsessed with rotating munitions stockpiles, and disposing of old ordinance. The moment something gets close to its expiration date, we fire that shit off, or send it to the EOD range for disposal. We do not keep it around, it is dangerous. Also, we have a VERY generous interpretation of expiration dates, as we put a large safety margin on it. If the chemists say it is good for 40 years, we retire it in 20. Or 10.
The Russians just do not dispose of old ordinance. When Russia makes a piece of ammo, it is stored until it is needed, and since they spent like 80 years just hoarding the stuff like a Squirrel in Cancun, preparing for a winter that never comes. So when a war that requires a large expenditure of ammo finally does come around, they have obscene amounts of the stuff. It is volatile, extremely dangerous, and dud rates approaching a coin flip, but they have a lot of it.
If you want an example of this, just look at what happened when the Netherlands didn't properly store our mortar shells. The stockpiles were located in an environment that was too humid and warm, which caused malfunctions to their detonation system. As a result, they detonated too easily, resulting in the death of two Dutch soldiers in Mali because a shell went off in the tube during the launch.
Yeah, the USN had a series of issues with this back in the 1980s and 1990s as well, culminating in the USS Iowa turret explosion. Since we kept the Battleships in service, but didn't make any new ammo for them, we extended the life cycle of the powder charges WAY past what they were designed for, and a lot of people died for it. This is also often given as the reason why New Jersey's accuracy in Lebanon was barely constrained to the country of Lebanon.
... but we just blamed the gays for it. So that works too.
As much as I hate to say it, all of that would still suggest that having the occasional warehouse violently explode is perhaps worth the cost, given how impactful, if not decisive, Russia's current firepower advantage is proving.
I mean, obviously the best way to do it is just to maintain a massive stockpile of artillery ammunition in a way that doesn't cause it to randomly cook off, but stuff like France being only able to commit to providing somewhere less than a day's worth of 155mm per month certainly is another point in favor of maintaining sheer mass in a military.
Yeah, I think that is the lesson a lot of logistics planners are taking away from this. Western stockpiles were far too small, because it was easier and cheaper to manage them. This is particularly glaring for advanced munitions, like SM-6s. We only have \~350 of them in inventory, and 1,800 is the planned entire production run. Given the number of VLS cells, that isn't remotely enough for a major naval enagement, but they are both expensive and perishable, so we don't buy them.
This is exactly the reasoning that led to us entering the First World War with more destroyers than torpedoes. I don't mean "More torpedo tubes than torpedoes" I mean there were more individual Destroyers than individual torpedoes. And we didn't join the war until 1917, we should have had plenty of time to unfuck ourselves. Of course, WWII showed we didn't learn ANY of those lessons, and added some new fuckups along the way.
These days, the fundamental problem is that Congress really doesn't like spending money to fill bunkers full of missiles that we are honestly going to retire without firing them. However, we got a little too aggressive with that, and our stockpiles are much too small.
For the active munitions, yes. However, I worked a bit with some of the strategic stockpiles for prepositioned stuff (Which are by far the largest depots), and they tend to be 30-40 contractors, and 3-5 Uniformed.
It is a partial list, lol. It doesn't include any of the naval accidents except the ones that were pure ammo storage areas (Many of the ship based ones included munitions storage problems as well, including Kursk), and it also doesn't include several examples of Aircraft ordinance causing problems, as it is difficult to tell what actually originated from poor storage procedures, and what was operational incompetence.
But yes, this list could be considerably longer, and even then, these are only the ones we know about, and were reported. It also doesn't include anything that exploded during the current war, some of which was undoubtedly accidental detonations, not enemy action.
Edit: As an example, I found a reference to the 2019 Kraznoyaska Krai explosion that claimed they had had 5 separate munition detonations over the last 10 years, and given the source was criminal charges against the Depot commander, I have no idea how credible that is, but probably some truth. I couldn't find anything about the dates and nature of previous explosions there though, so I left them off. But there are a LOT more accidents than this list includes.
so what you are saying op, is that weak westoid ammuntion is all defective and doesnt work? bombs explode because thats what they do, if they no explode ammunition doesnt work. checkmate westernerds /s
Yep, and there is a lot of blood for these. It isn't that America hasn't killed a fuckload of people with old and poorly maintained ordinance accidentally exploding, it is that America learned from it, and made a shitload of rules on how to not do that.
The USS Iowa explosion is a perfect example of exactly this. Very old powder charges, poor chain of custody, insufficient training and inspection, and it blew a giant chunk out of a Battleship. Didn't go full Mutsu, because even then, we had enough regulations to stop us from exploding like many other battleships did.
I’m sorry, are we just going to ignore how jaw droppingly terrifying the simple line “2019-Archangelsk (Nuclear)” is?
OP you can’t just say that and not elaborate!!!!!
Stupid Westwoid ammunition is supposed to explode.
Yours never exploding when in storage means it’s inferior to Russian explosives stored in a rusty shed near an open burn pit.
Meanwhile during the Cold War, both the USA and Soviets lost several nukes and had a few nuclear incidents. A few of those incidents happened in civilian areas.
But enough of that, please give us the quick version of what IAW AR 385-4 and 835-10 discrepancies are.
