
A Western Sydney Gang Got Hold of Military-Grade Rocket Launchers - prawn
https://www.vice.com/en_au/partners/audible-no-gangsters-in-paradise/how-a-western-sydney-gang-got-hold-of-military-grade-rocket-launchers
======
throwawayyay22
Posting under a throwaway account.

This is story I actually know something about. I knew Shane personally and
attended many BBQ's with him and the various other people that made up the
explosives team.

I have for obvious reasons not had any contact with him since the incident.

I can even provide what I am very confident the reason for why he did it. He
fully knew what he was doing, and indeed the reason was for money. However not
for selfish reasons. A captain salary is not that fantastic in the army and
his wife at the time, whom I suspect he is separated from now liked to live
fancy. In fact I am 100% confident it is because of her that he did it.
Probably without her being involved, but I cannot be sure of that. I do know
she overextended their finances which would have been a good motivator.

Any claims he made to forget destroying them are a horrible attempt at
deception to reduce his sentence.

For what its worth he was ostracised from the explosives community over this.
It was a very small group of people, and Shane's appeals to have them speak on
his behalf were ignored by them all. The group is very tight and for one of
their own to betray was seen as a massive abuse of trust.

Honestly I was very sad to hear it. Selling out your country for the low
amounts he did is such a sad thing. I don't think he needed to be in the super
max prisons he spent his time in as I don't believe him to be a dangerous
person. Certainly a very stupid mistake, but not a dangerous person. I suspect
most of his being incarcerated in such was as a message. Personally I remember
him as a fun person at a party enjoying a few beers and telling amusing
stories of which there were many.

As for if other weapons are missing. That is possible. Shane was tasked with
destroying them. Its much harder to steal from stores due to them being
tracked quite well but those to be destroyed are much harder to keep track of.
Usually there would be several people involved to help avoid this sort of
incident.

~~~
chris_wot
Did the guy seriously not consider what would happen if they were fired into
the CBD, and the massive and tragic consequences if that had happened?

I'm not at all surprised that he has been shunned. What he did was treacherous
and could have caused terribly casualties.

~~~
wyldfire
> what would happen if they were fired into the CBD

This apparently refers to the Central Business District of Sydney [1]. I was
trying to sort out what this had to do with Cannabidiol but it just didn't
fit.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_central_business_distri...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_central_business_district)

~~~
NamTaf
CBD is by no means Sydney-specific, just FYI, it’s a commonly used term in the
English-speaking world. Due to the new-world situation of Australia’s cities,
the CBD and downtown/city centre basically always overlap (I.e: there’s no
‘old town centre’ separate to the highrise district), so Aussies just refer to
it all as ‘CBD’.

~~~
loeg
The term CBD isn’t used in the US, as far as I’ve ever heard. That’s probably
why some commenters will be confused. I am only familiar with it because of a
former coworker from Melbourne.

(Seattle is sort of similar in that there isn’t really an old town center, or
rather it’s directly adjacent to the downtown highrises (Pioneer Square).)

~~~
kingofpandora
I believe it's used in New Orleans. That's the only place I'd heard it before
going to Australia.

~~~
loeg
Perhaps I should have said "widely used." :-) I have never been to Louisiana,
but I've been to several states.

------
sharpneli
M72 LAW. I've actually shot a live one during my mandatory time at the
military as a practice shot (We destroy our aging stock by making conscripts
shoot them as a training exercise).

As a weapon it's the typical shaped charge warhead. It would be really
dangerous against any normal non tank vehicle in short ranges. Against a tank
it's useless nowadays. But the semi militarized armored cars used by some
police forces would be disabled rather easily with one. Not blown up to
smithereens, but a hit to the engine space would wreck that or a hit to the
passenger compartment would kill some if not all inside.

Not that good against a building. A hand-grenade would do way more harm
inside. So it's more of a trophy thing, or a really nasty surprise against
SWAT truck assuming the culprit manages to hit with it.

The lax security Australia has towards these is rather hilarious.

~~~
onetimemanytime
Pretty dumb to use against the police...unless you're El Chapo and can buy
them by the hundreds. And have thousands of ex-military men on payroll. In
short, an army and the money to keep them armed.

In a country like Australia, what do they think it will happen once they blow
a police car with one?

These would be great to kill people, criminal heads, politicians etc. That's
all. Do it, collect the money and hope to stay out and alive.

~~~
sharpneli
Good point. The primary use case would be to assassinate someone driving in an
armored limousine.

Otherwise quite useless.

~~~
Gustomaximus
First, lets be clear, I dont agree/support violence and this is an
intellectual exercise.

But thinking about it it could be quite useful as an intimidation tactic.

If your rival biker clubhouse got hit by an RPG followed by the message 'we
have a few more', it could really make people think about committing acts of
attack on a group when another RPG is their likely reply.

That said, using against a police station like these guys considered seems
stupid. Something like that would never make the police back off, and only
throw ever more resource against these people.

The other use would be straight terrorism. One of those into a crowd or
building would be horrific. And could be amplified if the group did one then
said more are coming type thing.

Anyway, amazing the army didn't have greater control on these. At least fire
them at their end of their shelf life for practice as these things cant be
cheap. I imagine controls are significantly increased today.

