Re: New 'electrical active' Armour to defeat hand held anti-tankrounds

In the US Army it's called HEP - High Explosive Plastic.  They can be
very
effective, but they are extremely unreliable, because the actual effect
on
the target is highly variable. A standard "party piece" at various
demonstrations was to trot out a bushel basket full of fragments
collected
from a HEP hit on a target hulk. What nobody ever mentioned was how many
shots it took to get one that produced THAT effect. HEP/HESH is  very
effective against concrete, however, and that was it's main use by
doctrine
(in the 70's anyhow) in the US Army.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ground Zero Games" <jon@gzg.com>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 7:17 AM
Subject: Re: New 'electrical active' Armour to defeat hand held
anti-tankrounds

>
> >
> >> The British used a shaped charge (fire a BB gun at a window and
> >> you'll see the effect) called a APSH (APSH - armor piercing squash
> >head)
> >> which passed the inertia but did not penetrate.
> >
> >My understanding of an APSH was that it is a 'normal' grenade with
thin
> >walls so that the explosive material is squashed flat against the
> >armour. When it then explodes, not only the inertia, but also the
> >energy of the explosion is efficiently transferred to the armour.
> >
> >Greetings
> >Karl Heinz
>
> Isn't this what is usually referred to as HESH - High Explosive Squash
> Head? A round that squidges against the target on impact, then
detonates
> and sends a shockwave through the armour, causing chunks and splinters
to
> spall off the inner face and do a Magimix job on the unfortunate
crewmen.
>
> IIRC (and my knowledge on this is rusty), they are not particularly
> velocity-dependant and were thus used quite a bit for lower velocity
guns
> such as the old 76mm on the Scorpion CVR(T). I think their range and
> accuracy is relatively poor, but when they hit they can be quite
effective
> killers.
>
> Jon (GZG)
>
>