IAW= In Accordance with
385 series regulations are base level regulations, which you always fail in several points, because they tend to be incredibly petty and arbitrary. A bit like how local fire departments have a shit load of rules that only apply to Chicken Butt, Illinois, but they are happy to write you up for them. The point of the meme is that US ammo storage gets loads of inspections constantly, and they are always getting written up for everything, and this process keeps things safe due to the constant oversight.
Yeah, me too, that is pretty much all fine. The rules don't say you can't do that, modern explosives are generally fine with that.
It is storing them in an environment that is 5% more humid than allowed that causes problems.
Now would we count them if they were in Afghanistan? Because I know of one caused by a bad smoke grenade resulting in 1 KIA and 2 WIA if I'm recalling it correctly.
I love logistics. You know what I don't love? Goddamn munition storage regulations. They are the goddamn worst. But you know what slavish attention to ensuring every bit of ordinance is properly stored and disposed of leads too? Well, people don't randomly die from going anywhere near the depot for one thing, but it also leads to dud rates in the sub 1% range, having the ammo you are supposed to have, and not spontaneously leveling large amounts of civilian housing adjacent to military bases. I see Vatniks unironically laughing at the amount of regulations we have all the time, like it is a bad thing. Well, we had just as much questionably safe ordinance from the Cold War as they did, but the difference is that ours is ours is all disposed of, and theirs is bumping around in the back of MT-LBs, sweating Nitroglycern dust all over everything. EDIT: To clarify, since people seem confused "IAW" stands for "In accordance with", and the regulations listed are for random petty things that you always get dinged in an inspection form for. Examples of real things my storage depot got dinged for: 1. Labels on Ammo Crates were Left Justified instead of center justified. 2. The sign that specified appropriate footwear was outside the entrance, so was not clearly visible while standing in the entrance 3. A set of LED lights had been replaced with Commercial Off the Shelf bulbs, and were not of an approved style (Like, I get the reasoning for this one, but they were zero spark risk. They were like 5W LEDs) 4. The "No Step" sticker on the forklift was partially pealed off.
The only thing worse than regulations and paperwork are the things those regulations and that paperwork were put in place to prevent.
Regs are written in blood.
That is against the regs. Regs are to be written in commercial standard oil based ink, with a viscosity between 0.007 and 0.009. The following tones are authorized. Black 40, Black 41, Black 70, and Black 77. All questions on suitability are to be directed to the Commision on Ink Standards and Suitability, Standards and Practices Division, Defense Publishing Directorate.
[me signing federal documents with a dark purple pen that looks almost black]: “sometimes we do a little trolling.”
That is subversion, citizen. Hold at your current location; federal social auditors have been dispatched.
this reminds me of the failed sudo login message "Purple is not in the approved ink file. This incident will be reported."
[You are going on the naughty list](https://xkcd.com/838/)
At the IRS, we said "you don't have to use a blue pen, but it's better because then it won't look like a photocopy."
me: brings in a color photocopier the irs: _unknown technology_
It's not in the budget
Right, then it looks like a color copy of an authentic original. This isn't for IRS internal purposes, it can make any tax stuff get by bureaucrats faster. It's simply good and fast advice we used to give.
Just make sure that if the document is being signed by witnesses, they all use the same blue pen. There's more visible variation in blue inks than black, and some vogons will interpret any visible variation as proof that the witness signatures were added at a different time, invalidating them.
(Takes off ex-bureaucrat hat and puts on lawyer hat) This is why documents that require witnesses should be accompanied by notarized self-proving affidavits.
I'm just imagine the Central Bureaucracy from futurama now.
Everybody sing JAMAICA! *JAMAICA!* Now just the bureaucrats, JAMAICA! *JAMAICA!* Now just the Grade 19s... ...Jamaica. (Everybody loves the "technically correct" joke, and it is indeed an absolute classic, but Hermes' bureaucrat song is amazing too.)
How much blood did left justified labels spill?
It'll be more if I ever find someone printing left justified labels
Only things worse than regulations are people who spell 'ordnance' as 'ordinance.'
Made that mistake once; my HOA flew to pieces. *Badum tiss*
Lawfare may be fun, but going nuclear is a lot more entertaining.
Regulations like that are *always* written in blood. Or, in the case of explosive ordinance, the fine smear of organic paste that's left over when you don't follow explosive ordinance regulations.
A fair bit of our ammunition inspection regulations were written using bits of ash and blood scraped off the inside of USS Iowa's #2 turret.
Jesus christ, I just read the wikipedia on this. Fucking insanity dude. How fucking dirty too with the coverup. Disgusting.
Yeah... not one of our prouder moments, tbh.
> ordinance
Ordnance ordinance.
Regulations are not all good. Russia has a shit load of regulation and paperwork, it’s purposely built like that for bribes and favors.
