Anyone wonder how many Torps are still out in the ocean?
 

I was just thinking with the amount of "misses" Sub's and Uboats had, there has to be so many Torps still sitting on the bottom of the ocean ( LIVE )

Don't the torpedoes generally detonate at the end of their run?

Not if there duds lol. :lol:

Well, I still wouldn't worry. It's still pretty minor; old mines, in fact, are certainly a bigger danger.

There's a lot of stuff out there. I mean hey, all the ships that were sunk in the war are still there.

And if you think the ocean is bad - well, all over Europe there's still cases when they find unexploded WWII bombs lodged in old buildings :doh:

Ive always wondered about un exploded ordanances which have been lying on the bottom of the ocean floor for decades.

Wouldent the "enviroment" eventually make them non viable ?

As to them "exploding on the end of their run" why would they ? I would think they would just run out of steam and then settle to the ocean floor. After all they dident hit anything so nothing to trigger them.

Maybe if they built up enough speed and contacted something hard on the bottom. But seeing as the ocean floor at depths is 99.9% sand, silt not much "hard" down there to hit.

I guess that depends on what kind they are and how deep they are.

I hear that WWII-era mines in some areas can still be a hazard.

Yes and no. There have been instances of shells on the ocean floor and very active. There is a ocean type bomb squad if I'm not mistaken. There have been stories of mines that got loose during the war that found there way into ships many years after the war was over.

Mines I can understand as they were designed to remain submerged for long periods of time.

But even then, one would think that they would rust through and at the very least foul the pistols.

If I am correct
they found a Torpedo in Scapa flow, and they secured it and blew it up :doh: another Historical piece just been blown up....


as for Europe, just visit Verdun from WW1, there are parts you cannot walk on because of the danger of Mines, and they have a open air monument where there is a Trench totally covered in sand where the guns still stick out of the ground.

I have visited that place and really its a sad place:

from Wiki:

Among many revered memorials on the battlefield is the "Bayonet Trench", which marks the location where some dozen bayonets (fixed to rifles) lined up in a row were discovered projecting out of the ground after the war. And below each rifle was the body of a French soldier. It is believed that these belonged to a group of soldiers who had rested their rifles against the parapet of the trench they were occupying when they were killed during a bombardment. The men were buried where they lay in the trench and the rifles left untouched.

Well, I think defusing that historical piece would've been a little too risky! If there's a chance it'll blow, best not to risk living people to keep it :hmm:

Thats what we have robots for :p

That's nothing.

Here in the states where the American Civil War was fought, there are still people being killed by unexploded 19th century ordinance. (It's probably not as prevalent here as it would be on continental Europe, but the thought of artillery shells from the 1860s still being capable of exploding and killing someone boggles the mind!)

And having lived on the battlefield of Mechanicsville Virginia (during the 7 days battles), I've found plenty of spent .58 minis all over the place as well as fragments of exploded shells.

and they probably do foul the pistols - but what does the salt water and time do to the explosive compounds? Alot of them as they break down become more unstable, Old wet dynamite for example is extremely dangerous even to move.

Yes, every so often a unexploded shell is found in Aberdeen Proving Grounds MD and in the surrounding neighborhoods. These are shells for WW2.

Wasn't the American Civil war during the 19th century? Unless you mean the War of Independance.