Lejeune PAO: Nevada mortar accident was human error
The Associated Press reports that the Camp Lejeune, NC PAO issued a press release in regards to the training accident in Nevada which took the lives of seven Marines was due to human error;
The investigation also determined that the 60 mm mortar functioned properly and that the weapon system is safe when used as designed by properly trained Marines. The mortars are back in use after training on them was suspended following the accident, officials said.
I guess that explains why the battalion commander, his company commander and battalion master gunner were fired. I’ll admit that I know jack about mortars, so I don’t know what could happened and since the Marines aren’t talking, I’ll leave it to the eleven-charleys to speculate.
Thanks to SJ for the link.
Category: Military issues
The article goes on to say that the investigation found that the mortar team had not conducted “appropriate preparatory training” before the live-fire. That indeed explains the chain-of-command getting the axe.
I wonder if it was a “short round”? We lost 3 men when a Four Deuce hit our CP on Christmas 1967. I have had short round land next to me while at a firebase, luckily they did not arm because of distance. I don’t pretend to be an expert in mortars or artillery but in the dampness of the tropics, short rounds were fairly common. No matter what a damn shame to lose that many Marines.
Nothing to see here, folks. Just hysterics from our government to show they did something. Suspend training Corps wide for a month and fire some people. Who cares, it’s just those big bad Marines who don’t like anyone anyway.
In all my time firing rounds out of 81mm, 60mm, and 4.2″ mortars the only time I ever had a bad time was with some defective proximity fuses (they are for air burst). It looked like anti aircraft fire going off when the rounds got to the minimal safe distance from the tubes after firing…
I am trying to wrap my head around this, as rounds have minimum distances they have to travel before the fuses will arm. While in tube explosions happen, they are extremely rare. Misfires are far more common. A broken firing pin, or dirty barrel causing the round to hang up… slow cook on the charge bags/donuts.
I do not know what type of training they did not do prior to the live fire that is being blamed for this but even to me that sounds like a little BS…it does not explain how the round itself exploded. there was more to this than human error.
13B here… While I’m not to familiar with mortars, in my MOS crews sometimes shortcut by not swabbing the powder chamber. While it does increase rate of fire, it also leaves open the chance of pre-mature ignition of the powder. Without the official report, speculation on my part would be the crew shortcutting something for speed reasons… If it’s proved that the command encourages this, relief……..
Guessing a double feed. Not much info to go on so it is pure speculation but if the tube was on safe and a round was loaded, then another round loaded on top and hand fired, I can see a detonation like that. Odd that 7 would be killed though, that is a lot of people hanging around one tube. Again, pure speculation.
Improper training + deaths = Relief For Cause, a death sentence for those Officers’ Careers, if that’s actually what happened.
@2 Hadn’t thought about a Four Deuce and short rounds since Vietnam. Thanks for the memory. I remember the mortar crews always talking about keeping their powder dry though. I think because of the high humidity and exposed propellent charge. Again, please forgive all you mortar crewmen if I don’t know what I am talking about. I was just a grunt. And a happy grunt to see the results of a good mortar crew at work! Thanks to all of you.
This article explains exactly what happened:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/29/marines-nevada-mortar-deaths/2369181/
The explosion occurred when a second mortar round was dropping the round as another round was exiting, according to a Marine official who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation.
Mortars can be fired by dropping rounds into the tube, in which case they land on a firing pin and immediately are launched, or they can be fired with a trigger.
During the exercise, the Marines were using the trigger method and a Marine fired the round as another Marine was dropping the round into the tube.
One of the rounds exploded as it was exiting the tube, killing the seven Marines and injuring eight others.
“The investigation also determined that the mortar section had not conducted appropriate preparatory training leading up to the night, company-level, live-fire event,” according to the statement.
Double load? sounds like someone was trying to get out the rounds too fast. The proper way to load and fire is for the section leader to command “half load”. Then the loader will place the round halfway in the tube and announce “hanging”. He will do this turned sideways with his arm extended, ensuring minimal exposure. On the Section leaders command “fire” he will release the round, at the same time reaching down to “slap leather” on his right boot. by the time he makes contact he will be bent over, limiting exposure to the muzzle blast of the weapon firing. The round SHOULD fire by the time he completes this motion, If not the section leader calls out “Misfire” and goes through the proper proceedures for that.
Just reading the article it looks like they were probably using more than one loader and “racing” to simply get the rounds out. One guy dropped a round and the other dropped the other one right after.