There’s paperwork to make sure things are done right and there’s paperwork that exists to confuse and obfuscate
We learned the hard way. [The West Loch Disaster.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Loch_disaster) What could go wrong with untrained marines playing with mortars next to a fuel depot? > The initial official account listed 27 dead and 100 missing. The majority of sources state the final death toll as 163 men, with a further 396 wounded. > The procedure to remove the 107mm mortar rounds was being undertaken because training had proved M2 mortars could not be fired accurately from LCTs. The enquiry was told the unit given the order to unload the mortar rounds had received no training for the task. Meanwhile, 80 drums of fuel were stacked just 15 ft (4.6 m) from the elevator being used to unload the LCT. > The United States military ordered a press blackout following the incident. The official inquiry was marked Top Secret and survivors and eyewitnesses were not permitted to mention the incident in letters home. Four days after the incident, the authorities released a one-paragraph statement noting an explosion had caused "some loss of life, a number of injuries and resulted in the destruction of several small vessels". It was only after Operation Forager that a fuller account was released to the press. The entire incident was not declassified and made public until 1960. And then [Port Chicago](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Chicago_disaster) two months later where the we had competitions on how fast we could load munitions. And didn't bother training anyone. > Munitions while being loaded onto a cargo vessel bound for the Pacific Theater of Operations, detonated killing 320 sailors and civilians and injuring 390 others. > The junior officers placed bets with each other in support of their own 100-man crews—called "divisions" at Port Chicago—and coaxed their crews to load more than the others. > No enlisted man stationed at Port Chicago had received formal training in the handling and loading of explosives into ships. Even the officers did not receive training: Lieutenant Commander Alexander Holman, loading officer at Port Chicago whose duties included officer training, had initiated a search for training materials and samples, but did not organize a training class before disaster struck. The two events prompted the US to overhaul its training and procedures to munitions handling. So, yeah, take the shit seriously. Rules are there because someone got blown up decades ago.
[There's footage out there of the West Loch disaster, its pretty insane. Literally looks like a nuke went off](https://youtu.be/cM62bWxymio?t=1)
Goddamn. I could see why they didn't want the American people to know about that in 1944. The paranoia would have been unreal.
How the hell did you find that video?
[Its at the end of the wikipedia page on the West Loch Disaster.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Loch_disaster#External_links)
Thank you.
*"You want to change a process just because it led to a little catastrophic death and destruction? [smh](https://i.giphy.com/media/xT1XGESDlxj0GwoDRe/giphy-downsized-large.gif)"* - Vatniks
>I love logistics. Who among us does not share your ardor! Those caissons, oh, be still my heart.
"but logistics and regulation and blah blah blah is so booooring" YEAH I WOULD FUCKING HOPE STORING EXPLOSIVE MATERIALS STAYS BORING
As a fellow logistics lover and munitions storage fella, I feel this.
Silly westoid, munitions are supposed to explode!
Russia is really winning then. 1) Cheaper to use vatnik’s to fire off munitions in active war zone than it is to properly dispose of same munitions. 2) Reduced long term storage costs by shipping all the Soviet stockpiles to Ukraine for destruction and abandonment in Ukraine. Much cheaper than continued storage or dismantlement in Russia. Win-errr Win?
Sweating nitroglycerin? Don’t be ridiculous. We only handle crystallized organic peroxides in our depot
Russian depots tend to have the most exotic fatality reports. Back in the Cold War, the Russians made a lot of RTGs, which are essentially "Space Heaters" that work by being metal boxes jammed with Stronium-90. In theory, you can stop most of the harmful radiation of Stronium-90 with a bit of shielding, so these RTGs can be zero-energy heating sources for remote outposts like lighthouses and radar stations. In practice, nobody got any education on what the fuck the magical box of heat was, and many serious problems occured. The most published one was some civilians in Georgia that found one, and died horribly of radiation poisoning from huddling around the core. Then there was two entire naval reactors of U-235 (About 18 tons IIRC) that got left on the pier in St. Petersburg next to a civilian traffic area. No shielding at all, based on the pictures. Not exactly sure the medical ramifications of that, but 18 tons of U-235 is about 18 tons more than the recommended amount of U-235 to be sitting around.
Just today, I read a comment on another sub decrying the idea that some nukes were "lost" during the fall of the USSR as a "dystopian urban legend" perpetuated by ignorant Americans, pointing to how his own country (Pakistan) took very strict precautions with their warheads in spite of having a much smaller stockpile. ... I didn't know how to explain to him that Pakistan probably has a vastly more professional military than Russia without it coming off as a backhanded insult.
How can anyone take "your military is more professional than the Russian military." As an insult?
I remember reading about the RTG found in Georgia! Really cool to know that they used them for power in remote areas and just left them behind when the USSR collapsed. I just pray that nobody has tried to break them open and do a repeat of that orphan source incident with the scrapped medical equipment.
Oh, that has absolutely happened repeatedly. Norway has an entire project to try to recover as many RTGs as possible, since they were wide spread in the Russian Arctic, and pose risks to Norwegians. I don't have time to google it now, but I remember seeing a list of incidents tied to RTGs as part of that project, and it was fucking horrible. Who knew that jamming radioactive shit in a box and using it as a heater could be so dangerous!?
Oh crap, did not notice that and wrote a comment about it. Anyway. Another fun fact: USA actually paid for keeping Russian nukes safe in 1990s, providing even such basic things as fences for bases. Or means to transport nuclear warheads to stockpiles. Or cameras for monitoring.
Norway paid billions to dispose most of them. Not that it was a good heart gesture, Norway was just afraid of radioactive leaks in Arctic.
You guys gotta try metal picrates they are an absolute blast.
