Fiberglas Tube Found, Everyone Panic
CNN reports : Rocket launcher tube found on lawn, which is vaguely correct, in a way, if you don’t know what you are talking about.
(CNN) — Police and FBI agents are investigating the discovery of an empty rocket launcher tube on the front lawn of a Jersey City, New Jersey, home, FBI spokesman Sean Quinn said.
They also hauled in the the Army’s 754th Ordnance Company and Joint Terrorism Task Force. Too bad they couldn’t understand this part of their article:
According to the Web site Globalsecurity.org, a loaded M136 AT4 anti-tank weapon has a 40-inch-long fiberglass-wrapped tube and weighs just 4 pounds. Its 84 millimeter shaped-charge missile can penetrate 14 inches of armor from a maximum of 985 feet. It is used once and discarded.
It is discarded because after the weapon is fired you are left with a fiberglas tube that can’t be reused because the rocket motor melts the wires that are attached to the firing switch. These things are sold at most gun shows to the same people who buy empty shell casings. If one of these suckers had been fired in New Jersey, someone would have mentioned it.
You either throw these things away or sell them to people with more money than sense. My guess is that someone’s wife discovered her husband had spent money on this and threw it out the car window. A clear case of littering that doesn’t require the services of the “Joint Terrorism Task Force”.
6 comments
Interesting. Especially if they’re only used once, then discarded. Surely, someone would have known if a rocket had been launched.
Before you fire one of those things you make sure that nothing and no one you are fond of is behind you, because the flames from the rocket shoot out at least 10 yards. It makes a heck of noise when it explodes, so people would definitely notice and realize it wasn’t “a car backfiring”.
I take it the New Jersey meida did not report the mysterious disappearance of a small building and at least one pair of smoking boots in the vicinity of the find Bryan?
No missing toll booths or burning tanks, Jams, just an empty tube as useful as the cardboard in the center of a roll of toilet paper.
Actually, one could argue that toilet paper rolls are far more useful, especially for kids.
Yeah, the kittens couldn’t get much going with a 40-inch tube, but they seem to enjoy playing with not-always-empty toilet paper rolls.