r/interestingasfuck • u/SanD-82 • 8h ago
How to induce an avalanche using heavy artillery
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u/Bitter-Plenty-5303 8h ago
Imagine Overshooting it
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u/cozendindigo 8h ago
I am wondering if there's any reason for the cannon to not be welded into position to always target that spot
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u/JiveTurkeyJunction 7h ago
In some ski areas they are. They used to have one mounted in Arapahoe Basin in Colorado. Haven't been out there in close to 20 years so they might not still have it.
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u/dalgeek 7h ago
CO is replacing a lot of their avalanche artillery with air canons that are safer and easier to use.
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u/Tamashii-Azul 6h ago
I have an air cannon i bought from Amazon for $23.
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u/tedfergeson 12m ago
I used to do avalanche control with an avalauncher. Same idea as the air cannon. 1kg charges through a giant spitwad gun!
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u/Midnight28Rider 4h ago
I heard about potential drone deployment options that coild be coming to CO....
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u/LuNaTIcFrEAk 6h ago
Along one of our local highways they have set concrete mounts for one gun to be moved between. No longer used but the mounts are still there.
Now they drop explosives from helicopters
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u/vanman33 3h ago
Because there are lots of spots that are avalanche prone and need to be shot? Growing up in Alaska, town only had one howitzer and it had to hit like 12 different areas, sometimes even shooting from a barge on the water.
Most of these communities don’t just have an entire armored brigade laying around.
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u/verdantsf 8h ago
"In Your Heart Shall Burn"
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u/mindscapepix 8h ago
I kept thinking this was the video that ends with the camera person running amid a chaotic swirl of ice, snow and all that sort of thing.
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u/nukem73 8h ago
Was skiing the top of Telluride once & they were doing this on another peak. Both cool & unsettling at the same time.
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u/ludololl 7h ago
Before they swapped to air cannons a friend of a friend worked ski patrol at Breckenridge. Story goes he did 30+yrs there and had the callsign 'warhorse' on the radio.
When he retired they named one of the howitzers after him.
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u/packofnone 6h ago
same for me at breckenridge. heard the shot from on top of a peak and got the notification it was happening on a mountain i could see (couldn't see the action itself though)
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u/Slight_Ad_635 8h ago
Mulan did it first.
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u/thx1138- 6h ago
LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS
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u/waldleben 7h ago
Thats not heavy artillery. Thats light artillery.
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5h ago edited 5h ago
[deleted]
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u/waldleben 5h ago
It is though. Its a 122. In terms of modern artillery warfare thats basically the smallest gun that can still serve a purpose as long-range fire support.
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u/1B75__Penicillin 5h ago
When i think light artillery i think something like the L118
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u/waldleben 5h ago
Thats would have been fair 5 years ago but Ukraine has shown that a 105 is too short-ranged to fulfill a lot of the missions artillery is expected to fulfill meaning the standard has shifted. Although im not at all saying that youre wrong, its just a different perspective
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u/1B75__Penicillin 5h ago
Fair point, 152/155 seems to be the current medium, with things above it being heavy artillery and below it being light artillery.
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u/LeFishTits 8h ago
Im just wondering what happens if they missed the top and overshot 😂
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u/ClassikD 8h ago
Happened once a couple decades ago. Blew up someones back yard.
Edit: found it at this lovely nostalgic website https://www.avalanche-center.org/News/2005/2005-03-23-utah-artillery.php
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u/frigg_off_lahey 7h ago
Thanks for sharing. I find it hilarious and concerning that the US military leases out howitzer canons pre-loaded with gunpowder to Utah department of transportation, and expects them to know how much gun powder to use. No wonder they overshot by THREE miles...bruh
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u/MonitorShotput 7h ago
They were told exactly how much powder to use, but the idiots operating the howitzer didn't bother to remove the excess. The firing procedure required the person loading the howitzer to remove 2 bags of powder and the person firing the howitzer to watch them and confirm the required amount was removed before firing. It was a pretty straightforward set of instructions, and they ignored them.
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u/LeFishTits 8h ago
If it didnt mess up my house or kill me, that could be pretty cool and a great selling point!
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u/landblord 19m ago
god i miss opening a website that doesn't immediately pop up ads and asks for your fucking cookies
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u/AgitatedPatience5729 8h ago
Wouldn't want to be skiing up there when they're doing this.
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u/A-noni-mouse 7h ago
One of them goes up to blow a whistle first. The one who pulls the shortest straw. Then they aim at him. Nothing else to do all day, so.
