# Artillery gun comes loose and hits taxi in Nanaimo



## Colin Parkinson (21 Jul 2018)

for the want of a pin.....


A cab driver was not injured after an artillery gun struck his vehicle in Nanaimo. Witnesses report that the gun came loose from a Canadian military vehicle leaving Maffeo Sutton Park around 2 p.m. Saturday and rolled down a hill and hit an AC Taxi cab on the corner of Comox Road and Terminal Avenue.

https://www.cheknews.ca/artillery-gun-comes-loose-and-hits-taxi-in-nanaimo-472113/


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## medicineman (21 Jul 2018)

A dude in Victoria was knocked off the Pat Bay Highway by a 105 in April 88 when we were going to the ferry to go to Ft Lewis...he was tailgating, vehicle in front of the gun tractor slammed on the brakes, gun tractor locked up and the gun flipped.  He blamed the driver he was tailgating in the Times-CommunistColumnist...funny look on his face with the CO, a Vic PD copper reminded him of the tailgating laws and who was really at fault  ;D

MM

spelling oopie


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## Petard (21 Jul 2018)

Colin P said:
			
		

> for the want of a pin.....



..or safety chains hooked up (that are proper weight class chains and D rings)


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## FJAG (21 Jul 2018)

Petard said:
			
		

> ..or safety chains hooked up (that are proper weight class chains and D rings)



When you look closely at the second picture showing the gun from the back, you can see some form of safety chain connected to the spades and what looks like the taillight cable hanging down. Makes me wonder even more what happened here.

 :cheers:


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## PPCLI Guy (21 Jul 2018)

FJAG said:
			
		

> Makes me wonder even more what happened here.
> 
> :cheers:



Section 666 of the NDA:  "In that he was stupid..."


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## Petard (21 Jul 2018)

Safety chains only work if you connect them to truck too; from some photos on other news sites it doesn't look like they were

Doesn't help either there are a lot of gun Dets using chains and D rings that are too light for that weight of gun; might've been a factor in this case too

At any rate, someone's got some serious 'splainin' to do


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## daftandbarmy (22 Jul 2018)

Typical 105mm ... always playing hard to get  :


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## brihard (22 Jul 2018)

I hate it when that happens.


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## Nfld Sapper (22 Jul 2018)

And most D-Rings or shackles people put on the MSVS are in the wrong spot for towing...


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## Cloud Cover (22 Jul 2018)

What does the sign on the gun tractor say? Recruiting for Army Reserve?


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## dapaterson (22 Jul 2018)

Either that or an ad for a body shop...


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## FJAG (22 Jul 2018)

whiskey601 said:
			
		

> What does the sign on the gun tractor say? Recruiting for Army Reserve?



Bit hard to read but it looks like "Official, S something?, G something?, presented? by 5 (BC) Field Regiment Royal Canadian Artillery Army Reserve"

 :dunno:



			
				daftandbarmy said:
			
		

> ...



I wouldn't call it "cheap". That's going to cost a few bucks.

 :cheers:


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## Colin Parkinson (23 Jul 2018)

As long as the gun suffers no real damage, the taxi will be easily repaired or replaced.


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## Fishbone Jones (23 Jul 2018)

Expect to see a news article 'DND Spending Out of Control' as a result!  :rofl:


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## Petard (23 Jul 2018)

There's a bit of a debate going on social media as to who would be responsible for this run away. Some are saying the driver, IAW the highway traffic act, others say the Detachment Commander (No 1), IAW the drill book

FJAG, jump in here if you can


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## YZT580 (23 Jul 2018)

Doesn't seem to say anything about attaching safety chains.  Am I reading it wrong?


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## Gunner98 (23 Jul 2018)

IMHO "satisfies himself that the equipment is ready to travel" - pretty much covers it!  #1 circles the gun and vehicle before mounting.


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## Colin Parkinson (23 Jul 2018)

Petard said:
			
		

> There's a bit of a debate going on social media as to who would be responsible for this run away. Some are saying the driver, IAW the highway traffic act, others say the Detachment Commander (No 1), IAW the drill book
> 
> FJAG, jump in here if you can



As this was a recruitment drive, there may be no Detachment Commander in the sense it is used in gun drill. Likely the Officer and/or NCO in charge for that day will be in trouble for not properly supervising the hookup (generally 4 people to lift trails). Plus the driver. This is assuming something went wrong and not something broke. If there was the remains of a cotter pin in the pintle hook and it had been in the closed position, then unlikely anyone's fault. In which case a fleet wide order may come down to repair/replace suspect components.


