Yikes, glad no one was hurt.

It just goes to show that gunnery ranges should be faaaaar more clearly marked. This kinds of incidents seem to be really common.

"Two years ago a Dutch F-16 mistakenly machine-gunned the control tower"



Um, I didn't know that the F-16 was equipped with "machine guns".


Idiot journalists.

Well, the Dutch removed the Vulcan and replaced it with Vickers .303 machine guns. Thought everyone knew that.

I bet that there is a "significant amount" of paperwork to fill out over this "error"

So I am reading 3 20mm cannon incidents on control towers and no one got hurt 3 times. What does that same about 20mm? Let alone folks in F16's over there shooting up control towers.

Well, using the general definition of "automatic weapon" a multi-barreled cannon qualifies as a machine gun.

Shortly after I got to Ft Sill OK back in July 1995, my unit got tasked to guard the site where an aircraft had dropped a practice bomb on the hilltop where the forward observers were, along with a bunch of bystanders. There were 3 humvees, a CUCV, and an M113 on the hill, and the bomb appeared to hit directly behind the middle humvee and basically blew up right in the back. IIRC 3 were killed with numerous more injured. Obviously the 3 humvees were completely destroyed, and one thing that stuck with me was seeing a burned M16 with the plastic parts melted off half-buried in the ashes. I don't remember what the results of the investigation were, but I seem to recall the aircraft was a little low and that caused the bomb to hit the hilltop which was in line with the target area.

I believe I read that they use "dummy" ammo that is ballistic representative but not effective.




The Jedi Master

Most likely. So its lead core instead of tungsten or explosive stuff. Thing about training ammo is its still lethal. Just no gimmicks. Like blue tipped 25mm cannon ammo will still go threw a M2a2 Bradly, add on tiles be damned. Just does it without that extra impressive DU core. And where talking a tower, not something really intended to take major caliber ordnance. If you had to choose getting shot between good old fashion .50 cal ball and a slap round, which do you choose? Well it does not really matter does it? Soft and squishy people can not take that much damage. And i am totally sure that training ammo will have no issues going threw at least an inch of steel.

It reminds me of "training" 9mm and hollow points that gets advertised right about now. Like the regular ball ammo will not wreck your day. 1.1 times more if its CIP or Nato spec ball.

I mean its great no one has gotten dead from this crazy crap, on the other hand.....

I suppose it might be down to unmentioned details. Assuming the correct strafe target was at ground level, that'd be where the pilot was aiming, thus hitting below the tower itself thankfully.

If you set a practice target 1640 feet away for the real tower, ON (I assume inside given the distance) the field... well, good luck.

It's an uninhabited island, why didn't just move the targets A) further away or B) to another island on the vicinity?

You have to practice as close to actual conditions as possible. You make up for that with controlling approaches and establishing control lines. It's all about procedures. One of the purposes of training is putting the soldiers into a situation that makes them feel some stress. You have to train hard to achieve it.

Yes, it's all about the stress. Load as much as you ca, because it won't be half of what it's like when real rounds start flying.

Small world, I too was stationed at Sill during the time of this incident. The Cpt. in charge of my battery, and his driver were among the casualties.

�IRC a few years ago a Tornado crew bomded the towing boat rather than the target in a Naval exercise. As luckily only inert cement bombs were dropped, no injuries, only one tow boat down.

Yeah, budget cuts are hell. They now have a solution where you can open a small hatch in the canopy and use a good old-fashioned catapult to shoot the bad guys.