US Army helicopter mistakenly releases dummy missile in upstate NY

boing
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Note: the blue band is used to indicate that this is an inert training round…

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It’s 163 cm long…

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I know that if I found that and it was still intact it would not be turned back in to the army. It would be a room decoration somewhere in the house (where the wife can’t see it most likely cause she has better taste than me)

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That’s a bomb, mindy. We are talking about missiles. Gosh.

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Sorry, already hitched! And how can I not like Dr. Strangelove, since I’m studying the CW?

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Yes, well, you know, the ovaries make me confused sometimes. What can I say!?

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You know I still love Dr Strangelove. This is still one of the best lines in a movie:

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yep. That movie is all genius, all the way down.

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Good thing they didn’t release it accidentally in Texas. -Cough- Jadehelm -Cough-

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I suspect it would be deflected and rotated by tree limbs and foliage so it doesn’t land head first.

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At a relatively low 500’, a hundred pound dummy bomb is going to be zipping along at about 80 mph when it gets to the tree canopy. Given its bullet shape and density, it’s going to cause some tree damage, which would be pretty visible from above.

Given that the Army, who knew the path of travel of the aircraft hasn’t found a tree that got knocked down, I’m figuring it missed any tree that might have caused any real deflection and is about three feet down.

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The missile is pretty thin, its aerodynamic shape will let it orient along the long axis and show only a small cross-section to the foliage. It is likely to zip through at least the top layers, with just minimal damage.

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Well goddamn it, the military is gonna have to fix that ‘minimal damage’ sitchation.

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Well, sometimes you want exactly the right amount of damage in exactly the right point. Sometimes you want to not break much while the cannon fodder is being familiarized with their equipment; hence the dummy ones. Sometimes you want to deliver small but accurate damage, hence the snipers. Sometimes you want to blanket the area with molten glass, hence the megaton-scale thermonuclear insta-suns.

Different tools for different tasks. :stuck_out_tongue:

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