I don't care what medium you use, just make your voice heard.

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The current construction of the towers was not engineered to deal with cannon fire.

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This may be right, but there is still one tower yet to be built. Built that one in a way that it can withstand the cannon fire.

Put the cannon on the new NW tower.

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This will not happen.

I'm saying this, not arguing it: to think the NW tower can/will be changed with the engineering & design already finalized and the steel already in process is wasted effort. There is no place in the as-of-yet constructed portion of the stadium to put the cannon and it is too late to redesign it entirely to fit in a new feature.

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This. The design is done, and the structural engineers would probably just laugh at you. It's also probably not really feasible, since I am sure that there are implications that go well beyond simply designing structural members capable of withstanding the force of the recoil. I would think that a lot of joints throughout the west side would have to be redesigned as well to withstand the vibrational forces produced by the recoil that will undoubtedly travel throughout the structure.

Put the 02 in that concrete area next to the west side and the parking lot inside the fence.

BostonAg74

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There are all kinds of potential issues here, most of them involving money, and probably a lot of money. I don't think there was any secret directive to get rid of the cannon. I think it was just determined that it is a luxury we cannot afford.

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You sound like one of the decision makers who said, "This wasn't a tradition when I was hear, cast it aside."

You seem like a typical dismissive leader.

I'm guessing you are either not a real Ag... or decided it was fine getting rid of the cannon.

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Kyle Ballantyne @ballantexx @TexAgs @oljock99 we are working on shirts. A link should be up next week

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A lot of dumbassery in this thread.

Recoil from a blank charge?

F=ma

Think about the mass of the cannon and the force of a blank charge. Little to no acceleration. Please.

Foolishness

Yall really can argue against anything. I'll jump on this bandwagon if we can agree to get the dance team on the field.

Keep the cannon

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That would not pose huge liability issues

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What liability? It shoots BLANKS. It is not like 40 pound supersonic projectiles are landing in Welborn.

Blanks. A black powder charge that is measured. Please explain the liability to me.

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Blanks can still kill and cause lots of damage. There are lots of stories of people playing with blanks and shooting them at their or someone else's head or body and killing themselves or the other person. With a cannon, there is a significant risk of at least some level of barotrauma (from blown out ear drums to rupturing internal organs) when firing blanks due to the pressure wave produced by the rapid expansion of gasses coming out of the muzzle. Also, bear in mind that the gasses are not losing any energy as they escape the muzzle because they are not pushing a projectile out.

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Please explain the liability to me.

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Liability is whatever the insurers define it to be. Sometimes it involves noise. Sometimes there are ordinances regarding the discharge of weapons in a place of assembly, usually with arbitrary minimum distances included in the ordinance. I have no idea what restrictions may apply here, but it stands to reason that there are some restrictions that had not been accounted for in previous discussions. It's a big gun that makes lots of noise in a place with 100,000 people crowded around it. Didn't anyone see some potential problems with that?

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A lot of dumbassery in this thread.

Recoil from a blank charge?

F=ma

Think about the mass of the cannon and the force of a blank charge. Little to no acceleration. Please.

Foolishness

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Machine vibrations aren't all that strong, but they sure as hell tear **** up.

When this whole sum***** was in the planning stage I asked about where the cannon would go


chalk this up to another tradition that is going by the wayside

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That would not pose huge liability issues

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What liability? It shoots BLANKS. It is not like 40 pound supersonic projectiles are landing in Welborn.

Blanks. A black powder charge that is measured. Please explain the liability to me.

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Blanks can still kill and cause lots of damage. There are lots of stories of people playing with blanks and shooting them at their or someone else's head or body and killing themselves or the other person. With a cannon, there is a significant risk of at least some level of barotrauma (from blown out ear drums to rupturing internal organs) when firing blanks due to the pressure wave produced by the rapid expansion of gasses coming out of the muzzle. Also, bear in mind that the gasses are not losing any energy as they escape the muzzle because they are not pushing a projectile out.

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We fire the cannon every freakin week on the quad. It is manageable to fire safely around people and structures. We aren't firing a heavy load from a howitzer. An entire cement/metal tower structure would not become magically unstable from firing blanks from the spirit of 02. Now you can argue the logistics of getting the cannon up and down each week as well as the location, but don't act like the recoil is a significant structural concern.