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## FJAG (23 Jul 2018)

Colin P said:
			
		

> As this was a recruitment drive, there may be no Detachment Commander in the sense it is used in gun drill. Likely the Officer and/or NCO in charge for that day will be in trouble for not properly supervising the hookup (generally 4 people to lift trails). Plus the driver. This is assuming something went wrong and not something broke. If there was the remains of a cotter pin in the pintle hook and it had been in the closed position, then unlikely anyone's fault. In which case a fleet wide order may come down to repair/replace suspect components.



That was my thought. The gun drill is written for when a detachment is doing training or in operations etc and, yes, as a Number 1 I always quickly walked around the gun and always checked the pintle, the pin, the latch on the panoramic scope box and the hand breaks [which are the responsibilities of the Nos 2 and 3] to make sure the gun was ready to travel (safety chains are not part of ordinary gun movements - just long administrative road moves and the like) Incidentally when working as a detachment, the driver does not leave the cab of the vehicle while going either into or coming out of action. He stays in the cab ready to move the vehicle as directed by the No 1 and in fact in coming out of action he backs the vehicle into the gun which is when the Nos 6 and 7 [one on each side of the trails nearest the pintle] cooperate to lock the gun into the pintle and pin it [at the split second that the truck stops] and then mount.

It may have been here that there was no real detachment involved which should mean that whoever was lifting the trails into the pintle should have locked and pinned it and whoever was in charge of the group involved in hooking up the gun should have checked that it was properly locked in and brakes released.

I don't suspect a mechanical problem with the pintle or pin. We've used those for a half a century now and they are very simple and robust parts and take a lot more punishment in the field then they would ever get on a paved road. I still wonder about those chains though. I'd love to see a close up photo of both the pintle and the spades/chains.

 :cheers:


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## Old Sweat (23 Jul 2018)

Maybe I am showing my age, but I always thought the pintle was used as the point of contact to anchor the top carriage to the borrow carriage, and then was the pivot point for traversing. Perhaps more relevant, the handspike appears to be missing from its place on the left trail, which suggests this was a non-operational or administrative move, taking the gun from point A to point B by a non-qualified group.


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## FJAG (23 Jul 2018)

Old Sweat said:
			
		

> Maybe I am showing my age, but I always thought the pintle was used as the point of contact to anchor the top carriage to the borrow carriage, and then was the pivot point for traversing. Perhaps more relevant, the handspike appears to be missing from its place on the left trail, which suggests this was a non-operational or administrative move, taking the gun from point A to point B by a non-qualified group.



This thing:






Is called a "pintle hook" or "pintle" for short. Pintles like this are on the backs of all our trucks.

Here's the link to the page:

https://www.hitchweb.com/product/88/48205/Pintle-Hook-10000-lbs

What you are thinking of is another type of pintle which is one type of a weapon mount.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon_mount

You being an IG would of course be an expert on all things gun. Pintle however is a generic term that goes beyond that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pintle

 ;D

 :cheers:


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## Old Sweat (24 Jul 2018)

FJAG said:
			
		

> This thing:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



First time I have encountered pintle used in that context. We used to call them "tow hooks" in the context that the gun is hooked in.

The issue remains that we don't know what happened, but it shouldn't have. So we go into wait and see mode.


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## Colin Parkinson (24 Jul 2018)

I think Pintle hooks came into use as some can rotate on basically a pintle. I suspect that sloppy language crept in over the years. As for the missing handspike, likely in the cab to prevent it being lifted by some souvenir hunter.


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## Ashkan08 (17 Aug 2018)

Speaking of artillery, do you guys know why they changed the name from artillery soldier to gunner?


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## FJAG (17 Aug 2018)

Ashkan08 said:
			
		

> Speaking of artillery, do you guys know why they changed the name from artillery soldier to gunner?



They didn't.

The term gunner came into use a very long time ago, shortly after "guns" were invented and came into service with armies across the world.

Within the British military, the term "gunner" was not only a descriptive term for all artillerymen but also a rank equivalent to private.

Within the Canadian artillery the trade to which gunners belonged was called "artilleryman" well before females were permitted to serve in the combat arms. Once females were permitted to serve the term "artillery soldier" came into use in our advertising campaigns. Within the trade, we have always and continuously referred to ourselves as "gunners". IMHO the term "artillery soldier" (like "armoured soldier" and "infantry soldier") always sounded stilted and contrived. The change in our advertising to the term "gunner" is in my view a good choice because 1) it gets back to the use of a traditional term rather than a made-up one and 2) is nonetheless gender neutral.

While I don't have details as to how the change came about, I would suspect that there has been an ongoing campaign by the Colonel Commandant and the Director of Artillery and various other senior serving and honourary artillery officers to influence the system to adopt the change.

 :cheers:


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## Ashkan08 (17 Aug 2018)

Makes sense. Thanks


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## daftandbarmy (17 Aug 2018)

FJAG said:
			
		

> They didn't.
> 
> The term gunner came into use a very long time ago, shortly after "guns" were invented and came into service with armies across the world.
> 
> ...



