Not Good
Ok, this report is not good news. A homeowner in New Jersey walked out her front door and found a surprise on her front lawn. A rocket launcher.
(CBS) JERSEY CITY A Jersey City woman made a shocking discovery on her lawn this morning when she noticed a military rocket launcher lying in the grass.
Niranjana Besai was leaving her house, located at 88 Nelson Street, to go to work just after 8 this morning when she spotted the launcher on her front lawn. "I read it and it [said] 'missile,'" Besai told CBS 2 HD. "There was little 'missile' [writing] on it."
She immediately called police.
Sources tell CBS 2 HD that the device is an AT-4 missile launcher that is used to fire against tanks and buildings. The device was first approved by the U.S. Army in 1985 and questions are being raised as to whether the device was stolen from a branch of the military.
Its very powerful warheads can penetrate through well over a foot of armor.
What's more troubling, sources add, is that Besai's house is located along flight path for Newark Liberty International Airport.
There is a bit of hyperventilation here. If the device is an actual AT-4 of the type used by the US armed forces, it is a single shot weapon that fires a "dumb" unguided projectile. It is not a "missile launcher", it is classified as a recoilless rifle (or grenade launcher). Technically, it would be possible to hit a jet in the air with one - but it would be a hell of a shot. That does not mean this is not a problem. When was the last time you found a recoilless rifle lying in your front yard?
There are other types of devices which are real missile launchers, however, that this could also be, so until there is a definite identification, everything is speculative. One witness reports seeing a picture of a kneeling soldier on the device, however, which matches with the markings for the AT-4 (officially the M136 AT4). But just happening to find one in front of a house that is under the flight path to a major airport isn't a good thing at all, regardless.
UPDATE: The AP is reporting that the device has been confirmed as an AT-4 which had already been fired. The devices are not reloadbale or reusable. They believe the device is about 20 years old. The disturbing part is that experts agree that the fired device, while not lethal, can be used as a training prop to show someone how to hold and aim it.
Army personnel identified the yard-long tube as an AT-4 anti-tank missile launcher, said fort spokesman Timothy Rider. Such launchers can only be used once to fire a missile, and soldiers determined that this launcher had been fired, he said.
"It can never be reloaded, but it still has the mechanism that can be useful for training," Rider said, explaining that soldiers can learn to carry it on their shoulder and take aim.
By Neo, Friday, 20 July , 2007 @ 1:00 pm
The AT-4 is about 18 in long, but the report said it was about 6 feet long. So something is amiss here.
By Neo, Friday, 20 July , 2007 @ 1:01 pm
Sorry. The report said “three or four feet long and weighing about 15 pounds”. Still it doesn’t match.
By Neo, Friday, 20 July , 2007 @ 1:08 pm
I really got myself all messed up here.
The projectile/cartridge is 18in/4lbs but the AT-4 is bigger.
By Gaius, Friday, 20 July , 2007 @ 1:18 pm
There was a picture of both at the link I provided. Size appears to be a match.
By Marcus Atrocious, Friday, 20 July , 2007 @ 10:14 pm
An expended AT-4 is nothing more than a useless fiberglass tube. Similar to an empty section of pipe. Like already pointed out, it cannot be reloaded. As a training aid, it has a certain value, but only on how to fire other AT-4s… which like Gaius said, is a wholly inappropriate weapon for taking down airliners. I won’t go into particulars, but suffice it to say that it is an extremely poor substitute for a surface to air missile.
Marcus