Rocket Warheads Stolen From Romanian Train [UPDATED]

BUCHAREST, Romania — Dozens of small, old rocket warheads stolen from a train carrying military equipment were found Monday stashed near a railway station in a village of Romania, authorities said.

When the theft was discovered over the weekend, authorities promised the 64 warheads posed no danger to the public because the warheads, or fuses, were being transported separately from the rockets.

The warheads were found intact in four boxes near the railway station in the village of Chitila, just north of Bucharest, Marius Militaru, a spokesman for the interior ministry, told Antena 3 broadcaster. He declined to provide further details, citing an ongoing investigation.

Bulgaria's Economy Ministry identified the warheads as belonging to 122mm (4.8-inch) diameter Grad rockets, which are typically fired from vehicle-mounted multiple-rocket launchers.

It said in a statement that the shipment from Romania to Bulgaria was part of a transfer of "nonfunctional components and parts" for reprocessing at the VMZ factory – one of the Balkan nation's largest military factories – in Sopot, central Bulgaria, where the components and parts were to be replaced and the warheads prepared for sale.

Romanian national police spokesman Florin Hulea also said the warheads posed no risk because they were not attached to rockets.

Romanian officials also tried to portray the Saturday theft as accidental.

Eugen Badalan, a member of the parliamentary defense committee, said the thieves "had no idea what they stole" when the broke into one of the eight cars carrying the weapons on the 27-car train.

Prosecutors were investigating whether scrap metal thieves could have been behind the theft.

Mediafax reported that railway workers noticed the seals on a carriage door were broken, and the door was not properly closed, when the train reached Giurgiu, a Danube port that borders Bulgaria.

The Bulgarian Defense Ministry confirmed in a press release that the recipient of the fuses was a Bulgarian company, not its armed forces. It said the Interior Ministry's Dangerous Weapons Control Service had issued a permit for the transport of the delivery.

The train was loaded on Friday and stopped under guard overnight in the central Romanian town of Brasov, about 166 kilometers (103 miles) north of Bucharest, according to transport police. After leaving Saturday, it stopped for one hour in the mountain resort of Predeal.

___

Associated Press Writer Veselein Toshkov contributed from Bulgaria

Comments

[kevinvandun]

05:36 AM on 07/19/2011

unbelievable, that's the only word I could think of...

[Checkpoint Charlie]

06:30 PM on 07/18/2011

Eastern Europe has always had issues with this sort of thing, one of the disadvantages of a non-volunteer military in a country where most make $30US/month. When I was living with troops in the Czech Republic two helicopter machine guns and one tank went missing and half their vechiles broke down and were abandoned in the middle of nowhere during one exercise.

[Michael GE]

07:08 PM on 07/18/2011

*grins* Oh, even armies which pay their soldiers much higher salaries manage to "loose" heavy vehicles or "abandon them in the middle of nowhere during one exercise" in Germany.
In the link attached are pictures (and a German language newspaper article) from 1987. The US army managed to loose within a minute 11 tanks and one armoured recovery vehicle in kind of a swamp ;)
Here are the pictures: http://www.hassel-online.net/Hassel/Panzer_im_Moor/panzer_im_moor.htm

I digged that up because I know there were a couple of similar incidents. But I guess loosing 11 in one move, that sets a NATO record ;) *ok, I admit, I am kidding a bit. Don't mean to offend anyone*

[cabrobst]

06:12 PM on 07/18/2011

This is what terrorists dream of having to build their IUD.

[Michael GE]

06:49 PM on 07/18/2011

As a former military, frankly speaking: not really. For example in AFG they had plently of and used art.illery shells. Those they digged into the ground underneath the road or in one of the many, next to invisible water trenches there and just mani.pulat.ed the fu.zes. So I would guess that these fu.zes would actually be far more interesting.since they are harder to come by and actually the more sophisticated part.

[1differentdrummer]

05:07 PM on 07/18/2011

Don't warheads have explosives while fuzes have a small amount to ignite the warheads?

[Michael GE]

06:40 PM on 07/18/2011

Not necessarily. These could be some for exercise purposes that contain gypsum instead. Still, as a military person, you would refer to them as w@.r.head.
Or actually it is just a container to be filled with mi.nes, chem.icals (smoke), IR jam.mers, etc. etc. .
Have a look here in the list at almost the bottom of the page (this is the type of launcher they refer to):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BM-21_Grad

[drdrey]

05:02 PM on 07/18/2011

I guess I believe them. But I thought a warhead contained explosives by definition.