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Please explain the liability to me.

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Liability is whatever the insurers define it to be. Sometimes it involves noise. Sometimes there are ordinances regarding the discharge of weapons in a place of assembly, usually with arbitrary minimum distances included in the ordinance. I have no idea what restrictions may apply here, but it stands to reason that there are some restrictions that had not been accounted for in previous discussions. It's a big gun that makes lots of noise in a place with 100,000 people crowded around it. Didn't anyone see some potential problems with that?

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There are solutions for the sound. A&M trumps College Station so we can make our own ordinances. We have fired this thing in the stadium for years. So it's not "shooting it around people".

I think you said it best when you said that you had no idea. Sometimes I just wish the new site had a punch in the face button.

Many fond memories of the cannon, we had the pissheads pick us up in the back of the chicken before Midnight yell, girls in tow. I bet the players like the cannon highlighting their dance into the endzone.

I wonder who is going to be making money off selling those t shirts?

//Why not withhold the last check on the new Kyle for nonperformance on the contract, as was originally agreed to.How difficult can this be, after all we're suppose to be a top tier engineering school. Maybe offer a doctorate to the engineer with the plan.//Just my thoughts.//hs

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That would not pose huge liability issues

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What liability? It shoots BLANKS. It is not like 40 pound supersonic projectiles are landing in Welborn.

Blanks. A black powder charge that is measured. Please explain the liability to me.

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Blanks can still kill and cause lots of damage. There are lots of stories of people playing with blanks and shooting them at their or someone else's head or body and killing themselves or the other person. With a cannon, there is a significant risk of at least some level of barotrauma (from blown out ear drums to rupturing internal organs) when firing blanks due to the pressure wave produced by the rapid expansion of gasses coming out of the muzzle. Also, bear in mind that the gasses are not losing any energy as they escape the muzzle because they are not pushing a projectile out.

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An over pressure of 5 psi is the threshold of eardrum rupture. Pulmonary edema is much higher. You make.it sound like we have not been doing this for 40 years and that we are fortunate to not have maimed or killed a member of the PMC.

If you do not know what you are talking about don't say it.

#SaveTheCannon

No cannon, but hey- we've got some new statues! /sarcasm

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We fire the cannon every freakin week on the quad. It is manageable to fire safely around people and structures. We aren't firing a heavy load from a howitzer. An entire cement/metal tower structure would not become magically unstable from firing blanks from the spirit of 02. Now you can argue the logistics of getting the cannon up and down each week as well as the location, but don't act like the recoil is a significant structural concern.

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Since you mention logistics, I'm going to point out that the Spirit of '02 isn't going anywhere, and that the 105 was meant to replace it for games for the exact logistical reasons you point out. A horizontally fired 76mm =/= a diagonally fired 105mm.

Everyone knows that cannon is going to fire on the quad. Outside the stadium, you have a **** load of people milling around and probably not paying attention to it. The danger is there.

It's technically feasible to fire it off of a roof, but when the design has already been completed and construction is 3 months out, it's not feasible to simply go back and redo it to account for it. I wouldn't blame A&M's insurance if they voided the policy on Kyle Field for it. The rooftops of the towers were designed with certain assumptions in mind, mostly dead loads from equipment and live loads from x number of people. They were not designed with the assumption of withstanding repeated dynamic loads from a 105mm or 76mm gun. You think it should be no big deal, but this is very long term decision. It could be totally fine for several years as it slowly degrades and eventually overloads a weld or other connection, or it might be perfectly safe. As far as an insurance company is concerned, they're not going to take a chance. At any rate, you'll more than likely destroy a portion of the concrete deck after a few years.

They can build a ramp on one of the towers and point the barrel up if they want. The cannon does not have much recoil so they could tie it down.

Some of us are merely pointing out that this is probably a much more complicated issue than selling a lot of T-shirts and mail bombing the BOR. Don't shoot the messenger. When you're a kid, you can throw a tantrum and get a candy bar. It's a little more complicated in Big Boy World. Someone simply needs to ask the questions:

1) Why can't the cannon be included in the current configuration?
2) What would be the cost of including it?
3) What affect would modifications to include the cannon have on construction schedule, budget, structure, and seating capacity?

