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Friday (Un)Humor: Navy Warship 'Accidentally' Fires Torpedo At Nuclear Dockyard
"Had the thing been armed it would have let out a 200-metre blast...You could be talking about a major loss of life," one source noted as The Telegraph reports British military chiefs have launched a major investigation after a Royal Navy warship accidentally fired a torpedo at a nuclear dockyard. Workers watched in disbelief as the tube-shaped projectile flew through the air before blasting a hole in a security fence and slamming into a storage container. "Someone has obviously pushed the button, presumably by accident - the big question is who," as the Royal Navy stiff-upper-lippedly stated "during a training exercise, an inert Test Variant Torpedo unexpectedly jettisoned onto the wharf. There was no explosion and no casualties." Perhaps they should stay away from the Black Sea for a while - just in case.
HMS Argyll was moored at Devonport Naval base in Plymouth when the 9ft missile suddenly shot out of its starboard side during a training drill.
Workers watched in disbelief as the tube-shaped projectile flew through the air before blasting a hole in a security fence and slamming into a storage container.
The torpedo was an unarmed version used for testing drills so it merely thudded into the metal container and did not explode.
Nobody was hurt but shocked Navy bosses ordered an urgent investigation into the incident that took place inside a high security area where Britain's nuclear submarines are refuelled and repaired.
...
The comments from onlookers are stunning and perhaps somewhat comical:
"The torpedo came shooting out of the side of Argyll and flew through the air before going straight through a security fence.
"It's carried on going before hitting a storage container. If anyone was inside it they would have a had a nasty shock - the whole side of the container was stoved in.
"Had the thing been armed it would have let out a 200-metre blast. You could be talking about a major loss of life.
"The Navy guys and the civilian dock workers are understandably appalled by what has happened.
"Someone has obviously pushed the button, presumably by accident - the big question is who."
The Navy stated:
"We can confirm an incident occurred onboard HMS Argyll on Wednesday 12th. The ship was alongside at Devonport Naval Base in Plymouth.
"During a training exercise, an inert Test Variant Torpedo unexpectedly jettisoned onto the wharf. There was no explosion and no casualties.
"An investigation is now under way to determine the cause of the incident. The torpedo is not an explosive hazard.
"The specific details of the incident are subject to further investigation and it would be inappropriate to comment further.
Adding that...
torpedo system test firing alongside in the naval base has been suspended subject to completion of the investigation
Let's just delay any torpedo-testing until this whole Russia-Ukraine thing blows over, eh?
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MmmK. I am sure they will let us know what happened, so we can feel better over the weekend.
The button was mislabeled "RESET."
Didn't I see this on an episode of McHale's Navy?
They should team up with these guys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8MEVVU3bxM
Blame it on the Iranians. It is the di rigueur default mechanism for anything that goes wrong.
200 Years ago they were the most feared Navy on the planet. Now they shoot at themselves. Sad.
What does this button do? --> PUSH!
Ohh...
Bwahahahhhaahahhahah!!!!!
"Hey sailor, was that a 9 foot torpedo, or are you just happy to see me?"
Silly brits.
Let mommy and daddy play war ok?
wasn't darwin british?
hoy, get off the dog and bone, and go down the frog and toad to the rub a dub and have a pigs ear?
that about sums it up right there...
You know how it is when you are just sitting there quietly at anchor on a nice day then suddenly you accidentally launch a 9 foot long, 600 pound torpedo at your own base?
I hate when that happens.
If you are going to have an accidental discharge, go big!
"I thought it was the "EASY" button."
Looks like someone stole Austin Powers' mojo. "I swear this never happens, baby!"
Ooooppppps. Bitches.
-1 for retarded blog post linked. Yes, I read it, and yes it was retarded. Had it not been retarded and even remotely related to your comment or the article content I was willing to give a +1.
Never mind. When I get my "Watching Paint Dry" blog up and running, no-one will ever accidentally click on his link again. My site will be waaaaayyyy too popular. Then I plan on turning it into a reality TV show with its own Facebook page and Twitter account, and don't forget the T-shirts and bumper stickers! - I <heart> Watching Paint Dry! Riveting stuff! (Without the rivets, just tacky paint ... )
Don't forget your new Whistle
False Flag event gone awry? Lesser fuses have been lit.
Simple mistake - the part time hire from the staffing agency (gotta save money, you know) thought the button said "Lunch" but it was actually "Launch."
