Thread: Employment Opportunities

Seeing all these busted and broke weapons in a pile yesterday:





made me reflect on what I'd seen in Mozambique. There, after the war, there were artists who, with the assistance of an NGO turned to making furniture out of weapons that were being turned in by the ex-militants.

Stuff such as this:



I am thinking of what it could mean to promote some Somalis here to do similar..plenty of material.

Would there be any problem with importing stuff such as this...?? Would people buy it??

Some people in Mexico would love to have that chair

Great photos. Just makes you think how lucky we are in Oz.

As for the chair, the thought "Puts a cracker up your a.s" comes to mind

Ever had one of those days where you go out for lunch and then, when you get back, things have changed?

Today was one of those days.

Boys at our workshop knocked off at 1200h for lunch and went to lunch. Long lunch because it is pretty warm. Got back at 1345h to find out that,
at 1210h, the workshop had suffered a 82mm mortar strike. Lucky......no one was injured at all.

You can see where it came through the shade cloth and hit the ground.





Damage to a water truck:





and splattered shrapnel through the shadecloth above:



Yaaaawn...another day on the job.

We are of the view that it was a near un/lucky miss by the insurgents. What they were aiming at was the meeting at the Airport between the UN and an opposition group to Al Shabaab. This is Al Shabaab's most effective means of communication. Lucky for the participants of the meeting, they are bad shots and, lucky for us, we were out to lunch.

Might have to ask about that raise?

I have to preface this with acknowledging my total ignorance of things military, but when I read the opening lines I was expecting to see in the picture a huge crater. It seems to just have been a small indentation in the floor with lots of flying schrapnel.

Are these mortars designed to fling around little bits of metal to mainly maim people, or do they have an explosive (percussive?) force that kills people?

Makes life on the farm look rather dull! Glad no-one was injured.

Originally Posted by spudboy

Are these mortars designed to fling around little bits of metal to mainly maim people, or do they have an explosive (percussive?) force that kills people?

Spud,

To address your question on mortars, it depends on the type of munition and the effect that is trying to be achieved. The effect can be designed. Different fuses can be used to give different effects. A fuse can be point detonated, in other words, it can detonate on whatever it strikes. It can alos be a proximity fuse that pre-detonates above the ground and thereby showers the ground with a cone of shrapnel. Or, it can be post-detonated which will give the shell a chance to penetrate and then explode, which creates craters. Any mortar experts please step in.

I am thinking differently about it being a mortar though. I've been logging the falls of shot and I think we are getting hit with a direct fire bazooka styled weapon. Which is being used to fire at the airport from what is a range greater than it's maximum direct fire range and hence, it is being used parabolically. Helps explain the trajectory I have been able to trace and helps also epxlain the relative inaccuracies and spread of shot we have been receiving. I'll check with some of the munitions experts here.

Well thats just great then for you poor buggers, not only do you get 'intentionally' fired apon, but also by what you described you also gotta take your chances with 'randoms' landing on your head!!

As many mentioned before in here, you got one hell of a job BBC

This is what I believe, is having a go at us:



Need to talk about getting some observation and sniper teams out to see if we can modify his behaviour.