Army sends Ski Resort howitzers to Iraq (not a joke)

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 08:49:21 -0700
From: Paul Saffo <psaffo () iftf org>
Subject: LAT: Army sends Ski Resort howitzers to Iraq (not a joke)
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>


Hmmm... Pretty soon, they'll start stripping parks of their Civil War
cannon and sending them to Iraq... Lets hope they don't have a shortage
of computers, or we'll all be forced to hand over our Amigas and
Sinclairs for the cause...
-p

Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mammoth28apr28,1,4718658.story? 
coll=la-headlines-california

From Sierra Slopes to Strife
The Army recalls five howitzers used at ski resorts to clear snowy
overhangs and prevent avalanches.
 By Bob Pool
 Times Staff Writer

 April 28, 2004

 These weapons are going from where the action is really cold to where
the action is really hot.

 California ski operators said Tuesday that the U.S. military was
reclaiming five howitzers it leased to ski resorts last year to fight
avalanches so the weapons could be used by troops fighting in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

 Resort operators at Mammoth Mountain and Alpine Meadows use the
artillery pieces to blast slopes clear of snowy overhangs that could
fall and trigger avalanches that endanger skiers.

 Army officials said they hoped to give troops the two-wheeled,
truck-towed M-119 A-1 howitzers in 90 days.

 "Supposedly they're going to try to get us an older version of the
howitzer as replacements," said Ray Belli, a ski patrolman at Alpine
Meadows near Lake Tahoe, where a pair of the M-119s are in use. "Lucky
for us the ski season is almost over."

 Mammoth Mountain has used three of the M-119s to protect the 1.3
million skiers expected to visit the High Sierra resort before the end
of the ski season on Memorial Day.

 "They're vital to Mammoth. A lot of people's livelihoods are related
to skiing. But the war effort is a greater need," said Pam Murphy, a
senior vice president for the Mammoth Mountain resort.

 In the past, the military provided Mammoth with old-style recoilless
rifles for controlling avalanches. But ammunition became hard to get,
and the Army decided to swap them for howitzers, Murphy said.

 "They told us to try out the 119s on a one-year lease," she said.
"They were going to let us know by June 1 if the lease would be
extended."

 The howitzers can reportedly fire up to 10 shells a minute for up to
10 miles, although ski patrol workers shoot more slowly and for much
shorter distances.

 Belli said Alpine Meadows used its howitzers about five times this
winter. Murphy could not estimate how many howitzer rounds were fired
at Mammoth. She said the explosives shake overhanging snow loose
without damaging the slope surface, which is frequently under 12 feet
of snow.

 Her resort's employees also clear slopes manually and "go out and
throw dynamite" to trigger harmless avalanches when ski runs are closed
to the public, Murphy said.

 Alpine Meadows will begin crating up its howitzers immediately, Belli
said.

 The sooner the troops get them the better, the Army said.

 The guns will be immediately serviced and shipped overseas, where they
are in short supply, Don Bowen of the Rock Island, Ill., Arsenal told
Associated Press.

 "The replacement cost if you were to build one today is probably
somewhere in the vicinity of $1 million," Bowen said.

 Even for a ski resort that gets 440 inches of snow a year, that kind
of cold cash isn't easy to dig up.

 "But we'll find an alternative," promised Mammoth's Murphy.

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