~~~
sharpneli
I’m doubtful of the efficiency against crowds. The range is short and it is a
shaped charge warhead, so not much of shrapnel flying around which is the
major cause of death/damage in small explosions outdoors. It would be way less
damage than usual hand thrown fragmentation grenade.

If you already are relatively close to a crowd you’re better off using some
fully automatic weapons like actual assault rifles. Or grenade launchers.

Also not condoning violence. Just looking at the threat these things pose in
hands of criminals/terrorists.

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thundergolfer
What scum Della-Vedova is. His ‘brain fade’ story is complete bollocks too.
Who realises they’ve accidentally failed to destroy the full set of rockets
and then because they’re scared of being demoted doesn’t turn them in and
instead sells them to someone in a bike gang.

~~~
dwd
Who forgets they have a boot full of rocket launchers? Heads should have
rolled in the army for this lapse, but makes you wonder if weapons go missing
all the time.

~~~
sandworm101
When your job means handling weapons all day, forgetting about a set is no
more difficult than a tech worker forgetting about a pile of blade servers. It
happens. Militaries implement systems for dealing with such things. For
instance, red amnesty boxes are common at canadian bases. A rocket launcher
may seem scary and horribly dangerous, but sleep beside them for a few months
and they become very normal.

~~~
skinkestek
Headlines in Norway today: a high ranking police officer "forgetting" or
forgetting to hand in some weapons he was supposed to turn in for a friend or
something.

Seems like he might get away without a charge since he delivered them during
an amnesty which - as far as I understand - means he legally cannot be
punished for possession prior to handing them in.

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hnick
This seems like the sort of job you'd send two people on for security reasons.
It's not as though the military typically has a lack of people. Giving one
person that kind of responsibility just presents opportunities for corruption.
I know if I needed someone to destroy a bunch of hard disks I'd make sure
someone was watching so they don't just get sold off with our data.

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peteretep
> I sold the rocket launchers to my mate and he sold it to those fucking
> dickhead terrorists. Now it's a fucking drama.

Straya!

------
ladberg
_In 2001, Shane Della-Vedova, a military captain in the army explosives team,
was asked to dispose of ten M72 shoulder-fired rocket launchers from an
Australian Defence Force base. On the 8th of June, Shane spent the day blowing
up M1 rockets that the Defence Force claimed were unsafe or out of date.
Apparently, he overlooked ten rocket launchers that were still in the car
boot––driving away that day with them in the back of his car._

I don't exactly get it. He was tasked with destroying 10 rocket launchers, and
claimed he forgot to destroy all 10 of them? Does he think this is believable
at all?

~~~
hvidgaard
I think he was tasked with disposing of the M72 launchers and a number of
rockets. He destroyed some rockets, but not all, and none of the launchers.

~~~
jdougan
The M72 is designed to be single shot disposable. It may be possible to reload
it, but it is not intended and would be difficult. It would also be
potentially dangerous as the construction is quite light.

------
mrmrcoleman
Honest question: is there such a thing as a rocket launcher that isn’t
“military-grade”?

~~~
johnchristopher
Well, we have the `patator`
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeTluIkfHjs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeTluIkfHjs)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmWFPp0eTLU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmWFPp0eTLU)
(internationally known as the potator).

[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=le+patator](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=le+patator)

~~~
melcor
Potato cannons, not really rocket launchers. Rocket implies it being a self
propelling object, so more of a missile-launcher/cannon.

It may even be considered in closer relation to a mortar than rocket launcher.

~~~
johnchristopher
Oh yes, you are absolutely right. I am not really into weaponry so I tend to
bag rocket launchers, mortars, bazooka and the like together.

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onion2k
Is there such a thing as "non-military rocket launchers"?

~~~
bloak
It's the "grade" that makes the headline ridiculous for me. I can imagine
military and non-military rocket launchers, but "military-grade rocket
launchers" makes it sound like there's a QC stage at the end of the conveyor
belt where someone says: "This one's a bit wonky. The army won't take it.
We'll sell it to a motorcycle gang instead."

~~~
mschuster91
> makes it sound like there's a QC stage at the end of the conveyor belt

No, the QC stage is at design/purchase level. Different armies, different
needs, different rockets. Some like the Palestinians are happy with utter
crap, as long as it gets the job done (it's a common guerilla tactic, minimal
expense to oneself, but great expense to the other side). Some only need to
defend against car bombs meaning a "cheap" version is sufficient, some need to
defend against old Russian made tanks and some need to defend against tanks
with active armor. Some armies need, for different scenarios, all the variants
- and cost-effective, which means it doesn't make economic sense to deploy
ultra-modern tankbusters against terrorists in Toyota Hiluxes, just as it
doesn't make sense to target US tanks with a WW2 panzerfaust.

