Missile Mystery

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cowboy caesar RE:Missile Mystery 10/31/2003 6:22:24 PM

I'll make a guess since nobody else has. It's a undersized sabot round fired from a large caliber gun, such as a tank main gun. Based on the limited amount of damage at the entry site, it looks like a solid penetrator. By using a discarding sabot round with a penetrator of less mass than a standard penetrator, they were able to achieve sufficient muzzle velocity to penetrate the side armor. The small caliber round did not possess enough kinetic energy to cause catastrophic destruction of the vehicle once it entered the crew compartment, though. Perhaps somebody was conducting a field test of this weapon.

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macawman Look for a single shot AT rifle ? 11/1/2003 12:10:43 PM

The Russians have a 30 mm AT tungston sabot round. This one shot hit on the M1 leads me to believe that this was a large caliber rifle firing a tungston AT penetrator. Our 25mm AT sabot is a DU round. It give off a tell tale radioactive indication.

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NewGuy RE:Look for a single shot AT rifle ? 11/1/2003 8:24:01 PM

If it were a sabot round of some sort (and no, our 25mm or the Russian 30mm does not have nearly the level of penetration attributed in this article) then it normally would leave fragment evidence inside that whould allow one to determine that. Since no such fragment evidence was discussed in the article, I would have to assume that it was a HEAT round from a missile or a gun. HEAT rounds are not always consistant in their effects inside a target, and do not always cause significant damage upon penetration -- for example, one M-48 tank in Vietnam took 14 penetrating hits from RPG-7s and suffered no catastrophic damage or indeed major system loss from the hits. NewGuy

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gandalf RE:Missile Mystery 11/2/2003 7:42:35 PM

If it was DU, the crew is dead in a few months and the tank interior should yield a lot of DU particles and dust. If it were, we may never hear about it officially, given all the fear of DU on the battlefield and Gulf War Syndrome. A large caliber AT sabot round would have left a lot of trace elements and particles in the tank. A HEAT round is my guess. Something with a lot of velocity and very little mass. It had enough energy to make it through the skirt and side armor, some other junk, make an almost 2" deep gouge in the opposite side of the tank armor, all without killing that crewman sitting in the seat it hit? I would expect that any long rod penetrator capable of going through 2 layers of moderate armor and gouging 2" out of a 3rd layer spaced several feet away would cause a lot of spall from the 1st and 2nd armor layers, kill the tank crewman nearby and likely shatter from all that work, not have enough left over to take on another 2" out of the 3rd armor layer. Sure, spall liners are installed and they are great, but the pics should have shown more damage and bulging to the tank side armor if any longrod made it through.

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appleciderus RE:Missile Mystery 11/3/2003 4:39:12 PM

Has there been a change in the leathality rating of DU dust? Last study I read said they had less gamma ray emmission than a page of common loose leaf paper.

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cowboy caesar RE:Missile Mystery 11/3/2003 5:12:51 PM

>Has there been a change in the leathality rating of DU dust? Last study I read said they had less gamma ray emmission than a page of common loose leaf paper < Apparently a DU projectile gives off a burst of heavier particles as a side effect of striking its target.

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appleciderus RE:Missile Mystery 11/3/2003 6:24:08 PM

I understand that, but it seemed gandalf was saying that the crew would be dead from radiation poisoning. Did I misunderstand? Is the contention that the dust emits more radiation than the dart? Is the dust a dangerous inhalant because of its density?

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gandalf RE:Missile Mystery 11/3/2003 7:04:07 PM

The official line is: (usinfo.state.gov) Can DU cause kidney damage? Recent studies have examined possible health effect from exposure to depleted uranium from chemical heavy-metal effects, unrelated to radiation. The best understood of these potential health risks, as determined by high-dose animal experiments, is kidney damage. These studies indicate, however, kidney damage would require an amount of uranium in the human body would have to absorb quantities well above the level present in soldiers who have survived a direct contact with vehicles struck by DU munitions. Some media reports suggest that dust from depleted uranium munitions and armor has caused health effects among soldiers and civilians in areas where such armaments have been used. According to a number of comprehensive studies and reviews, no health effects have been seen in U.S. soldiers who are known to have had substantial exposure to depleted uranium dust and fragments. During the Gulf War, 15 U.S. Bradley Fighting Vehicles and nine Abrams tanks were mistakenly fired on and hit by shells containing depleted uranium. Thirty-three survivors of these incidents, roughly half of whom have retained fragments of depleted uranium in their bodies, have been studied in the Depleted Uranium Follow-Up Program (DUP) of the Baltimore Veterans' Affairs Medical Center. To date, although these individuals have an array of health problems related to traumatic injuries resulting from their wounds, none of those studied had any clinically significant medical problems caused by the chemical or radiological toxicity of depleted uranium. HENCE, a few months for the survivors is wrong. My bad. As for the continuing health problems not being related to DU dust, historically, the government has been less than forthcoming in the near term in admitting they did something that may be harmful to the health of their soldiers or others (nuke tests, TCDD-dioxin, etc.) Only time will tell if DU will be added to the list. DU rounds do have some great penetration abilities though. Still, I think a HEAT round did this tank, but with so little behind armor effects that they probably just pissed off the crew.