Bent Spear

Bent Spear is a term taken from the terminology of the US military and is understood throughout NATO . Bent Spear describes an accident with a nuclear warhead or a vehicle that transports one, in which, unlike the Broken Arrow, there is no danger to the public from the warhead.

Examples in Germany

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

The information is somewhat blurred because the armed forces do not publish all of the information.

• On February 22, 1970, the nuclear warhead of a Pershing missile fell to the ground near Boetingen during maintenance work. The area was evacuated and cordoned off, but the warhead did not explode. The accident was triggered by the mistake of a worker removing a bolt and detonation cable. The warhead fell, was damaged and a piece of the rocket tip broke off. The incident was first classified as a Broken Arrow, but was later downgraded to a "Bent Spear".
• In 1974 an atomic bomb of the type WE.177 fell on the British airfield Laarbruch while being loaded onto an airplane.
• In 1977, the engine fire of a nuclear weapon-armed CH-47 helicopter crashed. Classified as a Dull Sword
• On February 23, 1981, the engine of a Pershing II rocket exploded.
• On November 2, 1982, on a downhill slope near Karlsruhe, a US missile transporter with a Pershing Ia missile the brakes failed, whereupon it sped into the village of Waldprechtsweier , crushing several cars and killing a driver. Before the wreckage was salvaged, the whole place was evacuated because it was feared that the rocket might explode. The police patrolled otherwise deserted streets. After hours of clean-up work, a US convoy with the wreckage of military vehicles and missile parts left the place on the afternoon of November 3, 1982.
• A WE.177 atomic bomb fell in 1984 on the British airfield Brüggen / Elmt while it was being loaded onto an airplane. This caused the base to be temporarily closed
• On January 11, 1985, the first stage of a Pershing II missile caught fire during a routine exercise near Waldheide and burned down explosively. Parts of the rocket flew up to 120 meters. Battle-ready Pershing II missiles with nuclear warheads were stationed just 250 meters from the site of the explosion. Three US soldiers were killed and 16 seriously injured in the accident.
• A human error caused a Pershing missile to crash on June 30, 1986. The nuclear warhead fell from the missile to the ground.
• On May 5, 1987, a Pershing rocket landed in a ditch near Heilbronn after a traffic accident.

Related terms

• Broken Arrow
• Nucflash

literature

• Bent Spear. In: Benjamin C. Garrett, John Hart: The A to Z of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare. Scarecrow Press, 2009, p. 26. ISBN 978-0-810-87040-6 ( limited preview in Google book search)
• bent spear. In: Jonathon Green: The A-Z of Nuclear Jargon. Routledge, 2014. ISBN 978-1-317-90824-1 , p. 22. ( limited preview in Google book search)
• Eric Croddy, James J. Wirtz (Eds.): Broken Arrow / Bent Spear ; in: Weapons of Mass Destruction: Chemical and biological weapons. ABC-CLIO , 2005, p. 42 f. ISBN 978-1-851-09490-5 ( limited preview in Google Book Search)

Web links

• AFMAN 10-206

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Why a dull sword is bad, but a bent spear is even worse - UK news - The Guardian. In: theguardian.com. Retrieved January 9, 2016 . 
2. ↑ Eric Schlosser: Command and Control. CHBeck, 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-65596-8 ( limited preview in Google book search).
3. ↑ http://www.atomwaffena-z.info/geschichte/gesch_unfaelle_beispiele.html