------
schappim
Is it me or is there much more Australian content on HN these days?

~~~
BigJono
This one seems a bit random, but there's been pretty good reasons for
Australia to be relevant in the global tech news in the last few years. Our
government is burning down as many freedoms as they can get away with in the
tech space, and setting a dangerous precedent for other western countries to
follow. It can't hurt to have everyone reminded of that every now and then.

Also, I'd guess Melbourne and Sydney are probably trending upwards in both
startups and VC available, which would result in more visitors here from these
parts.

~~~
skrebbel
It seems to me that Australia is the first Western government imposing some
authoritarian-style control on its population. I wonder what the common
opinion about this is among people more familiar with the matter than me: Is
the geographical proximity to China related to this? I can imagine that
Australia might be slowly shifting from the USA's sphere of influence to
China's sphere of influence, and as a result could be gradually adopting more
Chinese-style governance measures.

~~~
NamTaf
No, China if anything is making us take a second look at this creeping
authoritarianism and maybe push back on it. Their authoritarian influence on
our politics and in other spheres (e.g. universities) is a hot-button
politician topic currently.

The main cause, as far as I’m concerned, is the overwhelming apathy of the
common voter. People simply don’t care. We’ve had it way too good for way too
long, so as long as it isn’t an immediate threat to Barry’s ability to buy a
case of booze and watch Friday night footy with the boys then he doesn’t care.

We avoided the GFC largely with minimal pain. Housing has been a sustained
boom that has made generations really wealthy. Our economy has basically not
undergone recession in 13 years, and has only twice in the last two decades.
The social security nets we have in place, whilst being eroded, have yet to
really show obvious signs of strain unless you actively look for them. It’s
really hard to adequately describe just how _easy_ Australia has had it in
general for the last several decades.

As a result of all of this, both major parties have had to do little to
continue these good times, so politics becomes very samey to most people. For
the large majority of the population, it doesn’t really matter which party is
in with respect to their day-to-day lives.

All this means that Joe Average voter has it really easy. They become
apathetic as fuck, and unless an issue directly impacts them they basically do
not even register it. Creeping erosion of free speech/privacy either slides
under the table or becomes a “well I’ve got nothing to hide” argument.

I mean for god’s sake, our current government proposed the idea of using
Webcams to facially recognise porn viewers to confirm their age. It sounds so
ridiculous that most people just scoff at the idea rather than consider the
attitude of ‘fuck your privacy’ behind it.

It’s really frustrating because it’s so wide-spread. The depressing part is
that I don’t see that apathy changing before many of our hard-fought freedoms,
or carefully-built systems that give us such high quality-of-life get
destroyed. There will be a substantial lag time between them being ruined and
it finally impacting the voting public enough that they actually stop,
consider it, and maybe do something about it.

~~~
friendlybus
Is that apathy, or trust? The reason politics is quite samey is because our
system is set up to generate more centrist politicians that the rest of the
world. Mandatory voting and predictable seats gives a good idea of what the
populace actually wants and cares about without having to beat down the
voter's house to get voters to vote. The swing voters matter more and are a
much smaller proportion, building a bunch of stability into the system.

When abbott and turnbull came to a political fight old-gold liberal voters
turned against the party in a way that basically never happens. The voting
population cares, blaming it on apathy is to interpret silence as a negative
outcome when it is not.

------
aedron
A few years ago in my city, a biker gang used a similar weapon (military RPG)
against a rival group. There was a party at the rival group's clubhouse. A guy
climbed up on an adjacent roof and fired the RPG at the building. It went
through a brick wall (directly through a corner IIRC) and exploded in the main
room of the clubhouse. I actually think only one or two people were killed (it
was full), but the place was completely cratered inside.

~~~
exikyut
Where was this?

------
tokai
I remember a biker war here in the 90s, where one group attacked the other
groups house party with a rocket launcher.

Not very effective, but it really sends a message.

------
Someone
All of these were claimed to be "unsafe or out of date" in 2001, and probably
weren't stored according to specs since, so would the launchers still work?
The rocket's propulsion? The explosives inside the rocket?

~~~
ceejayoz
Chances are it's like medications - the expiration date is just as long as
they've tested them to last. Some explosives get _more_ explosive as they age,
too.

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kingofpandora
Didn't an Italian ultras group (Juventus?) get their hands on an air-to-air
missile recently? If I remember it wasn't some old Soviet stock but something
made in Europe not all that long ago.

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mnw21cam
Goes to a blank page for me, and outline.com doesn't work with it. Anyone
actually got some content?

~~~
exikyut
JavaScript enabled? What errors do you see in devtools? Do you see any content
in the elements tab?

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moonbug
"military-grade" is such a dumb adjective.