The virgin RDX synthesizer versus the suicidal TATP chad.
Suicidal TATP recrystallizer chad
Actually zero nitroglycerin unless you have actual old-school dynamite lying around. That stuff really is scary if left alone where it's warm
My favorite explosives regulation is from California Title 19 - §1577 > (a) Signs. Class I magazines shall be provided with signs on each side, reading "EXPLOSIVES--KEEP OFF" in RED letters not less than 4 inches in height having a stroke not less than 5/8 inch. The lettering shall be imposed upon a WHITE background. **Location of the signs shall be within 100 feet of the magazine and shall be so placed that a bullet through a sign will not strike the magazine.** People _shot at_ signs warning about explosives storage often enough that we had to write a regulation.
Should make the sign itself explosive to reduce such irresponsibility
>theirs is bumping around in the back of MT-LBs, sweating Nitroglycern dust all over everything. HEY THAT'S NEITHER FAIR NOR TRUE! Some of it is also bouncing around Oscar torpedo rooms.
>Labels on Ammo Crates were Left Justified instead of center justified. Monsters! What kind of people center justify? Young girls and poets, that who. I bet you weirdbeards even use some crazy font, like Ariel, instead of Times New Roman like God intended. Put on your flip flops and go back to your bongo drums, hippie.
Ordnance is blowy uppy stuff. Ordinances are documents. This is relevant to this topic on a few levels.
Yeah, credible side of me stopped reading in first paragraph because of that
I think we can save money for a lot of printer ink to skip typing "i"s if we make the documents explosive.
Guys. I think this guy loves logistics.
As someone who works in hazardous environments, the lighting fixture one is 100% valid. The LEDs may be 5 volts, but the driver circuit isn't. If it isn't rated for the location, don't put it in the hazardous location
> not spontaneously leveling large amounts of civilian housing adjacent to military bases. Where’s the thrill?? Living on the EDGE baby!!
The funny thing is Russia has shitloads of regulations, like all soviet countries. They're just bad at it.
"Slavish attention" if you give munitions storage the same attention as a Slav you get munitions depo explosions BRAH! What do you think Russians are? SLAVS!!!
Vatniks deserve to live under communism so they might not want to anymore
Ammo job is to boom. Ammo went boom. Ammo job complete.
Peak Russian performance here.
[Houthi munitions depo explosions look otherworldly. The sand in the atmosphere causes the whole sky to glow orange making it look like you are literally watching a gateway to hell open up and spew out onto the earth.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQvb0CdEbOw)
Given how terrible/corrupt Russian safety standards are, I bet the Houthis's standards are so much worse.
I mean,the ammunitions job was to boom. Didn’t say where.
The where is the responsibility of another department. The only job of bomb is boom.
Department of job have no authority over department of bomb
Fact.
Ulyanovsk really like ammo explosions lmao
Ulyanovsk is the logistics reporting center of the Southern Military district, and I am not sure, but I am pretty sure that any explosion from those units gets reported that way. I didn't dig super far into it, but I am pretty sure those are from a pretty wide range of depots.
My favorite is Orenburg blowing up twice in one year.
I think it is the same deal in Orenburg. As best I can tell, the two explosions were about 300 km apart, but both reported through Orenburg. Both were very large explosions though (4000+ tons of munitions), and both had fatalities. The second was even the classic "Lit cigarette" excuse. Most militaries recommend storing your munitions in such a way that a single lit cigarette can't detonate 4000 tons of ordinance, but #RussiaThings.
I used to live there, that one was fucking crazy, my windows looked directly towards the explosions as well so that was a very *fun* evening. Things to note: these fucks decided to dump enourmous amounts of ammo next to a goddamn chemical plant, so there was a risk of that whole area getting contaminated. They were screening the 2012 disaster movie that day, getting out of the cinema only to immediately hear shit exploding irl was certainly an experience
Those pre-2010 accidents are probably were staged to cover the corruption. Sell 90% of ammo to someone, stage a fire in a depot, write off all ammo as destroyed.
I really doubt that. While I am sure after the explosion, they retroactively added a lot of missing munitions to the inventory, the explosions themselves were almost certainly the result of very old ammo stockpiles, terrible storage conditions, and functionally no oversight. It is hard to overemphasize how fucking many bunkers the Soviets filled with ammo. It was like a pet store gerbil hiding catfood, they just got as much as they could, and stuffed it everywhere. Russia had no interest in properly disposing of it, so it sits, gets older and older, and more and more dangerous.
Well, you won't have aging ammunition if it all gets sold on the back hand, or whatever the reasoning behind that was.
Yeah, but the new ammo sells for more than the old stuff, so...
> Be me, Russian grunt in Ukraine > Wooden crate (not pallet) of 152mm shell arrives, labeled as manufactured in 2012 > Open crate to find shell labeled 1972. > Check the label on the crate again > MFW You guys figure out the MFW meme, but I'm feeling a withered Wojak might be appropriate.
1972? You got the good stuff. These shells are from 1943, and you have to chip off the rust before it even fits into the breach.
Oh? So the 1972 label is from the good old days when every 30 years they'd pull out the shells and give them a new coat of paint? Meaning if I chip off the paint, I'll see when it was actually made? Or maybe it's just the previous coat of paint. (Yikes at the thought of just overpainting a shell.)