So ... like.... we Infantry people can still call you Artillery people 'Drop Shorts', right?


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## FJAG (17 Aug 2018)

daftandbarmy said:
			
		

> So ... like.... we Infantry people can still call you Artillery people 'Drop Shorts', right?



Not if you want to have free beer at my barbecue.  ;D

And I say that notwithstanding that my battery once dropped a round 50 metres away from where I was forming up for an assault with my supported 3 RCR company on an exercise in Petawawa once.  [:'(

What was even more troubling was that when I had the gun position look into what happened the GPO came back with the message "It looked good when it left here!"  [

 :cheers:


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## Blackadder1916 (17 Aug 2018)

daftandbarmy said:
			
		

> So ... like.... we Infantry people can still call you Artillery people 'Drop Shorts', right?



I thought that was a navy expression, usually followed by bending someone over.


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## medicineman (18 Aug 2018)

Blackadder1916 said:
			
		

> I thought that was a navy expression, usually followed by bending someone over.




Was thinking the same thing... 8)

MM


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## Good2Golf (18 Aug 2018)

FJAG said:
			
		

> Not if you want to have free beer at my barbecue.  ;D
> 
> And I say that notwithstanding that my battery once dropped a round 50 metres away from where I was forming up for an assault with my supported 3 RCR company on an exercise in Petawawa once.  [:'(
> 
> ...



:warstory:  Ah yes...shades of the early 90s when 2 Guns dropped a few rounds of 105 into a formation of helos landing in DZ ANZIO   ...again, GPO-induced issues.  I was elsewhere in the range at the time, but to hear the FEs described how they were trying to keep the inserted troops from climbing back onto the Hueys while the formation was scattering away from what they thought was another round of fire inbound, was pretty colourful.  I don't think the gunners were very popular that day... 

Regards
G2G


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## Old Sweat (18 Aug 2018)

That reminds me of the classic response to a too close round, "Reference my a..hole, Add 800, over."


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## FJAG (18 Aug 2018)

Good2Golf said:
			
		

> :warstory:  Ah yes...shades of the early 90s when 2 Guns dropped a few rounds of 105 into a formation of helos landing in DZ ANZIO   ...again, GPO-induced issues.  I was elsewhere in the range at the time, but to hear the FEs described how they were trying to keep the inserted troops from climbing back onto the Hueys while the formation was scattering away from what they thought was another round of fire inbound, was pretty colourful.  I don't think the gunners were very popular that day...
> 
> Regards
> G2G



In my case actually, the problem was on the gun--an L5--with the angle of sight scale off by 100 mils. 

The GPO's problem was that it was winter and he didn't want to get out of his heated M577 so he simply asked the gun line to confirm their bearing and elevation settings and confirm charge fired. They reported back with the right data. After my expletive loaded reply to his message he finally got his butt out of the track and found the AS error. (Not a bad guy otherwise and the last I saw he'd made it to LCol)

 :cheers:


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## Old Sweat (18 Aug 2018)

My gut reaction when you wrote "a round" that it probably was an error on the gun. Should not the section commander or the safety officer have spotted it, as the elevation would have been noticeably different? 

The incident G2G reported, on the other hand, sounds like a CP error, either in timing and/or execution of the fire plan, or a technical error.


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## daftandbarmy (18 Aug 2018)

FJAG said:
			
		

> In my case actually, the problem was on the gun--an L5--with the angle of sight scale off by 100 mils.
> 
> The GPO's problem was that it was winter and he didn't want to get out of his heated M577 so he simply asked the gun line to confirm their bearing and elevation settings and confirm charge fired. They reported back with the right data. After my expletive loaded reply to his message he finally got his butt out of the track and found the AS error. (Not a bad guy otherwise and the last I saw he'd made it to LCol)
> 
> :cheers:



That's why it helps to always owe Gunners some money, then they'll usually try to make sure you're around to repay it


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## FJAG (18 Aug 2018)

Old Sweat said:
			
		

> My gut reaction when you wrote "a round" that it probably was an error on the gun. Should not the section commander or the safety officer have spotted it, as the elevation would have been noticeably different?
> 
> The incident G2G reported, on the other hand, sounds like a CP error, either in timing and/or execution of the fire plan, or a technical error.



Yup. It was in fire for effect with one drop short and the remaining rounds bang on the target - remember that old dug-in Khe San style fire base at Race Horse - that was it, we were strung out in the tree line to the south getting ready to do a banzai charge up the hill.

And yes, the safety officer and the section commander should both have caught it.

