Posted on 01/10/2017 11:33:26 PM PST by BenLurkin
A solicitation on the Department of Defense's Small Business Innovation Research web site is looking for a smart company to develop biodegradable ammunition. The military would like to see projectile cartridges—which are rarely all cleaned up after a live-fire exercise—made out of biodegradable plastic. The military also references a research paper on the use of biodegradable plastics reinforced with bamboo fibers.
But the Pentagon isn't stopping there. It also wants spent ammunition and casings to contain bioengineered seeds that would, after several months, grow environmentally friendly plants that would remove soil contaminants. The proposal even specifies that animals "should be able to consume the plants without any ill effects".
It's important to note that this is not ammunition that would be used in combat, but rather on training ranges here in the United States and friendly countries such as Germany, Italy and Japan. Ammunition used in combat is too important to tinker with, but at friendly training ranges where ammunition is expended for years and even decades, the issue of pollutant contamination is a real one.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
We only want to have a small section in the back of passenger planes to be smoke free ...
We only want to use this sort of ammo (which will behave entirely different from the real thing) for use in training our soldiers that their guns can fire rounds that could possibly hit something ...
Plastic cartridge cases are already made. They’re reloadable so you can snap in a new bullet—by hand!
Practice like you want to play.
Use the same type of ammo for practice as you will on the battlefield. You want the soldier in battle to operate under tremendous pressure, in hostile environments, under extreme duress. Any training that is at odds with how you want him to perform under those conditions is aiding the enemy.
The other problem, of course, is that this greeny-green ammo is going to cost $50 a round, so units will be under intense pressure to cut ammo expenditures in order to save money. Less ammo means less effective training, once again aiding the enemy.
It is almost as if aiding the enemy was the goal all along.
Make the soldiers police their brass, or develop a machine to do it.
That way we can purposely plant invasive species. US plants could be used to take over the world!... I like it.
Shouldn’t we be more concerned with causing our enemies to bio-degrade into fertilizer?
Bean bags?
This is a funding laundering scheme for liberal election money, paying greeny students voting Sanders.
Some very smart idiots are saying that pre-crime arrests are not meant to prevent people from speaking up but for expressing themselves in new technology development.
The M551 Sheridan and M60A2 tank 152mm main gun/launcher had combustible cased rounds in the 1970s. The main thing we had to be careful for was not to let the rounds break in half and spill the ‘powder’ inside the tank turret. Both vehicles also fired the Shillelagh missile as well as 152mm HEAT, and TPT.
Compressed, freeze-dried ham or pork bone and grisle.
Forget the seed part. Biodegradable ammunition is useful when supporting local groups. I think the idea of supplying limited lifespan munitions is a good idea.
This is precisely where that money would be better spent. Every range in the country, if not the world, would want such a machine.
“The M551 Sheridan and M60A2 tank 152mm main gun/launcher had combustible cased rounds in the 1970s. The main thing we had to be careful for was not to let the rounds break in half and spill the ‘powder’ inside the tank turret. Both vehicles also fired the Shillelagh missile as well as 152mm HEAT, and TPT.”
Caseless ammo would be another solution to this problem. There was a lot of excitement about it a few decades ago but never went beyond the development stage.
Caseless ammo goes back to WWII, and the Germans tried to adopt if for the 4.7 G11 back in the 1980s to 1990 period........without success.
There was an effort to develop a plastic case. I think it was called LSAT, in the early 2000s and ...it went no where.
Reality is the brass case does a lot more than hold the case and powder, it also removes a lot of heat each and every shot. Heat that has to be transferred out of the barreled action by some other means.
The case is an integral part of the “zero” of the weapon, in the nature of the bullet pull, if it varies the pressure profile does and as such it also affects the vibration of the barrel. Brass ammo last a long time, the old FA70 primers from WWII are still good, 75 years after WWII. Even Non corrosive primers, which do not have quite the life, are still usable 40~50 years after manufacture. A lot of that is due to the sealed cartridge.
Now it you go to a glued in bullet, how does that work over time. How doe this bio degradable bullet handed humidity? How does a cartridge that is hygroscopic work in magazines? or react to shock/vibration?
Finally how do handle the elastic modulus of the fiber case? Brass cases correctly heat treated/worked have a lot of “spring” back which means one the pressure is removed they shrink form the case walls and make extraction easy. None of the fiber/plastic materials have that property when subject to high pressure, they are much more likely to show plastic deformation, filling any crack or seam, making extraction very difficult.
Of course the day may come when brass/steel cases are obsolete, but we are at 150 + years of copper/brass/steel cases, and not even aluminum has managed to replace the later two forms (except in low pressure applications).
Totally insane, BUT -— I wouldn’t mind seeing something developed for hostile territory that included seeds for poison ivy or maybe kudzu.
Shooting ranges sell their brass empties for cold hard cash and for many ranges it is a fairly significant amount.
I have been to ranges that will throw you out for picking up your own brass.
Why not? They want soldiers who have turned into women.
Interesting. Thanks.
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