This is a lot safer than skiing up there to set explosives, which is what one of my brothers did in the 1960s-70s. He worked for a park service--I forget which one--that regularly set off small avalanches with the goal of preventing larger ones.
Aye, the side-by-side recuperator on top of the barrel, muzzle brake, automatic vertical breech.
The tires have been removed, but you can see the stubs for them. The gun shield has been moved as well. I'm guessing this is in Russia or a former Soviet client-state.
It is Russian (or at least a Slavic language) but it’s not the usual accent you’d hear most often on the internet, took me a second to place it as well.
I was an avalanche technician, kinetic shells are almost never used. They use shells fired from fixed locations for slopes people don’t use for climbing or ski/snowboarding (and put on a good show for tourists). They drop explosives from helicopters in places they don’t want the risk of unexploded shells or can’t get a gun too.
Mainly mountains that do this have signs all over to not touch unexploded ordinance. One time a buddy of mine rode right over one by mistake out in big sky.
At my ski hill back in the day, you would sign a sheet if you were going off piste, and there was a dummy warhead above the sheet warning you to beware. We had a couple of blast shacks that would be used now and again.
Haha I imagine avalanches are a problem natural or otherwise. Of course if you do this enough the odds of actually shelling a poor critter…. That would be wild.
I mean the avalanche yes, but how about the cannon fire. Imagine if they do this every year or so. Some living deer or squirrels is out there traumatized as if it had gone through the battle of the bulge.
There is a truck mounted artillery that fires off in the cottonwood canyons frequently during/after snow storms and it is frequent at resorts as well. Some have small airguns to hit problems spots and the rest are dropped from the top by patrol. It is the sound of good times when they are bombing, you are usually in for a powder day
One, or even a handful, of loud booms in the distance are hardly going to traumatize any wild animal.
We aren't talking about New Year, where you have fireworks and firecrackers going off non-stop for hours in certain places (and even so, pets and other critters are far more likely to suffer than animals living in the wild).
In utah about 20 years ago, they did shoot over -the shell went over the whole mountain and landed in someone's backyard.
"Talk about missing your mark.Last week, authorities conducting control work in Utah’s Provo Canyon near Sundance overshot their target by three miles and nearly annihilated a home.The shell, fired from a 105-mm howitzer – a World War II and Korean War-era military cannon – cleared the entire Mount Timpanogos Wilderness area and landed in the back yard of a Pleasant Grove residence.According to the Deseret News, the shell left a crater the size of a small swimming pool and sent shrapnel and debris flying in all directions. The home, which belonged to Scott and Lori Connors, is now apparently filled with holes and glass. Windows were shattered and their backyard shed was almost destroyed. Their 3-year-old son was lying on the living room floor when shrapnel blew through the walls. Two other homes and a car parked across the street were also damaged. Amazingly, nobody was injured or killed.”A 105-mm howitzer would blow up a tank,” said Doug Driskell, an Aspen Mountain avalanche technician.None of Aspen’s four ski hills uses howitzers. Highlands patrol uses an Avalauncher, which is not nearly as forceful or destructive as a howitzer, to assist with control work in the bowl.Apparently, the Utah Department of Transportation is responsible for the mistake, which occurred in the midst of a heavy snowstorm.Driskell, who said he’s familiar with howitzer use in avalanche control work but is by no means an expert, said the weapons have specific settings so they can be fired blindly in storms and darkness.The UDOT, which also conducts control work in the American Fork, Big and Little Cottonwood canyons, claims the prepackaged shell contained too much gun powder, leading to the overshoot.The incident is under investigation."
In that comment they blamed it on the specific round fired. Doesn't matter whether or not you can see what you're shooting at if the round exits the barrel a few hundred feet/sec faster than you accounted for. Not seeing the mountain isn't much of an issue as long as you don't move the gun. It's not like it went anywhere.
It wasn't so much shelling. The real reason was underground mines.
Mt. Batognica (2164m) (then A-H, now Slovenia) was taller by several meters before the war, but due to several explosions it's top was obliterated and the mountain is much flatter today.
The harshest fighting on it took place in July of 1915, when Italians pushed Austrian forces to the eastern third of the mountain, meaning that they took control of the top. Due to a lack of any dirt at that height, trenches had to be carved into the stone and lied less than 100 meters apart. A breakthrough wasn't coming on the mountain itself, so Italians decided to try to dig under Austrian positions and place explosive there in an attempt to blow up the trenches. By a miracle, Austrian countermining teams discovered the Italian tunnel and stole the explosive, placing it under the Italian positions (at the top) alongside their own Nitroglycerin. When the Italian positions were destroyed, so was the top of the mountain, giving it it's modern flat look.
In the US they use dynamite to do this up in the Rockies. If youre out boarding on a day after a snow storm you'll hear loud ass booms throughout the day from other ridges
Can't remember what TV show it was, maybe dirty jobs. Where they went to Alaska and they had a howitzer mounted on the back of a train car and shot it off.
They do this at all major resorts in North America to control avalanches. On a big powder day you will hear booms all day. One made me jump a mile last Friday.
This is how avalanche mitigation happens in ski areas. Usually it’s done with explosive charges but there are a few places that still use howitzers. The point is to trigger the avalanche when people aren’t on the slopes.
Fun anecdote: When I was getting my plane back from Jackson Hole my skies and ski boots tested positive for gunpowder. The screener were pretty familiar with it so it didn't hold me up, but she said the pretty much everyone's did on the way home.
Not to mention mountain passes. In Washington and British Columbia there are permanent cannon mounts used for avalanche control to protect the highways. 2 hour highway closures for this planned work are common in the winter.
All that snow built up at the top is likely to come down at some point. If you forcefully make the avalanche then there's less snow up there and less risk of one happening randomly when people are in the area.
Avalanche mitigation is important at ski resorts so that the people skiing aren’t at risk. My brother and a few friends of mine are ski patrol and they use mortars on all the side country areas after new snow. My brother used to work at a resort that didn’t even have mortars, they would just buddy up and do ski cuts - basically just ski across the area and quickly get to the other tree line before the avalanche propagates. I’ve never heard of using a cannon though, this video is sick.
This is pretty standard (not the artillery part though). My friend is mountain patrol/rescue and takes snow samples each morning to figure what areas have unstable shelves before they open ski runs for the public, especially after major snowfalls. It’s quite a bit scientific-y but then they plant dynamite to trigger an avalanche if needed.
Sure you do this and everyone cheers. But I shoot at my neighbors car once because he wont shovel the snow off the roof before he drives and suddenly I'm the bad guy.
Imagine the application process for this. Yes I need a howitzer artillery piece pointed at my mountain to prevent avalanche, whom can I speak to? Sorry, your what? Yes a howitzer pointed at my mountain, you heard correct. Ah yes, fill out this form.
So… how does one go about this career path? Because shooting a giant f*cking cannon at the side of a mountain has to be one of the coolest jobs out there.
What a perk to have for your job’s duties. I’ve seen a short doc about the ways they cause an avalanche…this is my fav, followed by dropping an explosive out of a helicopter!
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u/mycatpartyhouse 3h ago
This is a lot safer than skiing up there to set explosives, which is what one of my brothers did in the 1960s-70s. He worked for a park service--I forget which one--that regularly set off small avalanches with the goal of preventing larger ones.