The wreckage of an ATACMS MGM-140A missile in Berdiansk
MGM-140A ATACMS Block I
Original model with 165 km range, inertial navigation and 950 M74 anti-personnel and anti-materiel (APAM) grenades.
MGM-140A ATACMS Block I
Original model with 165 km range, inertial navigation and 950 M74 anti-personnel and anti-materiel (APAM) grenades.
Manufacture date 10/96?
There are Russian tanks from ww2 so this is quite modern already!
Here's a fun exercise. Sync up the manufacture dates on weapons, their expiry, and massive global conflicts breaking which happen to clear out old inventory.
You die so Lockheed Martin keeps making billions.
We pretty much continuously produce weapons, so of course you're gonna find a few that are expiring right about now, because it's cheaper for the US Government to pass them off to be used than it is to dispose of them safely ourselves. There are ATACMS that expired a decade ago, and were disposed of without starting a new war.
In addition, the ATACMS program specifically ended in 2007, so under a Service Life Extension Program, the US Army has been pretty continuously refurbishing them to maintain inventory. All in all, this is a prime example of confirmation bias.
But also yes, defense contractors are the only ones who profit from war.
As an environmentalist, I’m so relieved they are not simply going to waste.
FrugalJerk
Do they use also look - smell - taste like for food after its best before date has passed?
I suspect the failure rate goes up. Have you seen the video of the Russian AA missile pretending to be a boomerang 🪃 and flying back to its launch point?
That's what can happen with old rockets.
Yup. One issue from long storage is that the fuel in solid fuel rockets can start to separate. Ryan McBeth did an explanation on a possible cause on that AA missile failure.
As you mentioned, some explosives also become unpredictable. The Takata airbags sending shrapnel into drivers faces comes to mind.
Yes, I've seen (that?) such a video. Rockets and missiles have a lot of mechanical and electronical parts that can refuse to work properly when overaged or stored under bad conditions, besides fancy things happening to the explosives.
I think 140A has a 128 km range, 140B has a 165 km range but only ~300 submunitions.