 :cheers:


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## Colin Parkinson (18 Aug 2018)

Having fired a winger myself, I not be tarring anyone with a brush. Laid onto the wrong set of Aiming posts (tight gun position) still all my fault as the Number 1


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## FJAG (18 Aug 2018)

Not sure how this developed into a winger discussion but for Daftandbarmy's info guns can also "drop long".

In Petawawa, again, we had a Militia battery where the battery had just finished a mission firing charge three and were given an end of mission. Contrary to proper procedures the 2i/c (who looks after and prepares ammo) on one gun had left some five rounds on the ready tray made up to charge three and one made up to charge seven. A new mission at charge three was called and the detachment took post. The loading gun number took the charge seven round and the spare charge 4,5,6 and 7 powder bags from the adjacent round to the number 1, reported "charge 3". The number 1 took the four spare bags as per drill, said "Correct, Load" and then wondered why his gun had such a large recoil.  :facepalm: 

The round overshot the target and for good measure, overshot the impact area and the Petawawa river and landed 35 meters from a cottage occupied by two families. Very fortunately there were no injuries although there was shrapnel damage to a boat and stone fireplace on the cottage shifted due to the blast.

 :cheers:


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## SeaKingTacco (19 Aug 2018)

Old Sweat said:
			
		

> My gut reaction when you wrote "a round" that it probably was an error on the gun. Should not the section commander or the safety officer have spotted it, as the elevation would have been noticeably different?
> 
> The incident G2G reported, on the other hand, sounds like a CP error, either in timing and/or execution of the fire plan, or a technical error.



I was in 2 RCHA at that time. It was absolutely a CPO error. He did not make the target numbers unsafe when the assault force crossed one of the control lines and landed on the LZ and continued to FFE. It got worse when the FOO, the BC and the CO all yelled "check firing" simultaneously on the net when they saw what was happening, which had the effect of everyone jamming the frequency. Which allowed the mayhem to continue for several more seconds. What saved the assault force that was the swampy ground. The rounds were impacting in amongst the the Twin Hueys quite nicely, but they didn't really do too much damage. The Royals (1 RCR, I think) were trying to scramble back on the helos as quick as FEs were trying were trying to throw them off, so they could get the helicopters out from under the full fury of D  Bty. In hindsight, it was humorous because no one got hurt. But it could have wiped out most of a company and all of 427 Sqn, had things gone a different direction.


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## FJAG (19 Aug 2018)

SeaKingTacco said:
			
		

> I was in 2 RCHA at that time. It was absolutely a CPO error. He did not make the target numbers unsafe when the assault force crossed one of the control lines and landed on the LZ and continued to FFE. It got worse when the FOO, the BC and the CO all yelled "check firing" simultaneously on the net when they saw what was happening, which had the effect of everyone jamming the frequency. Which allowed the mayhem to continue for several more seconds. What saved the assault force that was the swampy ground. The rounds were impacting in amongst the the Twin Hueys quite nicely, but they didn't really do too much damage. The Royals (1 RCR, I think) were trying to scramble back on the helos as quick as FEs were trying were trying to throw them off, so they could get the helicopters out from under the full fury of D  Bty. In hindsight, it was humorous because no one got hurt. But it could have wiped out most of a company and all of 427 Sqn, had things gone a different direction.



When was this?

 :cheers:


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## SeaKingTacco (19 Aug 2018)

FJAG said:
			
		

> When was this?
> 
> :cheers:



Summer of 90 or 91, IIRC.


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## Good2Golf (19 Aug 2018)

‘91 for sure.  I was slinging heavy stuff, but the Huey guys told us about the whole thing. I had heard that the CHECK FIRE was actually called initially because the pathfinder LOH had stuck its nose across the safety line at the North end of ANZIO, not because there were rounds dripping into the LZ.


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## Petard (2 Sep 2018)

Good2Golf said:
			
		

> ‘91 for sure.  I was slinging heavy stuff, but the Huey guys told us about the whole thing. I had heard that the CHECK FIRE was actually called initially because the pathfinder LOH had stuck its nose across the safety line at the North end of ANZIO, not because there were rounds dripping into the LZ.



I was with E Bty (para) at the time, and much of what's being said above sounds familiar, including the early call of the Tgt to be unsafe for reason G2G mentions
Someone posted a video of this incident on one of the (closed) Canadian artillery groups on Facebook. In the video you can hear the radio transmissions and it does sound like two C/S are stepping on each other trying to call Check Fire

Incidentally, the officer in the CP that caused that disaster left the Reg Force shortly after it happened, but went on to serve in the very same unit that was involved in this latest 5 Fd embarrassment (playing punch buggy with a C3), don't think he was involved with that one though. He was, however, the cause of yet more butt hurt not too long ago, when someone got him involved with the transition of C1 howitzers to C3's for avalanche control.


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## SeaKingTacco (2 Sep 2018)

I ran into that person on a BC ferry, recently.

Small world.


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