From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 94 19:06:33 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Nuclear Weapons Material
In-Reply-To: <199408260047.TAA20303@zoom.bga.com>
Message-ID: <9408260206.AA05720@snark.imsi.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Jim choate says:
> The pieces in most cases are simply slivers of metal that breaks off the
> inside of the tank because of hyper-sonic shockwaves.  They are not molten
> and do not in general cause a fire. Other than a lucky hit on a live
> round with the ammo door open there is little chance of starting a fire. 

Actually, my last comment was premature -- I hadn't read what you said
carefully. If you meant to say that such things as discarding sabot
shots don't penetrate the armor directly, according to the Illustrated
Encyclopedia of Ammunition, non-shaped charge armor piercing
projectiles do indeed pierce the armor.

Incidently, I was wrong on one point -- there is a kind of shell
called a "piercing shell" designed to explode after penetration -- but
these are apparently not very successful with modern armor and are
rarely used.

Perry

PS again, this really should be terminated -- it doesn't belong in
cypherpunks.