Hah, that video never gets old. I love the way the dude yells upon realizing what's just happened.
Yea, only that one landed on a japanese beach.
McFail's navy
No worries. Mossad, CIA and MI6 have assests in the area.
Kelsey Grammer and Down Periscope?
"Didn't I see this on an episode of McHale's Navy?"
Yup, they sank the Yamamoto.
Should have posted a sign over it.
"Caution!!! Do not press this button"
False flag gone wrong.
damn the torpedos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn_the_torpedoes
At least Russians won't sink them
Russian hackers are probably laughing their asses off after this stunt...
I hope Putin doesn't pee himself by laughing too hard.
I'm convinced. There are radiation-proof, reptilian shape-shifters in most positions of power.
CPL posted a link about an overnight nuclear no-no in Canada, earlier today.
What a shit show.
Edit: Today, I took the bike out for the 1st time this year.
Got stuck at a CP freight train.
Every other car was marked "Government Of Canada" in English and French.
Only got the bike out today???
You missed out on all the 'interesting' winter riding!
I'm in Canada too, by the way.
Not in Canada.
Polar Vortex flyover country.
Black ice and road salt...
Yeah, he was probably still laughing from Banzai7's work earlier today.
Famous last words.
"If they fire one, we'll fire one"
"FIRE ONE!" (J.McArthur, The Bedford Incident)
Great movie...
Considering the Brits' state of unreadiness, it might be their only torpedo. Kinda like Barney Fife's bullet.
double post
Standby to standby.
... for a possible maybe.
Dummies firing dummies...or duds firing duds.
Yen: I think it's nothing more than premature ejaculation while shooting blanks.
Was John Kerry on board.......??
Mc Shame might have been he has a real penchant for screw ups. Fortunately for these guys they didn't kill anyone like he did on his own ship.
Don't forget John McCain's old man the Admiral who sold out the USS Liberty along with Lyndon Baines Johnson-berg.
I thought that incident was someone else "accidently" firing a missle at McCain.
He's been firing a lot of blanks lately
This is not your father's Royal Navy.
Commander Bond "Q, what is this new button on the watch for?"
These guys are on our side, right? Let's hope so....
Wasted opportunity, would have been the best April 1st gag ever.
Didn't you know they now employ fired banksters ?
The poor guy was half asleep -
Just another coked-up trade execution that went wrong. aka FAT FINGER
I am so poor I am not going to be able to afford the new price for streaming media via prime on amazon.com. So I have been watching as many movies as I can. If anybody is like me, check out
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) - IMDbit is free for prime users. discusses torpedo's being launched while still in inventory.
Dr. Strangelove is baaaack...
friday night in england. drunk.
hoy, get off the dog and bone, and go down the frog and toad to the rub a dub and have a pigs ear?
Hey...what could go wrong?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPSujz7w4K8
that basically sums up europes military capabilities. nato is a joke. europe is a joke. couldnt even finish off libya without borrowing a few missles from the u.s.
Obama's Amerika aka Trayvon-ville is catching up.
Um.
America spends twice as much on the military as the entire rest of the world put together.
Funded by the US Dollar reserve currency buy one get it free charge card.
Maybe they were aiming for that storage container. The only surprise is that the torpedo was not armed.
I heard some lookout yelled "Iceberg dead ahead!" just before the thing was launched.
The fire buttons are made by the same GM/DELPHI that makes ignition switches.
"The specific details of the incident are subject to further investigation and it would be inappropriate to comment further."
There's been a lot of that going around.
SR:
"Those torpedoes you sold us were duds. Don't believe me? Well watch THIS!!!"
It was probably hooked up to Obama's Xbox controller.
roukie marine: "Captain, what's this little button for.....ooops!"
captain: "you've just earned yourself a promotion...this is what we need in the navy....indiscriminate & wreckless initiative."
We're posting you in the Gulf were you'll be monitoring civilian airliners coming out of Tehran!
I like Britain. The public should not be trusted with handguns, but these guys are trusted with torpedoes.
Firing a torpedo isn't as simple as just pushing a button.
First an officer says "Prepare to fire torpedo."
Then and officer says "Fire torpedo."
THEN someone pushes a button.
See?
I see. So the button just ignores your finger if you dispense with the ceremony and press it directly. That's a smart button!