I worked with the four duce and 81 mortars back in the day, but the modern 60 can be fired by either hanging the round as with the four duce or by using a trigger mechanism so a single soldier in theory could fire it off hand. It sounds like someone was dropping a second round into the tube before or as the first was fired off. It does make one wonder what the loader was thinking or not thinking in that scenario, you kinda can’t miss the sound of the round going off before you drop the next round. The clang of a misfire and the sound of a short round are also never missed.
Does anyone know if this was this at a training unit?
Okay so 2 junior EM commit an error killing several people, including themselves. The chain of command is fired. Welcome to the United States Army all you Marines! And don’t forget your yellow PT belts!
That is a fucked up accident. I do not know what their training was like leading up to this, but this just sounds like piss poor communication on the gun crews part.
Why were there 15 personnel in such close proximity to that gun? 20-25 meter burst radius… 2-3 man crew.
Almost all my time was on 81s, and in the Army so I am no expert on the 60mm or how Marine Mortar Platoons operate and train. This just sounds like one of those shit gone real wrong accidents that unfortunately do happen, rarely but they do. Like a 155mm Howitzer forgetting to shift its fire and dropping a round on my company. No one died, but some folks in that Battery lost their jobs
Humor an old Soldier: I always thought the troopers dropped a round and it went off. I didn’t know you could fire a mortar any other way. How does one get a round in the tube and then trigger it remotely? Thanks
As an Artilleryman i have a had LITTLE training on Mortars so this is speculation based on artillery but mortars really are similar. This was caused by a complete failure of crew drill. for non mortar/artillery guys, crew drill is the bread and butter of the gunline. you do the same thing EVERY SINGLE TIME in the EXACT SAME ORDER. thats; A. how you stay safe and B. get fast and accurate. what seems to have happened here is someone missed or skipped a step or anticipated an order and loaded a round prematurely. A failure in crew drill would also explain the reliefs. First it must be pointed out that this crew should have done this hundreds if not thousands of times dry, and you don’t just change crew drill once, if you are sloppy with it someone did or SHOULD have seen it. the Mike Gulf was relived because he ran the training program and recommended to the Commander that the crew be certified as ready to fire live. the Company CO was relieved because he certified that the crew was ready (if it is anything like artillery the CO WATCHES each crew go though the same table dry as they are going to shoot wet and based on the recommendations of the MG and his observations either certifies that crew or does not). the BN CO was relieved because he runs the BN safety program and picked the master gunner, so he failed to correctly oversee training. Lastly it is important to note that the Indirect fire community is extremely strict and anal about safety and accuracy. before i was a PL i served as a Fire Direction Officer and it was understood by everyone in the FDC and the entire BN that if you had any sort of firing incident as the FDO that was your fault it was at the minimum a letter of concern and if is landed outside your safety box, even if it was still in the impact area it was a permanent letter of reprimand or GOMOR and your done. If… Read more »
According to FM 22-90, yeh on the internet, the M225 60mm mortar has a selector switch where it can be set to drop fire or trigger fire. It can be set up as a 18 pound single man carry weapon, it still needs ammo bearers. If I remember correctly in WWII the Japanese had a trigger fired, light mortar.
The part of the story is why there were so many personnel so close to the weapon. It is crew served but only three should be there. In the four duce we spread the platoon so in theory an explosion of one gun would not be fatal to the crew of another. Even if this was a training unit with new personnel the observers, those not firing the weapon, during a live fire should be a safe distance away.
@ 15, Redleg, Mortars are the same way. I was an 0811 (Cannoneer) and crossed over to FDC. In The Marines the Infantry 81mm Platoons rate an Arty FDC Gunnery Sgt as a platoon Sgt. The reason being is that we know gun line/ FO and FDC proceedures. An Infantry SNCO could have been a rifleman, Machine Gunner or Anti Tank type. You have to stress SAFETY and Accuracy every time, every mission. I had my guys do gun drills out the ass. NO SHORT CUTS.
Im betting they probably had someone in charge who was inexperienced in mortars who blew off the proper commands.
It wasn’t a training unit. Being it was in Nevada Im betting it was a shoot in Support of training for Pilots, Marking targets for air. In my experience they have a shit ton of ammo allocated and a lot is “left over” at the end of the day. It ends up being a “blast-ex” to simply get rid of the ammo. The shoots are usually non- tactical in nature, so the chances are the mortar platoon was by itself, set up in an area that was more admin than tactical. More than likely the guns and Marines were close together than they would be in a normal tactical training event. Sad to say but they probably were not wearing their helmets flaks, etc.