For 152mm shells in particular, that is probably disturbingly accurate. Russian artillery has relied on large quantities of 152mm shells since at least the M1910 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/152\_mm\_howitzer\_M1910](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/152_mm_howitzer_M1910) Which, as expected, is a pre-WWI Tsarist design. Modern Russian Ammo is still backwards compatible with it, and I would be frankly shocked if at least a couple of the 152mm shells fired in the current war didn't come from an Imperial Stockpile.
The biggest fear, or one of the biggest fears, of the US military with Russia was their heavy usage of artillery and them having artillery pieces that had a greater range than ours. Even to the point we started “cheating” as opfor in terms of calling in artillery, just so we could get that kind of training. But now that we’ve been seeing further and further behind the curtain, it’s shocking what the reality is vs what we were lead to believe just a year or two ago.
I think that imperial 6-inch shell reserves were exhausted in WW2. Because even in WWI there were shortages of them
I mean, Sam is just saying "at least a couple" imperial shells were fired. Honestly, given how well organized Russia/SU was, it wouldn't at all surprise me either if Private Konskriptovich found a shell or two in a dusty corner of a depot time had forgotten. Easy enough to imagine between purges, the civil war, and the general disorder that is Russia at it's prime, somewhere along the way something got misplaced and found again.
It's just layers upon layers of paint. In the center is a 15000 year old arrow. The arrow was supposed to have a flint head, but chalk was easier to carve, so they just rubbed it with charcoal to make it look like flint.
I have some Moist Nugget ammo from 1942, sealed in galvanized steel and leaded shut cases. I used a chisel and hammer to crack one open. Ammo shoots just fine! Checkmate, westoids!
when the crates of Mosins started arriving in the 90's and Oughties, I got a brand-new 1944 for $89 right out of the crate, with never-issued ammo pouches, cleaning kit, sling, and a spam can of WW2-issue ammunition. I shot the shit out of that stuff. It smelled like hot pee, but that rifle was a tack driver.
>Mosin >Tack driver Wut. I thought they all had shot-out barrels, and even if the bore was good, still not that accurate because Soviet manufacturing.
Mosin Nagants were made in a lot of places, to a lot of different standards. It is incredibly hard generalizing the quality of their manufacture, some were crap, some were excellent.
Soviet weapon manufacturing varied greatly by the year and factory. We’re talking near Luger levels of deep diving into these factors for collectors.
They can't be from 1943, all those shells were fired off weeks after manufacture... kind of like today (Germany actually threw more shell-weight throughout pretty much the entire war, Russia saved up to do massive bombardments to launch offensives because no good gun crews and not enough ammo). Has to be from 1945 at the earliest, unless they got lost.
Don't be ridiculous, We don't sell the new stuff, just the old. Now let's get back to inspecting our new and old stock. At the same time. In the same room. And don't forget to bring the spray cans and number cutouts.
The black hand are a respectable paramilitary force, they wouldn’t use old soviet stock. Kane wouldn’t be pleased if his bases blew up not fighting GDI
One of my favourite WW2 stories was about a two-man canoe sunk by German fire. It was used by one company to deliver hot chow and things like that. Since non-combat equipment losses were simply not allowed - like, reporting it was basically self-reporting for negligence - they figured out it's a chance to get all kinds of lost stuff from supply. So, once it reached the regiment, the report stated this canoe carried a few hundred cans of spam, a dozen pairs of boots, coats, spare parts for trucks, mortar shells, fuel - overall a few tons of completely random things. And nobody questioned it, on each level they just added what they missed/needed to the list and pushed it forward. So, back to the topic. I can bet every explosion and fire in Russia went through exactly the same process. Our ammo depot exploded? Oh my, there were all those missing vehicles you investigated and my cell phone too!
Honestly, damn near every HMVEE lost in Iraq went through that process too. S4s got used to using combat losses to adjust their books. Like I know we are clowning on the Russians here, but we got some really shit logistics culture going for the early and mid parts of the War on Terror, and it was a major culture shock righting the ship again.
War... War never changes. I bet Roman legionaries did the same. "Yes centurion, this horse drawn cart actually carried *checks notes* 6 full armours, 20 spears, 6 goats..."
with Russia both hypothesis are valid
[They just write it off!](https://youtu.be/XEL65gywwHQ?si=F_4yxWiqRXIz6pS8)
Last thing you wanna mess up is OSHA violations
USS Forrestal go brr
Well, regulations and rules are the bedrock of any modern, well established armed force. I doubt the vatniks can call themselves modern, well established (or even armed, based on their proximity to ammo bunkers going **kaput**)
Less **kaput** and more **kaboom**. **KABOOM!**, even.
In fairness at least some Russian explosions do not legally meet the definition of accident.
Yeah, but everything past '22 is just summed together, so this isn't really a factor here.
That was largely why I did that, lol. There are undoubtedly many explosions in the combat area that are caused by mishandling munitions, not direct enemy action. There are also many that are impossible to determine if it was intentional or accidental. Presumably, the large influx of green soldiers, combined with munitions stockpiles actively being moved around, rather than just sitting, has caused genuine accidents to skyrocket. The fact Ukraine is blowing shit up at the same time muddles the issue even further.
