Here's video of an airburst artillery round;Kmarion wrote:
FEOS wrote:
That's not what those pics looked like.Kmarion wrote:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10984-cloud-of-darts-could-neutralise-buried-landmines.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/27/dr … f-arr.html
I'm surprised our military experts didn't explain this..lol.Really? It did to me.Each rod has a flared rear end, like the feathers of an arrow, and hundreds can be packed into a single cylindrical shell. This shell can be lobbed into a mined area and just before impact a charge behind the arrows will fire them downwards. The metal flights will keep the arrows on a straight course so that they pepper the area at high velocity and at regular spaces.
Here's video of an old HC smoke round
Here's parts of a relevant article from Globalscurity;
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ … ons/wp.htm
The picture linked earlier looked like a M825 that'd been detonated on the ground (after impact, or as an IED.. pick whichever one you prefer). Normally, you'd airburst a M825 smoke round to get maximum concealment from the smoke. Groundburst.. not so effective.Globalsecurity.org wrote:
Israel used White Phosphorus against HAMAS targets in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in January 2009. This violated no international laws or conventions.
...
White phosphorus is not banned by any treaty to which the United States is a signatory. Smokes and obscurants comprise a category of materials that are not used militarily as direct chemical agents. The United States retains its ability to employ incendiaries to hold high-priority military targets at risk in a manner consistent with the principle of proportionality that governs the use of all weapons under existing law. The use of white phosphorus or fuel air explosives are not prohibited or restricted by Protocol II of the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention (CCWC), the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects.
Now, if that is in fact a M825 WP smoke round - they're 102 pound projectiles, air-burstable, designed to generate smoke for obscuration/concealment purposes. They only contain about 13 pounds of actual WP (White Phosphorous) and are not the Viet Nam era "Willie Pete" mass-incendiary bombs. They are smoke generators - not the mass-incendiary devices that most civilians would associate with "WP" or Napalm from watching too many Viet Nam movies.
If you're really curious about the various artillery munitions in the US (and by extension Israeli) arsenal, here's a few links to browse through;
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ … ns/155.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ … s/ammo.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ … s/m825.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ … ons/wp.htm
Last edited by rdx-fx (2009-01-05 21:51:27)