@17, the large number of casualties has me scratching my head also. There never should have been that many people so close to the gun.
I never had more than 5 at a gun position, and that was with an 81mm. Gunner, AG, Ammo Bearer, Squad Leader (and an additional ammo bearer at times)
17 people with 30 meters of a Mortar just did not happen on a live fire. Not even in training.
I was an Army Eleven Charlie in Berlin. We had the old 81MM, that hadn’t changed much since the civil war. Pretty basic POS. There’s few things that can go wrong, but things like “hang fires” etc did happen. We had a safety procedure (run like hell) let the gun cool off, then the gunner (me) got to clear it.
If you didn’t blow up, the team bought a bier for you later.
Failure of leadership. Seven Marines’ lives cut short, and others get jacked up, because somebody senior to them didn’t do their job.
May the Lord comfort those left behind.
@20 I’m sticking with the “dump-ex” theory. All the Marking Targets/ Supressing targets for air was complete and they had a shitload of rounds left. Betting they only had a few tubes up and they just started lining up guys to drop the rounds down the tube.
A lot of accidents in training happen when the exercise is wrapping up and guys get careless. I use to use the adage “don’t start smelling the barn and take off at a gallop”.
@14. Yep me too, but you’re thinking of the old retired 60mm mortar. All it had was a firing pin. The M224 or M224A1 has a trigger.
http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/infantry/mortar/M224.html
This whole deal smacks of something fishy to me. The Marine Corps sends everyone to MOS schools, and mortarmen are no different. The people firing that mortar should have been mortarmen, school trained, and thus there would have been no need for proper preparatory training. If they were not mortarmen, they should not have been fucking about with a mortar. I will tell you what most likely happened. They were trying to fast fire it and got a round coming out as one was coming down the tube, and BAM. In any event, busting the unit commanders for something they had nothing to do with seems fucked up to me. Now the range NCO and officer they should get their asses hammered for letting those Marines clusterfuck around a mortar firing HE ammo.
@25 Steve, They probably were fully trained, but maybe new 0341s running the gunline. You can never tell from one incident how good the Squad Leader, Section Leader, Platoon Sgt and Platoon Commander were.
I had an 81s Plt and had a chance to observe other units 81s as a “sidewinder” ( controller) at 20 Palms and a Safety Officer in Okinawa.
I saw different ends of the spectrum. Some where shit hot, and others were so bad I had to literally walk from gun to gun to check firing data because I didn’t trust them firing with my ass on the line.
As for the higher ups being relieved its just what happens. I don’t know how much interest or occasional inspection/observation the commanders did on the 81s, but its an asset you don’t want to put in the hands of bad SNCOs or Officers.
If the Platoon Commander was a reject from the Line companies and you didn’t have a mortar trained SNCO or competent 0848 they were asking for trouble.
When I was doing fire-exs with 3/4 in 29 palms we were ALWAYS visited by Mad Dog Mattis ( 7th Marines CO) and the regimental gunner to keep us on our toes.
#15 is most likely what happened. For #25, even school-trained personnel must be certified on each step of the training process before they get to drop a live round. Just because you did it once in school doesn’t mean you forgot something. All skills are perishable, and they weren’t a team at the schoolhouse. When we say certified, we literally mean the Master Gunner and the Commander signed a piece of paper saying they met all the necessary training requirements up to that point. Next week I’m observing a National Guard unit do a live M777 fire and an infantry live shoot-house. The first thing we asked their brigade commander for was the certifications and copies of their training plan to prove they were ready for live fire.
For all the casualties (we don’t expect to hit that many enemy with a single round in combat) that may have also been part of the leadership purge for allowing so many unnecessary people near the tube.
Old Dog, I think you have hit the nail on the head as to what happened. I was thinking the same as you, left over ammo from a WTI support exercise and just getting rounds out as quickly as possible. They may have had some non 0341’s up on the line letting them drop rounds. We used to do that all the time when I was an 81 mortar man cause everyone loves to drop mortar rounds for some damn reason. Sounds like a lack of supervision, lack of coordination, lack of following procedures with some carelessness and Marines smelling the barn and wanting to get done with training mixed in. Procedures are in place for a reason. You take shortcuts or don’t pay attention, you can get hurt or killed. It is a damn shame because this incident sure has had a ripple effect.