Police in America were hoping for a good turnout at their ‘Kicks for Guns’ program, in which people were encouraged to exchange weapons for sneakers. What they weren’t expecting was for someone to hand in a surface-to-air missile launcher.

An man exchanged the 4-foot-long launcher for some Reebok sneakers for his daughter, the Orlando Sentinel reported on Friday.

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=62258&in_page_id=2

At least he doesn’t have the launcher any more…

Well, it’s sort of useless without a missile for it, and they can’t be that easy to come accross.

Tom - “Hey Jim, I just found this missile launcher in a shed!”

Jim - “Nice find Tom, do you think it’ll fit that missile we found in the pool last week?”

I would love to do that just to see the looks on their faces

“Is that…uh…”

“T6400 air-to-surface missile launcher. Can I get two pairs of shoes for that?”

“But…”

“Yeah well, I don’t use it anymore and she is my little princess and she needs some new shoes so I thought what the hell. Family comes first, eh?”

Okay, yeh, but why did the guys at the dump tell him to get lost?  If the thing was basically useless?  Actually, thinking about all this though, while I probably would have been impressed with the offered machinery, to tell the truth I’d not have had ANY idea what it was supposed to be !!!

That would be a great conversation piece to have hanging in the back window of the pickup.

“Hey Jethro. whats that there thing hanging in the window?”
“well Jimbob, it’s an M-72 handheld rocket launcher.  You should see the mess it made of the hog pen over to Ebeneezers place.”

Hey! This gets a little bit of Hoax status!

I found this site which had a picture of the tube. Slightly different from the picture in the first article isn’t it?

The lettering got me curious so I googled “1A-3 missile launcher”

Seems that it is NOT a surface-to-air missile launcher (it really doesn’t surprise me that the police aren’t up on their missile categorisations), but rather an anti-tank missile tube. It is likely also a training round, and useless without guidance equipment even if there was a missile in it (which there wasn’t, or she wouldn’t be holding it up that easily).

This guy had the same idea, and found the same thing I did.

So, yes, a missile-tube, no, not surface-to-air…

Apparently it’s a case for an anti-tank weapon.

A suspected missile launcher handed in to police in Florida as part of a sneakers-for-guns program turned out to be a carrying case for an anti-tank weapon, the Orlando Sentinel has reported.

Stunned officers in Orlando, Florida were handed a long olive-green tube they thought was a surface-to-air missile launcher on Friday.

As part of the ‘Kicks for Guns’ program aimed to reduce gun violence, they traded it in for a pair of Reebok sneakers, the daily said.

But military defence contractors later determined the object was a carrying case for an anti-tank weapon known as a “tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided” missile (TOW).

“They’re pretty available on the Internet,” Raytheon investigator John McGrath said.

“We run into a lot of this, actually.”

Transfrmr, I pulled the image off that site.  Yep, holding it up with fingertips indicates it’s really just a lightweight tube mostly.  BUT, it’d be great to use in a sculpture!  I’d like to have it….

hulitoons - 22 August 2007 10:43 AM

Transfrmr, I pulled the image off that site.  Yep, holding it up with fingertips indicates it’s really just a lightweight tube mostly.  BUT, it’d be great to use in a sculpture!  I’d like to have it….

Smerk’s post looks oddly familiar, she’s paying me back for stealing her credit on Boo’s post I’ll bet

Huli, according to Smerk’s article, they can be found for purchase on the internet. Might be worth looking into if they’re not too expensive

Yup.  BGM-71 missile case.  Not much use without the launcher, battery pack, sight, and a few other things, not to mention the actual missile.

Of more interest to certain parties on this Forum might be the M-47 Dragon. . .