[Michael GE]

06:31 PM on 07/18/2011

Not necessarily. It could be a kind of exercise am mo. So there would be ex plos ives to propel them ahead but the actual w@ r head would only contain gypsum. You would use that kind of gren ade for example when learning to operate a tan.k.
Another option is that these could actually have been empty. There are types of w@ r heads that are filled (b.omb.lets, leaflets, mi.nes) according to operational demands. Then they are just a container which opens up after a predefined time once launched.
These are only two options I could come up with. Without knowing more details it's hard to tell.

[Michael GE]

06:42 PM on 07/18/2011

Here's a link. Have a look at the bottom of the page to see the various things the project.iles in reference here can carry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BM-21_Grad

[dogman44]

04:55 PM on 07/18/2011

Warheads and fuses are two separate components that are not generally shipped
together outside of combat areas. The warhead contains the explosive, the fuse is
screwed in and controls the detonation timing. So what was lost, warheads or fuses?
At one point in the article they refer to the warheads as fuses. Very big difference.
A warhead can weigh hundreds of pounds, a fuse maybe a pound or so. my guess
it was fuses that were taken.

[cabrobst]

06:13 PM on 07/18/2011

Either can explode.

[dogman44]

06:29 PM on 07/18/2011

Not arguing that. The difference though is like the difference between a firecracker
and a couple pounds of C-4. If 64 warheads were stolen, that's a serious amount
of explosives. If 64 detonators, (fuses), were stolen, not so much.

[GreeseMonkey]

06:33 PM on 07/18/2011

Depend on the type of the warhead. Romania is producing mostly fragmentation HE rockets (warhead wight 6,35 kg). They also had soviet manufactured rockets with differenty types of warheads. Soviet/Russian warheads include cluster types (HEAT, AT submunitions), RF jammer, AT mine dispenser, antipersonell mine dispenser, smoke, underwater mine, incindiary, chemical, illumination. I'm not familiar with exact explosives used in these warheads but some are quite harmeless without primer (can be burned on fire etc.).

Heh when i read that "scrap metal collectors" did it i also thought Roma (Gypsies).

[dogman44]

06:59 PM on 07/18/2011

I think most military explosives are stable until the application of heat and
compression simultaneously. We used to heat our c-rats over c-4 that we
would get from the engineers that accompanied us. Light a small piece and
it would burn with a small intense blue flame. The engineers made sure that
we understood that you do not extinguish a burning bit of c-4 by crushing it
underfoot.

[Help USA Taxpayer]

04:55 PM on 07/18/2011

Roma

[M Cubed]

05:49 PM on 07/18/2011

No proof that Roma committed this crime. Romania is NOT where the Roma originate. Romania is, however, very poor and the theft of scrap metal is certainly a crime committed by the general public.

[Durango]

06:21 PM on 07/18/2011

Don't get too smug.

At least they were not selling the terrorists (Drug Cartels) arms and ammunition like they do it in the Good Ole USA.

[Sisseline]

07:05 PM on 07/18/2011

Read again!
"It said in a statement the shipment was part of a transfer of "nonfunctional components and parts" for reprocessing at the VMZ factory – one of Bulgaria's largest military factories – in Sopot, central Bulgaria, where the components and parts were to be replaced and the warheads prepared for sale."

You don't find that scary?

[homeroid2]

04:46 PM on 07/18/2011

OK Hillary have the relatives return the war heads please....

[abuckley23]

04:46 PM on 07/18/2011

Justin Bieber's got them. Get him!

[eyelashviper]

04:46 PM on 07/18/2011

Someone competing for "Top Romanian Designer" will make lamps with them...

[wyb]

04:41 PM on 07/18/2011

Went the way of the U-235 shipment "lost"in Pennsylvania in the 1960's. It usually shows up in the middle east.

[Jtt]

04:28 PM on 07/18/2011

¨Authorities promised that the 64 warheads posed no danger to the public¨ Best line this year.

[cabrobst]

06:16 PM on 07/18/2011

Romanian warheads never explode. This why lost cold war. Why am I writing this in a "Boris Badenov" voice?

[Checkpoint Charlie]

06:40 PM on 07/18/2011

I lived in București it's actually true...half the matrails to make them explode is stolen and resold. Same thing happens with the streets, half the matrials are stolen and resold so the pavement melts during the summer and sticks to your shoes.

[advocatusdiaboli]

04:21 PM on 07/18/2011

I used ti say all those train weapons heist movies required significant suspension of disbelief. Life imitates art. Next Steven Segal or JCVD movie will be a documentary.

[5SpdSolara]

04:20 PM on 07/18/2011

Scrap metal?

[the exit]

04:15 PM on 07/18/2011

64 you say ?
Wow, that's not some little pizza delivery business dear Borris
this is the job for man with Truck ..... Big truck.
.
So, Kamrad,.............. Arrest all Big Truck

[cabrobst]

06:18 PM on 07/18/2011

Big trouble for Moose and Squirrel.