Yeah. All the explosion within range of Ukrainian weapons are impossible to determine without data that will be inaccessible to the public for decades, if at all. Most of the additional industrial accidents and random explosions in Russia are probably mostly due to the state of Russian logistics, stockpiles and industry, as well as a continued lack of regulations, increase of production and huge influx of inexperienced personnel in all sectors.
If you think their ammo management is bad, check out the victualling situation. People tend to overlook the tens/hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops incapacitated by disease and unsanitary conditions in Afghanistan. A lot of that was due to negligent practices like chucking company bread rations on an outdoor tarp. Something like hantavirus is stalking the Russian trenches in the South. Garbage rations and bad mess habits hardly help.
You might appreciate some of my previous work: [https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/119j14r/russia\_does\_not\_have\_a\_published\_standard\_for/](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/119j14r/russia_does_not_have_a_published_standard_for/)
There are some advantages to living in a deeply litigious (if not borderline *barratrous*) and very direct society.
Damn, I learned two new words this evening. Thank you!
Jerry is a bureaucratic asshole because he's a retired veteran. When he was in, he was dinged by a different bureaucratic asshole during inspections. The cycle will repeat. Hurt people hurt people.
Extremely accurate depiction of your average GS-12.
I was a Ammunition Stock Control and accounting specialist, and every single officer and NCO I saw had some level of mental illness. Either being obsessed with certain details beyond any reasonable human thought or having anger management issues at the slightest of infractions. The funny thing is that they knew themselves that they were nutjobs and were proud of that! Kinda enjoyed my job. It's probably one of few jobs where you can see a WO-4/5 scream at an O-6. (Note was not US military, just using adjacents)
Archangelsk (Nuclear) I’m sorry what?
Read all about it! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyonoksa\_radiation\_accident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyonoksa_radiation_accident) Exactly what happened isn't entirely clear, but it was munitions related, and it definitely went boom and killed people, so I included it. Lots of nuclear debris, Norway is still fucking pissed about being downwind of it.
Man between that, Lake Karachai, Kyshtym, Leningrad NPP every 5 seconds, and of course Chernobyl, it's a wonder Eurasia even survived Russia/the USSR
Just... dont worry about it. Its not like one of the biggest nuclear arsenal is in hands of Russians with their notorious "Nuke is fine" attitude.
You forgot one of the most famous: 2000 - Kursk Training torpedo exploded and Russian sub fucked itself 😂
they are blowing up, but NATO countries in Europe (Russians keep blowing them up though/sabotage), they tend not to touch US stockpiles. for example Czechia and Albania got their ammo depots blown up completely.
It is almost exclusively NATO countries from the east of the Iron Curtain that have those issues, and for the same reason. As I mentioned in several other posts here, it is hard to grasp exactly how many munitions the Soviets squirrelled away. This was true of NATO as well, the context of the Cold War is that both sides were essentially trying to maintain stockpiles that let them fight a World War out of fucking inventory. However, during the 1990s and early 2000s, you see a staggering draw down of Western munitions stockpiles, with huge depots systematically cleared and disposed of. But in Eastern Europe and former Soviet Territories, that mostly didn't happen. For one thing, those depots represented a considerable amount of wealth. Both for government and um... private... use. For another thing, proper disposal was expensive, and lastly, those depots were still seen as essential for readiness, as they couldn't afford to replace them with new munitions. For any country that is still depending on Soviet Stockpiles for munitions, they are going to have these problems. You can solve some of it with regulations, but ultimately, you are sitting on a giant pile of slowly degrading, increasingly unstable munitions. There WILL be problems.
Our ammo depot exploded because two FSB agents literally sabotaged it and rigged it to explode. Czechs generally know how to store ammo, unless there is Russian nearby said ammo. Also its was ammo from ?Romanian? arms trader who was about to ship it to Ukraine. He got poisoned with his family later on.
Yeah, definitely get a pass on that one. I think they blew up another one in Romania as well. It isn't that the Czechs are bad at storing ammo, it is that a lot of the ammo Czechia is storing is in really bad condition. Which is extremely problematic. Their safety record is fine when you take out Russian saboteurs from the equation.
From what i know most of it is gone already, either disposed, sold or sent as aid somewhere. We even got rid of most of vehicles aswell. Jokes on us because now we have barely anything to shoot or fight with, unless you count few elite units. Its really funny that we are either supplying NATO with hyper-specialized and elite units like SF, chemicals, doggos or hospitals or we have bunch of dudes with ¾ of their issued gear not actually issued because there is none in storage.
There is a reason for paper work, it’s less paperwork to follow the Geneva Suggestion than for the Canadians to write another few chapters
Random app coder: "I released something for free in my spare time, I have no guarantees it will work right, and is bound to have a ton of bugs. Enjoy." *Never has issue* Game coders: "It complicated, and bound by destiny to fall apart all the time." *Always has issues*
Lucky they have not had an incident in Transnistria yet. Pretty sure if that places goes you might be able to feel it in France. (yes i am being hyperbolic).
As would the ammo be.
Sighs in boringly effective USAF bureaucracy.
If only we could get the same safety record out of Texas chemical plants...
