On Fri, 9 Jan 2009 16:36:10 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


"Ignoramus17663" wrote in message
...
A long time ago, near Moscow, I was working on a fall potato harvest
with my class, and one girl found an unexploded mortar shell from
WWII, I would say 3-4 lb weight.

I doubt the following statement from Wikipedia:

It has been estimated that, for every square metre of territory on the
front from the coast to the Swiss border, a tonne of explosives
fell. One shell in every four[2] (some sources say one in every
three[3]) did not detonate. The Canadian National Vimy Memorial Site
is notable for supposedly having one unexploded munition for every
square metre.

Sounds a little excessive.

I punched the numbers and, if Switzerland were included, it's 9 trillion
tons of explosives. I think somebody sneezed when they were placing the
decimal point. g

Maybe they calculated 'the front' as being 100m wide or something like
that.