That will be a neat trick, because if the second stage resembles the first stage it will be as aerodynamic as a can of butter cookies.
Posted on 12/05/2008 10:08:23 PM PST by neverdem
“of course it only needs to work once.”
Until somebody comes up with a two stage EFP...
We need to remain “The baddest on the block”.
Excuse me
ladies, but that way no one will “mess” with us.
I’m thinking the antitank weapon of the future will be something like the A-10 gatling gun. Fire a stream of depleted uranium bullets at the exact same spot, each one weakening the armor a little more, until they start penetrating.
The A-10 is a Bad Ass. What ever works and is most effective to make our enemies take notice and think twice.
My guess is the newest vehicles will have a high-velocity rail type gun or a Very High Powered Laser.
Some of the new lasers can punch a hole through 4” of steel in under 4 seconds.
I can also vision laser defensive weapons for long/short range naval vessel point defense, like the air borne laser instead of the little R2 gattlings. They could be powered by the vessels nuclear reactors instead of chemical batteries.
at that point we’ll see the end of armored vehicles. You won’t be able to make armor thick enough, so no point in having it at all.
You’ll still have to protect from the anti-tank gun, RPG’s, regular rifles, and .50 M2’s so armor isn’t going to go away.
> Fire a stream of depleted uranium bullets
Here’s a “stupid-civilian” question: what’s the deal with “depleted uranium”? What does it do that plain ordinary lead doesn’t do? Does it glow in the dark, or explode-on-impact, or what?
That will be a neat trick, because if the second stage resembles the first stage it will be as aerodynamic as a can of butter cookies.
IIRC, the missile system they encountered was the AT-3 "Sagger".
It’s super dense.
> It’s super dense.
Ahhh. That makes sense, then: it would pack a heavier punch than lead, size-for-size and all things like velocity being equal.
Thanks for the explanation.
It's very dense as in mass per volume. At 19 g/cm3 uranium’s density is similar to that of gold or tungsten, and nearly twice that of lead. IIRC, that's about 19 times the density of water.
You’re not far off with the “glow in the dark” remark. Aside from being super-dense, depleted uranium is a pyrophoric metal, which (if I understand the process correctly) can add an incendiary effect when a d-u round penetrates the target’s armor.
(Chemistry majors and tank commanders feel free to correct me here if I’m incorrect in my description :-) )
Fascinating read — thanks!
So it can catch fire, sorta like magnesium?
(Tee-hee-hee! Gotta love it!)
DU is super-dense!
Not necessarily. Remember, if the focused fusion devices work out, it won’t matter how big the tank is. You’ll be able to move something that’s the size of building, perhaps even on an air cushion a la David Drake.
Also, I don’t see energy weapons going man portable any time soon.(Not unless someone manages to make David Drake’s “powergun” real, and that’s probably never going to happen - the more so since *he* doesn’t believe it’s possible and specifically states that they’re only there so he can tell stories.) What I do see is tanks adopting more and more active defenses: Multispectral smoke from smoke projectors, already in use, scatters and diffuses lasers to the point where they are harmless to most armors. Active point defenses, like the Israeli Arrow system, can knock down incoming RPGs, guided missiles, and even deflect incoming recoilless rounds. The Russian “Arena” system can supplement this, plus take out anything that gets into your dead zone around the tank.
On top of which, depleted uranium is a very *hard* metal, so it makes a dandy penetrator.
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