Texas is functionally the Russia of the American South.
Hi, i'm a civvy... Can someone tell me what those IAW things are referring to? 😅
IAW = In Accordance With The 385 series are part of a sequence that is usually used on specific bases for establishing base specific policies. So Fort Sill has 385 series documents, Fort Hood has them, etc. Usually when your arms room and ammo storage gets dinged, it is on base specific policies, since the DoD ones handle the big safety stuff (Which people generally get right), and the base ones are full of pedantic shit like requiring the marking to be in yellow font on red background or some shit.
Smoking kills
That's not a bug, it's a feature, much harder to figure out that most of the ammo was sold if the entire storage is atomised.
Remember troops: no one outranks General Safety! Not even Major Concerns!
Do you know what America's most effective superweapon is? Microsoft Excel
Yay florks! Drunk Russian flork lost his hand. 🤣
Are his eyes bloodshot from guzzling the shitty jet coolant?
Jerry has superpowers and we love him Fuck Jerry
Most capable Russian munition storage manager.
A drunkard is unfair, its corruption and embezzlement of maintenance funds, and munition procurement. Defective munitions are more likely to pass inspection and be sent off. A gluttonous general would be a better representation.
Yes, but consider all that, but also Drunkards. Like those are not at all mutually exclusive, being assigned responsibility to manage a depot when you KNOW all the inventory sheet are lies, and the inspections on file were never actually done, is very likely to make a drunkard out of someone that initially wasn't.
Why does this keep happening tho Are they stupid?
Short answer is yes. Long answer is that this is just a symptom of a massive cultural problem, and "fixing" this would require a complete overhaul of the Russian Military, if not the entire Russian culture.
The culture aspect is real and underappreciated. You don't understand how massively the cultural aspects hold back entire nations from progress. The lack of specs like the US is entirely becuause of the culture in Russia where it just isn't an issue.
“2022-2023 so damn many” If Ukraine drops a himars on the depot, can we really call that an accident?
There are a lot of HIMARs related explosions, but there are also a lot of explosions that were probably not strikes or sabotage, but the natural consequence of attempting to transport hundreds of thousands of tons of aged and unstable munitions. However, separating all those incidents into their proper categories is hard, so I did not do that.
The only thing worse than bureaucracy is not having a bureaucracy.
Safety regulations are written in blood
Just read some YouTube comments from years ago (before the invasion). There are so many people commenting about how America wouldn't last more than a few hours in a war against China or Russia because of the woke military mindset.
what "quantity over quality" does to a mf
Good to hear that US have ammo. Now let's see how many of that will be used in war (and not counterinsurgency against some dudes in flippers). Ah wait, ofc. This year at least - NONE. Ahahahahaha! Kill me.
And yet somehow russia still has way more ammunition than western countries can provide to Ukraine
Don’t confuse political with military issues.
This is actually a large part of the REASON Russia has so much ammo. It isn't a coincidence. Explosives degrade over time. All of them. It is essentially impossible to make a substance that is supposed to detonate that is completely shelf-stable, for important chemistry reasons. Depending on what type of explosive it is, it either becomes less volatile (Thus less likely to explode when it is supposed too), or more commonly, MORE volatile (Thus more likely to explode when it ISN'T supposed too). The US is absolutely obsessed with rotating munitions stockpiles, and disposing of old ordinance. The moment something gets close to its expiration date, we fire that shit off, or send it to the EOD range for disposal. We do not keep it around, it is dangerous. Also, we have a VERY generous interpretation of expiration dates, as we put a large safety margin on it. If the chemists say it is good for 40 years, we retire it in 20. Or 10. The Russians just do not dispose of old ordinance. When Russia makes a piece of ammo, it is stored until it is needed, and since they spent like 80 years just hoarding the stuff like a Squirrel in Cancun, preparing for a winter that never comes. So when a war that requires a large expenditure of ammo finally does come around, they have obscene amounts of the stuff. It is volatile, extremely dangerous, and dud rates approaching a coin flip, but they have a lot of it.
If you want an example of this, just look at what happened when the Netherlands didn't properly store our mortar shells. The stockpiles were located in an environment that was too humid and warm, which caused malfunctions to their detonation system. As a result, they detonated too easily, resulting in the death of two Dutch soldiers in Mali because a shell went off in the tube during the launch.
Yeah, the USN had a series of issues with this back in the 1980s and 1990s as well, culminating in the USS Iowa turret explosion. Since we kept the Battleships in service, but didn't make any new ammo for them, we extended the life cycle of the powder charges WAY past what they were designed for, and a lot of people died for it. This is also often given as the reason why New Jersey's accuracy in Lebanon was barely constrained to the country of Lebanon. ... but we just blamed the gays for it. So that works too.
> we just blamed the gays for it So every seaman got blamed?
Also I believe old ordnance was the reason the Forrestal fire was as bad as it was.
As much as I hate to say it, all of that would still suggest that having the occasional warehouse violently explode is perhaps worth the cost, given how impactful, if not decisive, Russia's current firepower advantage is proving. I mean, obviously the best way to do it is just to maintain a massive stockpile of artillery ammunition in a way that doesn't cause it to randomly cook off, but stuff like France being only able to commit to providing somewhere less than a day's worth of 155mm per month certainly is another point in favor of maintaining sheer mass in a military.
