Army Again Turns to Depleted Uranium for New Weaponry
December 16th, 2009Via: Wired:
For decades, Depleted Uranium (DU) has been the material of choice for anti-tank projectiles – despite a series of controversies about its potential health hazards. But for the near future, at least, the American military will keep on using DU. Alternatives based on tungsten haven’t panned out. Now, the U.S. Army is upgrading to a new 120mm Advanced Kinetic Energy round, and about the only thing we know for sure is that it will be made of DU. The generation after that… may be an improved version of DU called Stakalloy.
Kinetic rounds are metal slim darts fired from tanks like the MAA1 Abrams at very high velocity. The preference for DU is not based, as some conspiracy theorists would have it, on a diabolical scheme to dump nuclear waste in developing countries. It’s because in addition to its high hardness and density, it has a property called adiabatic shear banding. Essentially, DU is crumbly rather than squishy. During the process of high-speed penetration through metal armor, fragments flake off a DU projectile. This means that a DU projectile is “self sharpening” (compared to tungsten, which tends to deform in a “blunted,” mushroom shape.) It also means that DU produces a pyrophoric effect, filling the vehicle hit with a lethal fireball of tiny burning particles. That too makes it more effective than tungsten.
1. Wired is becoming quite the mouthpiece for the MIC these days- sickening.
2. Gosh, the DU worked so well the first few cycles, what with all the sick vets n’ shit from Gulf War 1, oh wait- what sick vets. Third world children born deformed- never heard of em!
What a fucking dipshit. Of course it has a primary military purpose. But that doesn’t mean that 1) the military isn’t aware of its side-effects and 2) said side effects aren’t perfectly in line with our imperial/colonial policy of depopulating areas we want to control.
Great video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5146778547681767408#
The doctor therein went to prison for bringing ONE SPENT DU shell into Germany from Iraq, because it was a health hazard. ONE SPENT SHELL. And yet the dipshits at Wired think the military has no clue what they’re doing when they use this stuff.
FWIW, Kevin, I think “perception management” could be added to the tags for this one, and for any article that says (in effect) “Only a nutjob conspiracy theorist would doubt that what the Pentagon tells us — about anything — is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
(Just wanted to be clear: the “fucking dipshit” I”m referring to is the author of the Wired piece. In case there was any confusion.)
Stakalloy sounds so safe and non nuclear.
Tiny burning particles and the human lung should make anyone stop and think.