Get real answers to those questions, and you will know what you have to do. T-shirts and email don't mean a thing until then.

We're asking those questions but not getting answers.

The point of a social media campaign is to get MORE people to ask those questions.

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Some of us are merely pointing out that this is probably a much more complicated issue than selling a lot of T-shirts and mail bombing the BOR. Don't shoot the messenger. When you're a kid, you can throw a tantrum and get a candy bar. It's a little more complicated in Big Boy World. Someone simply needs to ask the questions:

1) Why can't the cannon be included in the current configuration?
2) What would be the cost of including it?
3) What affect would modifications to include the cannon have on construction schedule, budget, structure, and seating capacity?

Get real answers to those questions, and you will know what you have to do. T-shirts and email don't mean a thing until then.

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This. You guys just assume that the powers that be can simply make it so with the wave of a magic wand. It's like "lighting the letters." It didn't happen because there were significant challenges and roadblocks that anyone outside the know simply didn't understand.

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Some of us are merely pointing out that this is probably a much more complicated issue than selling a lot of T-shirts and mail bombing the BOR. Don't shoot the messenger. When you're a kid, you can throw a tantrum and get a candy bar. It's a little more complicated in Big Boy World. Someone simply needs to ask the questions:

1) Why can't the cannon be included in the current configuration?
2) What would be the cost of including it?
3) What affect would modifications to include the cannon have on construction schedule, budget, structure, and seating capacity?

Get real answers to those questions, and you will know what you have to do. T-shirts and email don't mean a thing until then.

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This. You guys just assume that the powers that be can simply make it so with the wave of a magic wand. It's like "lighting the letters." It didn't happen because there were significant challenges and roadblocks that anyone outside the know simply didn't understand.

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The letters could have been done but the powers that be didn't want to.

The point is we are asking these questions and being given the run around.

It's just so much easier to get rid of something rather than trying to spend some time to figure it out. People are becoming idealouges and lazy.

#save the cannon

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A couple of y'all just love to play contrarian. We are simply asking for an explanation, who the decisiom makers were and what it would take to get the cannon back.

Meanwhile Boston and Abatt throw out a ton of BS speculation on their personal reasons why the cannon is impossible just to hear themselves speak.

If there are valid reasons, then an explanation and mitigation plan on how it will be corrected given by an identifiable leader would go a long ways towards quelling the uproar.

It's absurd to act like there is no viable solution to something we have been doing safely for decades. If that was the case, then it should have been stated from the start as a casulty of construction to prepare the fan base, instead of saying all along it would be a part of the upgrade only to scramble at the last moment as we have seen.

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What's happening? Can't find any reliable info.

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Basically the cannon will be taken away from game day activities because of bureaucratic pressure from a small number of people calling the shots. It has not been said that way, but there has been a slow erosion of the ability to fire the cannon, and waiting until after the season will be too late to get a change in.

The noise of "this season only" is misleading. This has been fixed and planned since the beginning. It was only changed in the days leading up to the Lamar game. It has completely pulled the rug out from under the cannon handlers, and the parties making those decisions won't even say it publicly or claim it's their decision.

It's unacceptable that another tradition can just be tossed aside.

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I hate to see it go as well but lets not mistake the cannon as being a tradition in the form of the 12th man or midnight yell. The cannon has been around since 1983 I believe. Losing it would be sad but it wouldn't be a detriment to our football lore.

30 Years is a long time man, with the way A&M has grown since the 80's I think it would be safe to assume that it has been around for 30% of Ags that have gone through here.

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What's happening? Can't find any reliable info.

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Basically the cannon will be taken away from game day activities because of bureaucratic pressure from a small number of people calling the shots. It has not been said that way, but there has been a slow erosion of the ability to fire the cannon, and waiting until after the season will be too late to get a change in.

The noise of "this season only" is misleading. This has been fixed and planned since the beginning. It was only changed in the days leading up to the Lamar game. It has completely pulled the rug out from under the cannon handlers, and the parties making those decisions won't even say it publicly or claim it's their decision.

It's unacceptable that another tradition can just be tossed aside.

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I am inclined to believe that eliminating the canon was the plan all along, but the bureaucrats knew it would be very unpopular, so they kept it quiet until it became "too late" to find an accommodation.