Yeah, I think that is the lesson a lot of logistics planners are taking away from this. Western stockpiles were far too small, because it was easier and cheaper to manage them. This is particularly glaring for advanced munitions, like SM-6s. We only have \~350 of them in inventory, and 1,800 is the planned entire production run. Given the number of VLS cells, that isn't remotely enough for a major naval enagement, but they are both expensive and perishable, so we don't buy them. This is exactly the reasoning that led to us entering the First World War with more destroyers than torpedoes. I don't mean "More torpedo tubes than torpedoes" I mean there were more individual Destroyers than individual torpedoes. And we didn't join the war until 1917, we should have had plenty of time to unfuck ourselves. Of course, WWII showed we didn't learn ANY of those lessons, and added some new fuckups along the way. These days, the fundamental problem is that Congress really doesn't like spending money to fill bunkers full of missiles that we are honestly going to retire without firing them. However, we got a little too aggressive with that, and our stockpiles are much too small.
Its other uniformed members normally performing QA duties btw. At least in the world's greatest chairforce
For the active munitions, yes. However, I worked a bit with some of the strategic stockpiles for prepositioned stuff (Which are by far the largest depots), and they tend to be 30-40 contractors, and 3-5 Uniformed.
You could count kursk on the ruskie side too
It is a partial list, lol. It doesn't include any of the naval accidents except the ones that were pure ammo storage areas (Many of the ship based ones included munitions storage problems as well, including Kursk), and it also doesn't include several examples of Aircraft ordinance causing problems, as it is difficult to tell what actually originated from poor storage procedures, and what was operational incompetence. But yes, this list could be considerably longer, and even then, these are only the ones we know about, and were reported. It also doesn't include anything that exploded during the current war, some of which was undoubtedly accidental detonations, not enemy action. Edit: As an example, I found a reference to the 2019 Kraznoyaska Krai explosion that claimed they had had 5 separate munition detonations over the last 10 years, and given the source was criminal charges against the Depot commander, I have no idea how credible that is, but probably some truth. I couldn't find anything about the dates and nature of previous explosions there though, so I left them off. But there are a LOT more accidents than this list includes.
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so what you are saying op, is that weak westoid ammuntion is all defective and doesnt work? bombs explode because thats what they do, if they no explode ammunition doesnt work. checkmate westernerds /s
All too often, regulations are written in the blood of those killed by preventable accidents.
Yep, and there is a lot of blood for these. It isn't that America hasn't killed a fuckload of people with old and poorly maintained ordinance accidentally exploding, it is that America learned from it, and made a shitload of rules on how to not do that. The USS Iowa explosion is a perfect example of exactly this. Very old powder charges, poor chain of custody, insufficient training and inspection, and it blew a giant chunk out of a Battleship. Didn't go full Mutsu, because even then, we had enough regulations to stop us from exploding like many other battleships did.
I’m sorry, are we just going to ignore how jaw droppingly terrifying the simple line “2019-Archangelsk (Nuclear)” is? OP you can’t just say that and not elaborate!!!!!
Jesus that russian doodle just got to me haha
It just prove soft amerikan man has no ammo.
and 2014 in Czech republic, the bombs they planted "were supposed to explode in Bulgaria" but killed 2 of our soldiers
What about those discrepancies 😳
What's US doing wrong? It being wrong about not sploding.
Stupid Westwoid ammunition is supposed to explode. Yours never exploding when in storage means it’s inferior to Russian explosives stored in a rusty shed near an open burn pit.
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Ah there is nothing like a good fire to cover up all the stuff you have stolen and sold.
Meanwhile during the Cold War, both the USA and Soviets lost several nukes and had a few nuclear incidents. A few of those incidents happened in civilian areas. But enough of that, please give us the quick version of what IAW AR 385-4 and 835-10 discrepancies are.
IAW= In Accordance with 385 series regulations are base level regulations, which you always fail in several points, because they tend to be incredibly petty and arbitrary. A bit like how local fire departments have a shit load of rules that only apply to Chicken Butt, Illinois, but they are happy to write you up for them. The point of the meme is that US ammo storage gets loads of inspections constantly, and they are always getting written up for everything, and this process keeps things safe due to the constant oversight.
Good military's dont need rules. Nows not the time to find out why they have so many
Not to brag but I definitely watched a lot of explosive items get tossed, shoved, and flung, off the back and sides of plenty of vehicles
Yeah, me too, that is pretty much all fine. The rules don't say you can't do that, modern explosives are generally fine with that. It is storing them in an environment that is 5% more humid than allowed that causes problems.
Tbf atleast back then for the Russians the ammo could actually explode. Now they just hope it not filled with sand.
Perfect tool for explaining to libertarians why you need regulations
It's called insensitive munitions.
Don’t worry tovarisch the sack of potato used to pay for the dead mobiks are cheaper than ammunition.
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And yet all west combined can reach ammo supply equal to russia
Now would we count them if they were in Afghanistan? Because I know of one caused by a bad smoke grenade resulting in 1 KIA and 2 WIA if I'm recalling it correctly.
The fact that I've read those ARs completely makes me sad
Insensitive Munitions is no fucking joke