Any Retired Military Want to Work at the NY Times?

The NY Times ran this photo over the weekend along with this caption "Pakistani men with the remains of a missile fired at a house in the Bajur tribal zone near the Afghan border. "

Sounds bad, huh. Poor old men and children targeted by the nasty old U.S. with missiles. One big problem, however. The hardware their posing with is not a missile fragment, but is in fact an old artillery shell, probably Russian and certainly not fired by a Predator. One military expert had this to say:

Ned Barnett is an expert on military technology, and frequently serves as a contributor to The History Channel on mil-tech issues. He has plenty of experience researching military ordnance. He told me:

“Based on my extensive experience in researching military technology, I can verify that this is a 152mm or 155mm artillery shell – unfired – and by the looks of it, fairly old. It also looks like it has a fuse in it, suggesting that the guys in the photo are either ditch-water dumb or have a death-wish.

[...]

“These shells could fire high explosive (HP), chemical white smoke (white phosphorous – aka “Willie Pete” – a smoke-producing shell that’s also hideous if you get the WP on you, as it burns on contact with air and nothing much will put it out), armor-piercing and semi-armor piercing – even poison gas (there’s much evidence that Saddam used French 155 shells for poison gas purposes against the Kurds, and possibly the Iranians). They are very common, and have been so since WW-I. They remain common throughout the world as one of the “standard” artillery sizes. To me, this looks like a HP shell, but the proof would come in interpreting the markings (that yellow band, plus stenciling).

The NY Times definately needs to hire somebody with military experience, and quit relying on their bleeding heart photographers and reporters to dispense military information. They just end up looking silly.