Shell Blasts Highway as Guardsmen Err
HYANNIS, Mass. — A 105-millimeter howitzer round landed on a Cape Cod highway instead of a target at Camp Edwards because the National Guardsmen who fired it used more than twice the proper charge, investigators said.
A report released Thursday by Col. Howard W. Edmiston Jr., inspector general for the Massachusetts National Guard, said the artillerymen were supposed to use three bags of propellant in firing the round but used seven.
The shell flew more than a mile past target on Sept. 27 and onto Route 6, where it blew a hole two feet in diameter and three inches deep. No one was injured.
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