Friendly fire death by "smokeshell"

[Guest]

Hi All,

Please forgive my lack of knowledge, but as many of you may know a British soldier was recently killed in Afghanistan in a so called "friendly fire" accident.

What I do not understand, is what caused his death. Quote:

The MoD is investigating his death and said a smoke shell, designed to provide cover for soldiers working on the ground, may have fallen short of its intended target.

Link to article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10792083

I am just wondering, is it a smoke shell as in a smoke grenade? Or is it something different?

I was just confused to how a smoke shell could kill a man, unless the fumes are toxic, or he was hit by a large shell?

Sorry for the silly question, I don't know much about smoke shells so was just a little curious.

My condolences to his family.

Regards,

Richie.

[jakerod 254]

I think that you can die if you get hit by them. If a mortar or a tank fires one, I could imagine someone being killed by it. Thrown, probably not though.

I know that when my brother and I play Close Combat 5, he always fires his mortar's smoke shells at my men to try to kill them before we truce. I do realize that its a game but it is a fairly realistic one.

[Guest]

Oh ok, I assume it must have been fired by tank or artillery then.

What a shame, must have been a real fluke. :(

Thanks for the reply mate.

[Baff1 0]

Also those phospherous munitions are used for smoke.

The ones the Israeli's fired into the UN compound. They could be pretty damn lethal.

[AnimalMother92 10]

Maybe it was like this..

sKPogx816YE

[SpitFir3Tornado 10]

I believe what they referred to as a "smoke shell" was a bullet that releases a smoke screen when heated(like a smoke grenade.) This may have also been an artillery/mortar shell that emits smoke(way less likely but still possible.)

[TechnoTerrorist303 10]

I think that you can die if you get hit by them. If a mortar or a tank fires one, I could imagine someone being killed by it. Thrown, probably not though.

I would imagine that any soldier capable of killing someone by throwing a smoke grenade would be a handy asset. Probably quite scary for the enemy as well considering he'd be built like bigfoot.

[mercyne 10]

The word shell makes me think this was probaly a round from something that fire it not thrown and as the video aboth shows it is probaly possible to kill someone with such a round let alone one of those artillery smoke screens.

[a wild goat 0]

What I imagined when i read that is that maybe they threw a smoke into a friendly position accidentally and shot at it killing him, not sure though its a really vague description

[Pathy 0]

White Phos rounds are used for screening or blinding purposes, usually done by mortars. The smoke in itself is relatively harmless (ie, hard to imagine causing death), but I suppose a more direct hit would do it. The 'falling short' part of the description would lead me to believe mortars. Knowing as I do that WP is used for that role, yeah, i'd say it was a WP mortar round.

Edited July 29, 2010 by Pathy

[pre-Vet 10]

sad to hear, rest in peace for those 3, hope they will always be remembert.

guess a mortar round as it was said

may have fallen short of its intended target.

dont know how you call it but we call it a "shortfaller" (translated) when a mortar leaves the pipe and starts whiseling.(indicating it has problems with the airflow.) you cant really predict where they might come down.

when as stated above it would have been a WP round, the WP leaves the body of the shell but the shell keeps going, if you get hit by that you will have serious injuries or even worse.

thrown smoke grenades are also dangerous, the white smoke genades become red hot and even may explode when thrown in to water, the colored smokecanisters produce a hot jet of flames witch renerate the smoke. in most cases not enougth to get you killed but more than enought to get 3rd degree burns when coming in to contact with.

just sad something like this happend.

[jakerod 254]

thrown smoke grenades are also dangerous, the white smoke genades become red hot and even may explode when thrown in to water, the colored smokecanisters produce a hot jet of flames witch renerate the smoke. in most cases not enougth to get you killed but more than enought to get 3rd degree burns when coming in to contact with.

I always thought that you could keep holding onto those after you ignited them. I guess its a good thing that I have never tried to use one then.

[pre-Vet 10]

there are civilian types that are a bit saver but wont give so much smoke, like the savety touches for maritime usage.

saw some nasty accidents with the NATO standart munitions thought, those handles and pins on the detonator are really weak. on the colordcanisters it even plastics!

[Buzz_Fledderjohn 0]

Probably a smoke shell from artillery then... R.I.P.

Last year a Dutch mortar crew in Afghanistan accidentally fired a WP round instead of smoke, luckily no one got hurt.

[JdB 151]

I always thought that you could keep holding onto those after you ignited them.

It's a chemical process. And as they say here, "where there is smoke, there is bound to be fire" (or in this case, something about as hot as an actual fire :p ).

The round didn't need to hit him directly. Even smoke & marker rounds have a kill radius of a few feet/meters IIRC. The mortar round is made of metal, which fragments on impact. Quite rare for that to be lethal (don't remember hearing about it anyway), so I am not sure about what killed him.

Edited August 1, 2010 by JdB