Well the torpedo still fires. It just... well you see.... (sigh) You just don't understand high-tech weaponry.
"Fore!!!"
-Barack Obama, 11th tee, March 14, 2014
Seaman Timmy: Hey, Boss what happens when I press this red button?
Boss: Noooooo .....
Seaman Timmy: What was that woosh sound?
Showing off to the ladies while in the fire control room is not permissible on Fridays. That is all.
More proof that the human race is not mature enough to survive... as if nuclear power wasn't enough proof.
I'm a bit ashamed to admit that this incident does not surprise me. I won't say any more than that.
I'll tell you what we really excel at though: Launching enquiries. Dragging it out for months, have key witnesses lie and repeat, "I do not recollect...", bore everone to death with thousands of pages of fluff, then a pliant judge whitewash the whole thing with a few platitudes. We're really good at that sort of thing. Ask Tony Blair.
Tony Blair... The JP Morgan man?
Maybe they are trying to shoot themselves in the foot so they can stay home from the Ukraine
Hmmmmm, has a familiar ring...
TWA Flight 800Any Royal Navy frigates in the vicinity of Malasian airways flight MH370
Seem to have forgotten that during training you are supposed stop just short and not press that final button.
Course what this means in reality is that come the real thing, you've spent all your time training not to press the button.
I hate it when that happens
Gettin pretty luppee... Must have had a few too many pints before the exercise hey?!!!
Can't believe I'm saying this but if it was either British or U.S. and that thing had been armed "so be it". A handful of (less people) to start the next world war.
God only knows what these guys did in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya?... Am I right????
Good PR to make a statement that this must be a "bad omen" kinda of on the level of what happened to the U.S.S. Forrestal and Enterprise during the Vietnam War!
Sure wish John McCain had "bought it" back then on the deck of the Forrestal instead being the ugly traitorous evil pile of shit he grew into...
Blame those Commie North Vietnamese. They could have kept him with all the other US prisoners Nixon screwed over, but they just had to give him back.
Couldn't agree with you more. And when Nixon was raising that glass of vintage Bollinger to his lips toasting Mao over their new "business arrangement", our kids were still coming home in body bags.
These are the fucks that destroy the world, walk away and die old men sleeping peacefully in their beds.
Fat finger?
Premature ejaculation; but were Seaman involved?
Apparently not.
There is a vas differens to consider in each scenario...
GILLIGAN!
Bobbies aren't armed, apparently neither are torpedoes - never give a Brit a loaded weapon...
One is reminded of May of 1941, when the carrier HMS Ark Royal mistakenly lauched all available torpedo planes to attack the cruiser HMS Sheffield...with no damage to either Sheffield or to the aircraft..
how the hell does that even happen?
isn't there some kind of elaborate procedure that involves at least 3 or 4 people before a weapon is fired?
I mean it doesn't exactly instill confidence if some reserve weekend warrior type can lean on a consul, elbow the big red button and accidentally fire a missile at their own base...
hey, I wounder if they knew for sure it was a dud?
imagine how that conversation went.
"oh shit, oh shit...hey is that thing live?"
thud.
"guess not"
this is why the Brits never engage in live fire exercises...
By the power of SirToshi, these launch systems are powered by BritCoin!! It haff maffs!
Just like the bitcoin blockchain the BritCoin Torpedo-chain is supported by irreversible 'transactions'!
Anyone seen Boris recently?
Reminds me of a story I lived myself. Was sailing on the Waddensea (just North of the Netherlands beneath the Wadden islands) when suddenly we had a shell impact just beside our sailing ship Oeps!
The freakin Dutch Navy was shooting at us from the coast be it with practice grenades it still was a very uneasy feeling.
A Brit who was sailing not so far away from us came closer and shouted “If we have to go, we go together.” Not very comforting either. LOLz
Looking at the map I discovered it was our mistake because we were sailing in official Navy practising waters.
Those Navy buffs must have had quiet some chuckles there on the coastline.
I'm appalled, appalled I tell you!
How do you know it was a drill? That storage container may have looked suspicious to the Captain.
Oh wow, I know that name. I think I have your Topps rookie card stashed away somewhere!
Very interesting. We currently have 5 (I think) nuclear aircraft carriers docked together on the east coast, despite military doctrine that says this is a big no-no. The Lyin' King order them all in and there they sit, like ducks waiting to be picked off. Maybe we'll have an "accident" too.