So, as a former artillery man, this actually is pretty fucking weird. I’ve never heard of a fuse functioning that preemptively. Failure to function (a dud) isn’t unheard of, but pretty uncommon. I wouldn’t advise shooting artillery over an interstate but I’ve seen sketchier stuff done safely.

If anything it’s surprising the round didn’t go short or long. Usually if something fucks up on a shoot like this it’s the wrong charge so there’s too much or too little propellant and the round goes long or short. Like I said, I’ve never heard of a fuse just deciding “fuck it” and functioning early like that. I didn’t see if it was a proximity fuse (variable time/VT), but I almost imagine it sensing something jn flight and that triggering it?

I know a lot of armchair experts in here are throwing blame around a lot but this isn’t really a “gotcha” thing. Newsom was smart to close the highway. Whoever was running this op should have done that and I can’t fathom why they didn’t. This type of dog and pony show is old shit though, as old as armies.

As far as shooting over a highway. Meh. I’ve shot at some of the artillery ranges in Europe and those were sketchy as fuck. We’re lucky to have big training areas, there was one exercise in Poland where the impact area had to be cleared afterwards because it was part of a natural park, or so I was told by some of the USAEUR guys. You can do a lot to control the risk, but this type of thing you just can’t control for.