Explosion of Sellier & Bellot plant

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tirod

Moderator
If they were handling the typical HE from demilled artillery shells past their comsumption date ( as determined in other use) then it was getting dodgy anyway.

Powder used as propellant isn't exempt from aging either. If you want to keep enough to supply your troops for the first six weeks of a war, you have to store it, shoot it up, and replace it in a continuing stream.

350 tons is about a days worth of it - we have a former Dyno Nobel plant (formerly Hercules IIRC ) which does the same - burns out of date US military explosives. And they have had some cook-offs in the incinerator when it's overloaded from too much thru put at too fast a rate.

We also have a fireworks storage facility about ten miles due west, they were transferring a load from one trailer to another when it just "went off." Being as there was nothing left and no one surviving to point out how it happened, Oh Well.

Meanwhile, back at one of the two dynamite plants, there is a story of the piping system in the contact explosives building having issues, it clogged up and the workers were pounding out the jam with a hammer and :eek:


Yep.

Stuff blows up.
 
K

kilimanjaro

New member
Sevens, yeah, it's the Czech Republic now, Slovakia being another country, but Mumbai is still Bombay, Chennai is still Madras, Guangdong is still Canton, the Incas built Macchu Picchu, not the Inkas, and Myanmar is still Burma. At least Russia is still Russia, despite having been the Soviet Union.

Things are still the way they should be.
 
W

wogpotter

New member
When I was there back in 1968, installing lab equipment for the technical university it was still Czechoslovakia, so I tend to still think of it in that way, even though its now The Czech Republic & Slovakia.

I do wonder though if I can go back as I was *ahem* "asked to leave" by a bunch of Soviets.
I've since outlived both the asking country of the USSR & the country of Czechoslovakia which I was bussed out of to neighboring Austria as a "subversive westerner" I guess it makes the whole thing a moot point.:)
 
R

Radny97

New member
Ensign Bickford used to have an explosive and gunpowder manufacturing plant about 4 miles from my home. They shut down about 5 years ago. In the 40+ years that it was in operation it exploded at least six times probably more. They would just rebuild the buildings and keep up manufacturing. They were shut down when it was found out that the plant had contaminated the groundwater. Explosions at gunpowder and explosives manufacturing plants happen all the time. I don't think it's anything other than an accident.
 
M

Mike Irwin

Staff
"I love the hidden humor when we point fingers at how poorly the press reports "facts" while also saying that the whole thing happened in a country that simply does not exist."

It's not my job to give a flying crap about getting the name right when talking about about what former and still semi-communist hell hole it is we're talking about.

As far as I'm concerned, it's still a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
 
W

wogpotter

New member
I was actually having the time of my life there. Hanging out with a bunch of wild students & getting paid for it!
Then "They" came:(
I didn't even get real Russians, they were all from some some remote Eastern satellite nation & looked like "Odjob":eek:
 
B

BlueTrain

New member
Is there a place where they like you even if they don't like you?

A relative of my wife married a young woman from Serbia. She had the most wonderful Hollywood Russian accent (yet spoke no Russian, only English, Serbo-Croatian, French, etc.). But he was footloose and they finally divorced after seven or eight years. This year he married a girl from Bali.

You might be surprised to learn that ammunition for a 105mm howitzer comes loose or at least it used to. But loose only to the extent that the charge came in little bags. You took out the bags you weren't going to use, slipped in the projectile and away you went. When you were done having fun, you were left with a pile of bagged propellant. What did they do with it? Burned it on the spot, although you spread it out some first. I don't know if 105mm howitzer still comes that way or not but they still use 105mm howitzers. I can only imagine how much powder a 16-in naval gun used.
 
4

44 AMP

Staff
Artillery rounds come in essentially 3 different kinds, fixed, semi fixed, and loose.

Fixed, the rounds are identical in appearance to regular small arms ammo, meaning they have a case with a projectile, "fixed" as a single unit.

Semi fixed means there is a case, containing the powder, but the projectile is separate.

Loose (bagged, unfixed, terms vary) means that there is no cartridge case, the projectile and the powder (in bags) are loaded into the gun.

Different nations (and times) practices have set the designs for which system is used where.

Generally, 105mm and smaller rounds are fixed. 155mm may go either way, fixed is usually the least commonly used. Larger calibers are almost exclusively "unfixed", although some nations have used semi fixed in very large calibers, these are exceptions.

Battleship guns, (the 12, 14, 16 and 18) inchers use HUNDREDS of pounds of powder (in bags) each shot. I'm not certain (check with a battleship sailor) but I believe the 16" 50caliber rifles on our battlewagons use 3 bags of powder (150lbs each) as their standard load.
 
J

James K

Member In Memoriam
Powder explosions are pretty common in plants making powder and even in loading ammunition. And, yes, smokeless powder is pretty safe in small quantities and technically does not explode, only burn rapidly.

Still, it is strongly recommended to be elsewhere if several tons decide to "burn rapidly."

The description of the building sounds like a typical powder storage building. Those are built with strong walls and a thin roof, so that the force of the blast will be deflected upward and not cause damage to the surroundings. The fact that only two people were slightly injured indicates that the safety precautions did work.

Jim
 
W

wogpotter

New member
Updated
It was priming compound. "trinitroresorcinate" aka Lead styphnate!

Dead bodies of all three missing found in Czech ammo maker

Vlašim, Central Bohemia, Sept 22 (ČTK) — The police have found the dead bodies of the three employees of the Sellier & Bellot ammunition maker who ere missing after the gunpowder explosion on the firm's premises in Vlašim on Monday, district police spokeswoman Eva Stulíková told the Czech News Agency today.
The blast claimed three lives in total.
The first dead body was found on Monday, the bodies of the other two around 14:00 today, the police and firefighters announced.
The works to secure the site will continue not only on the scene of the explosion, but also in its broader surroundings.
It is not sure whether the investigators can get to the place today. The investigation into the tragic accident is to last for several days, Stulíková said.
On Monday afternoon, trinitroresorcinate, a semi-product used for further processing the gunpowder, exploded in the depot of the material for the production of detonators.
Bomb-disposal experts, firefighters, rescuers and police officers arrived in Vlašim to deal with the situation.
Experts inspected the surrounding buildings to guarantee their safety and rule out the threat of any other explosion. The compound was then searched by a helicopter, a special robot and a bomb-disposal expert in heavy body amor.
The inspection was stopped at 23:00 on Monday and it resumed this morning, regional firefighters spokesman Petr Svoboda said.
Detectives will examine the spot after the bomb-disposal experts finish their work.
Fatal blasts occurred in the Sellier & Bellot complex in the past as well.
In November 1967, an explosion killed seven people and injured 22 in the plant then named Blanické strojírny, while another person died during rescue works.
In January 2003, one person died in an explosion in the Vlašim ammunition maker and another one was wounded.
Sellier & Bellot has been producing firearms ammunition since 1825. It has 1,400 employees and produces 2 million bullets a day, which it exports to 80 countries. Two-thirds of the production goes to the civilian market, mostly shooting ranges and hunters. The firm has been owned by the Brazilian company CBC since 2009.

Read more: http://www.praguepost.com/czech-news/49877-body-found-at-ammo-maker-blast-site#ixzz3mgqYYnsv
 
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