When things go tits up

1978 HMS Bristol on sea trials, the great white elephant was conducting a gun function on the 4.5 Mk still a rather new bit of kit and unknown to us we had topped up with a dodgy batch of ammunition thats the first thing that went wrong and it went severely downhill from there.
Closed up I was on the GDP and it was decided that we were going to use the EFCB (Emergency Fire Control Box) instead of the ADAWS computer, which is a basic anologue computer which simpy means you put Target range, speed, bearing, and iclination and a series of clockwork dials gives you a firing solution.
The Gunnery Officer, a slovenly but well spoken gentleman with a face like a well hooked cod decided he would take charge.
Safety checks went well and command approval was given and we engaged with the first round, attempted a second and fcuk me we had a missfire and fcuk mewhat happened next still makes me laugh today.
The Gun was put on a safe bearing and the Captain of the Gunbay who's job it was to remove the missfired round was ordered onto the upper deck to enter the Gunhouse and remove the missfired round from the breech.
Nobby, the LWEM pops up the hatch nervously enters the rear of the gun, the barrel was at 30 degrees elevation instead of the 12 degrees it should have been.There was a slight swell at the time and no-one had thought anything about it (I was an AB and knew fcuk all).
Nobby opens the breech and the 50kg round comes flying out of the breech the base of it hitting Nobby full in the face taking most of his teeth and top lip wth it, not only that Nobby falls out the back of the gun and the HE shell falls onto him cracking three of his ribs and then proceeds to roll all over the Focsle, colliding into the bollards several times. When I stop laughing I look around the GDP only to see the Gunnery Officer continuously pressing the firing button on the EFCB completely unaware of the events on the gundeck, what a cnut!!

The ship was a disaster, we almost shot down a Seaking in the dip instead of the submarine with an Ikara missile, the killick of the AS Mortars thought he would load them quicker when we re ammo'd alongside at Portland by removing some of the pawls in the loading well, it was Friday afternoon he'd had 6 tinnies down the mess and wanted to get back to Pompey for the weekend, the WEO heard the almighty crash and rushed to the magazine, the killick was sat on top of ten rounds of HE bombs smoking a fag, he got out of DQs 60 days later minus 3 badges and a hook.
Fcuk me I could write a book about Gunnery fcuk ups.

The Charybdis a gun Leander was my first ship as JS Gunner we were given an old tug to sink with the 4.5 off Gibraltar, the gunners were so shite they couldn't hit a cows arse with a cricket bat. We had to close to 1000yds to hit the fcuking thing it would have been easier dropping the fcuking shell onto it.
We fired a rogue Seacat missile that nearly hit a tanker in the channel when it flew off in the opposite direction it should have.

We did SOCs at sea on York, loaded the Seadart test misile onto the launcher and the fcuker fell off!!
Maybe old Stan is just a jinx???

 

Yeah but you really did some damage with that welded up tug in Aus with Beaver and Amazon(?) waiting for their go!

 

You weren't on Tartar in 79 when it fired on its Wasp? (Got the gun target line confused!!!!!!!!!)

 

Couple of good dits Stan, but

It couldn't have been 'sea trials' as I left her in 76! It might have been work up or FOST. And I thought she was a brilliant ship, I loved my time on there - in fact, probably best ship I had. Sad to se her sitting at Whaley, now with no masts.

 

Fcuk aye MG I have to say Manchester was the dogs bollocks even though Doom watch Eli et al were a dangerous bunch of cnuts remember John Tippey and crew filming us all the way through Global 86 I came back with a knob like a fighting dogs ear and about 5k in debt.

 

A jinx you may be mucker, but your prose is fucking outstanding. If we ever hook up for a beer, make sure you're at least 10 metres away from me. Just in case.

 

Oh Yes! learned to steer well clear of Eli! Never did find out what they did with that film ... too much incriminatory evidence!!!!

 

Famous signal from a towing aircraft..'Im pulling this f***ing target,not pushing it'. :angel7:

 

A Hunter off Portland after goal keeper 'ate' the towing cable per chance!

 

The Skipper on the Beaver was pretty hacked off when Manchester sunk the tug

 

Could be Waspie.Heard it years ago.

 

The one I remember is pre 92. (That's when I left) I met the pilot at a bank seminar a few years later. He said it wasn't the nicest experience he had ever had.

 

We almost 'sank' a lighthouse off South Africa on a live firing excercises in 73.
we never did find out where the stray rounds ended up, they went inland.

 

Didn't those stray rounds start the South African bush war, that went on until 1989?