Re: Vulnerability of tanks, aircraft to lower TL attacks

I would like to bring up a point that often gets overlooked. There are 3
types of rounds that kill vehicles(or bunkers) not 2.
  The two most often mentioned here are kenetic rounds (sabot
penetrators) which are high velocity javelins to get through the armor.
  The next is the HEAT round - High Explosive Anti-Tank which is a
shaped
charge explosive which burns a hole through the armor. 
  The 3rd and not mentioned is the HESH round - High Explosive Squash
Head. This round doesn't expect to penetrate. What it does is impact on
the surface of the armor like soft bread dough and spread out to a 6 to
12 inch circle (take a melon, cut it in half and put the flat side on
the
armor) at which point it explodes. What happens is the armor surface
acts
like a big drum or bell that has been hit by the biggest clapper or drum
stick you ever saw and flexes very very sharply. One of the things that
can happen is the inside surface of the armor can break off and become
shrapnel ( this is called spalling.). Another is that anything in
contact
with that surface will get all that energy transferred to it and go
flying off like a bullet (does wonders for the electronic boxes fastened
to inside walls of a tank). Do you remember those toys where there is a
set of steel bearings hung on strings; pick up the end bearing and drop
it and the bearing on the opposite end flies off? Well that's what
happens here.
  The defenses against this are spaced armor and anti spalling shields
inside vehicles but given a big enough bang........	     
   By the way this is what they are talking about when those WWI and
WWII
people mention "sticky bombs." They do even better against concrete and
other block house substances. 
   I've seen several rifle launched HESH weapons in my reading(HESH
round
need to be low velocity, otherwise they'd splatter) of modern and
current
weapon inventories. These are not very high tech except for the
explosive
and are very effective against armor or bunkers.  
   In the 25th Century I wonder how effective they would be if you used
Cataclysmite-V ???

Tom Hughes

On Thu, 2 Jul 1998 12:41:02 -0500 (CDT) jatkins6@ix.netcom.com (John
Atkinson) writes:
>You wrote: 
>
>>I suppose. I concede that modern aircraft are probably pretty close 
>to
>>invulnerable to attack from infantry that's too much below TL. Afghan
>>guerilla's only managed to harm Soviet aircraft when they started
>>gettingthe CIA supplied Stingers. Comperable TL I should think. But 
>
>Uh. . . The Afghans were plinking Hinds with captured Strelas long 
>before the CIA got into the act.  The problem was they didn't have 
>Strelas in *quantity* since you have to fire a couple off to get good 
>odds of getting a hit.  
>
>>As for tanks, look at the extreme. What would a Roman legion do to 
>stop >an M1? Consider it a one-on-one duel. Well, I imagine the tank 
>
>Burn the fuel truck.
>
>>the thing we want to think about. Then shift it a few TL--both sides. 
>
>Now >you've got grav tanks and WW2 infantry, say. 
>
>Freak shot into the turret ring with a Panzerfaust.  But a 17lbr gun 
>with APDS can ruin someone's day through the rear. . . 
>
>Note:	You might have lower-tech weapons with rounds of High-tech 
>ammo. 
>While it might not be profitable or feasable to import grav tanks in 
>quantity, it might well be feasable to import higher-tech ammo.  i.e. 
>that 17lbr gun might be firing APFSDSSD (the last two indicating 
>Super-dense, insert SFional weapon material of your choice here).
>
>John M. Atkinson 
>

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