On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 03:09:14 -0700, Gunner
wrote:

On Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:35:58 -0500, Don Foreman
wrote:

On Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:50:58 -0500, Ignoramus20172
wrote:

On 2008-10-28, Jon Anderson wrote:
wrote:

Ooops.

No kidding! I've seen another video of a mortar exploding.
Any idea what causes this?

I have seen reports that US military intentionally plants rounds that
are designed to explode upon firing, so that insurgents would blow
them up. Kids pick up those mortar rounds, sell them and resell them,
and then they fall into insurgents hands and explode when fired.

I personally think that it is a great idea.

There was a highly classified (and effective) program that planted
doctored ammo during the Viet Nam war. It has just recently been
declassified.


Got a link to any stats?

It would be interesting to see how many gomers we dispatched that way.

Gunner

Google "operation eldest son" and on "doctored ammo".

The benefit wasn't so much how many gomers got directly dispatched as
it was upon morale. Psywar. When one gomer gets killed by his own
weapon, all that see or hear about that event get nervous. Having
trepidations about firing one's weapon can significantly diminish
one's effectiveness in combat, more so in attack than in defense but
the VC was seldom in defensive mode by virtue of being diffuse.