The Crimson reports on what happened when a Cambridge couple called police to ask if they knew what to do about this old cannonball they'd had in their apartment for more than 20 years.
if i am wrong, i will stand corrected but... this is stupid and a total overreaction. a cannonball is a blob of metal, right? it has no explosive properties. i cannot believe the lengths that they went through for this. 20 people? x-rays? what the hell????
If it DID have explosive properties, it probably maybe sort of would have exploded by now.
is anyone else as aghast as i am? honestly. it's like picking up a rock and saying "OH MY GOD THIS COULD EXPLODE!!!!!!"
it can't.
why don't we do something, i don't know.... smart? effective? relevant? to actually protect the public, instead of overreacting to a piece of metal sitting in a house for 20 years...
A little googling on "exploding cannonball" says that they really did exist, and can be deadly. Several of the Google hits referred to this AP article:
it's just that in my experience with being near/around cannonballs (mostly historic visits and such) they are primarily meant to not explode, because they could explode inside the cannon and hurt/kill/maim anyone shooting them off, which is slightly counter productive.
Remember the problems we have seen in former warzones over old land mines? That was the cause of Princess Di before her accident. If I recall some of the areas she focused on had mines that were going off 40 years later.
These are still left over problems from WWII. People have died on west coast beaches when they have accidentally encountered small bombs that the Japanese sent over on balloons. UXBs from the blitz are still turning up in the UK.
Closer to home, erosion of beaches used for firing ranges on Cape Cod has been turning up some unexploded goodies as well.
Given the age of the cannonball, well, better safe than sorry. Explosives can deteriorate over time and become more unstable than they were when they were created and used.
"The bombs bursting in air" wasn't just Francis Scott Key waxing poetic. The cannon fire from the British Fleet in the Baltimore Harbor was of the explosive shot variety (i.e. a "bomb"). In order to stay out of range of the batteries on the water's edge around Locust Point, the ships were at the limit of their own bombing capability and so many of the bombs burst in the air instead of closer to the ground...still raining shrapnel down on Fort McHenry from above...but will less effect and far more exploding further away from land than intended.
Comments
Huh?
Aren't cannonballs solid metal?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cannon_projectiles
Did you read the Wikipedia article you linked to?
"Shrapnel or spherical case shot" and "Shell" both contain explosives.
Clowns, I think
They're either made of clowns or of Wile E. Coyote.
It may have been left there by
the Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Both panics happened within a radius of a few miles. Coincidence? Or Cantabridgians with too much time on their hands?
Please... someone correct me if i'm wrong.
if i am wrong, i will stand corrected but... this is stupid and a total overreaction. a cannonball is a blob of metal, right? it has no explosive properties. i cannot believe the lengths that they went through for this. 20 people? x-rays? what the hell????
If it DID have explosive properties, it probably maybe sort of would have exploded by now.
is anyone else as aghast as i am? honestly. it's like picking up a rock and saying "OH MY GOD THIS COULD EXPLODE!!!!!!"
it can't.
why don't we do something, i don't know.... smart? effective? relevant? to actually protect the public, instead of overreacting to a piece of metal sitting in a house for 20 years...
There actually are explosive cannonballs....
Some cannonballs had shrapnel inside that were intended to explode over infantry. Very dangerous and innaccurate to use, but they are real.
You're wrong
A little googling on "exploding cannonball" says that they really did exist, and can be deadly. Several of the Google hits referred to this AP article:
Civil War cannonball explodes and kills Virginia relic collector
I don't think the police overreacted.
thank you ron.
it's just that in my experience with being near/around cannonballs (mostly historic visits and such) they are primarily meant to not explode, because they could explode inside the cannon and hurt/kill/maim anyone shooting them off, which is slightly counter productive.
thanks for the link.
yup, as said, there were
yup, as said, there were several different kinds of cannon balls. Hense the xray.
Remember the problems we
Remember the problems we have seen in former warzones over old land mines? That was the cause of Princess Di before her accident. If I recall some of the areas she focused on had mines that were going off 40 years later.
Balloon Bombs, UXBs, etc.
These are still left over problems from WWII. People have died on west coast beaches when they have accidentally encountered small bombs that the Japanese sent over on balloons. UXBs from the blitz are still turning up in the UK.
Closer to home, erosion of beaches used for firing ranges on Cape Cod has been turning up some unexploded goodies as well.
Given the age of the cannonball, well, better safe than sorry. Explosives can deteriorate over time and become more unstable than they were when they were created and used.
Gave proof through the night...
"The bombs bursting in air" wasn't just Francis Scott Key waxing poetic. The cannon fire from the British Fleet in the Baltimore Harbor was of the explosive shot variety (i.e. a "bomb"). In order to stay out of range of the batteries on the water's edge around Locust Point, the ships were at the limit of their own bombing capability and so many of the bombs burst in the air instead of closer to the ground...still raining shrapnel down on Fort McHenry from above...but will less effect and far more exploding further away from land than intended.
Mercy, mercy, mercy.
That's somethin' else.