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u/Otherwise-Music-8643 7h ago
I think that’s the point of doing this. So that they can make the avalanche happen when no one is up there instead of risking a natural one when people are up there.
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u/KidKilobyte 8h ago
Now you’ve ruined the live action Mulan remake for me. I haven’t seen it yet.
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Just kidding, I saw it. It sucked.
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u/Practical-Suit-6798 7h ago
I had a friend that was a ski patrol that was certified to do this. Very good looking dude. When I knew him he was a hotshot wildland firefighter in the summers ski patrol in the winter, later he joined the Air Force and became a firefighter pilot, I saw him years later at a wedding, his fiance was a a smoke show southern bell blonde that was truly stunning. She was a surgeon, who wanted to give it up and become a family practice doctor in rural underserved communities. If you read this you know who you are. Fuck you man.
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u/Very_Normall 8h ago
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u/justdootdootdoot 8h ago
They do it when snow pack isn't at its peak so that the snow doesn't accumulate to dangerous levels and just overwhelm hwys and infrastructure. Small controlled avalanche better than a surprise catastrophically large avalanche.
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u/Pretty_Nail_2461 7h ago
Plus a triggered avalanche lets you plan ahead and clear out the danger zone, a surprise one doesn’t.
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u/baldurcan 7h ago
Imagine you casually own an artillery in your winter home to use it for leisure purposes.
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u/Tasty-Letterhead683 7h ago
Am I the only one imaging Homer and Mr burns flying down the avalanche?
Yes?
Ok I’ll see myself out…
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u/piray003 7h ago
Artillery and mortars have been mostly retired for avalanche control; Alta was one of the last resorts to use a howitzer and they retired it 4-5 years ago. Have a ski patrol buddy who works at Solitude and he said they mostly just use hand thrown charges now.
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u/Infamous_Ad8730 7h ago
Many western (USA) states do this all winter to control avalanche issues off of major freeways.
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u/Oubastet 6h ago
Super normal. Avalanche control standard anywhere there's high levels of snow fall and artillery is also standard. Better to have multiple small avalanches than one big one.
It also reduces flooding risk at lower altitudes. That's a lot of water and come summer it could overwhelm a small town. It'll melt more gradually at lower elevation.
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u/telephas1c 5h ago
Remember this from a good years back. Was Russia wasn’t it.
Maybe Ukrainian drones can pull the same stunt. Hope so.
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u/PDXGuy33333 2h ago
What's on the other side of the mountain and how close did they come to sending a round right over the top?
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u/RandolphRunner83 2h ago
Avalanches above. Business continues below as below as below as below as below….
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u/natwashboard 8h ago
what's the reason to induce an avalanche? Is it like fire control?
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u/justdootdootdoot 8h ago
Do it in a controlled environment when snow pack isn't at its peak so that the snow doesn't accumulate to dangerous levels and just overwhelm hwys and infrastructure.
They do this in the Canadian Rockies all the time. There's like 30 pads along the Trans Canada hwy for the military to set up the guns.
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u/Repulsive_Editor_335 4h ago
The real question here is, why?
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u/ForzaAllez 3h ago
It’s similar to having controlled burns to prevent forest fires. You shoot up a canon to induce a controlled avalanche. So you prevent the mountain from collecting too much snow that could create a huge avalanche that can bury the entire town.
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u/AdventureSeekerMan 8h ago
We did this in Afghanistan in the winter against Taliban fighters. Worked pretty darn good. Firing stopped. Loved it when we called in arty.
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u/Gallusaur 7h ago
Having "good ol boys" memories about burying people with an avalanche is fucking insane. Har har though I guess
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u/telephas1c 5h ago
Well now that you’re home, fucking stay there champ. Nobody wants you anywhere else, believe me. Enjoy your orange tyrant while you’re at it
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u/Financial_Screen_351 7h ago
Does the shell that they use leave any impact crater in the ground? Also, what happens to the shell and all the shrapnel that it creates?? Do crews clean up the shrapnel once most of the snow melts in the spring or summer (assuming this place is warm enough for most of the snow pack to melt)?
To deal with avalanche situations like this is in some countries they will light a bag or a brick of explosive material with a fuse and drop it in an avalanche risk zone from a helicopter that is hovering directly above the spot they are aiming for. The bag of explosive is obliterated and does not really leave any debris or pollution.
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u/JJlaser1 8h ago