1945-1991: Cold War world Wiki
Register
Tag: rte-source
(Adding categories)
Tag: categoryselect
Line 70: Line 70:
 
[[Category:War technology]]
 
[[Category:War technology]]
 
[[Category:Guns]]
 
[[Category:Guns]]
  +
[[Category:Missiles]]
  +
[[Category:Bombers]]
  +
[[Category:Bombs]]
  +
[[Category:Shells]]
  +
[[Category:Bullets]]
  +
[[Category:Aret]]
  +
[[Category:Artillary]]
  +
[[Category:Artillery]]

Revision as of 17:14, 7 May 2016

Construction cone
This page is under construction and is still being written! Any major unauthorised edits will be reverted, but some minor, grammar and spelling fixes are freely allowed if you find any errors of this type. If this article has not been edited after 2 years, please remove this template and edit it freely if you want to.


12_Gauge_Flechette_round_test

12 Gauge Flechette round test

Tiny found a 12 gauge Flechette round in his basement, so we found something not-so-easy to puncture (A cut up boat hull) and punctured it. A lot.

Exotic_Shotgun_Ammunition_"Rounds_of_Authority"_1997_FLETC_Federal_Law_Enforcement_Training_Center

Exotic Shotgun Ammunition "Rounds of Authority" 1997 FLETC Federal Law Enforcement Training Center

'This video addresses conventional, specialty, and exotic shotgun ammunition. It describes the capabilities and shows the effects of the various rounds on an assortment of substances.' Includes firing demonstrations of conventional shotgun shells (bird shot, buck shot, & rifled slug) specialty shotgun shells (flares, CS tear gas, smoke, & dustbusters), and exotic shotgun shells (dragon's breath, dragon slug, armor piercing, fletchette, buck & ball, and strung buck).

Overview

A flechette (/flɛˈʃɛt/ fleh-shet) is a pointed steel projectile, with a vaned tail for stable flight. The name comes from French fléchette, "little arrow" or "dart", and sometimes retains the acute accent in English: fléchette.

The concept

The light wieght, armor piercing, gun fired, darts first appeared in 1915 during European battles in World War 1. They were fired from guns or dropped from small boxes on Bombers.

The weapon

It is a small, dart like metal projectile used as shrapnel in antipersonnel bombs and shells. The small sharp, tail finned, anti-personnel projectile, used as shrapnel, fired from a shotgun, or scattered from an aircraft. It can be shot from a gun, dropped from an aircraft or fired from an artillery piece. The pointed steel projectile has a vaned tail for stable in flight.

Usage

Guns

Small-arms makers are attracted by the exterior ballistic performance and armor-piercing potential of flechettes. A number of attempts have been made to field flechette-firing small arms.

Work at Johns Hopkins University in the 1950s led to the development of the Direct Injection Antipersonnel Chemical Biological Agent (DIACBA), where flechettes were grooved, hollow pointed, or otherwise milled to retain a quantity of chemical biological warfare agent to deliver through a ballistic wound. The initial work was with VX, which had to be thickened to deliver a reliable dose. Eventually this was replaced by a particulate carbamate. The US Biological Program also had a microflechette to deliver either botulinum toxin A or saxitoxin, the M1 Biodart, which resembled a 7.62 mm rifle cartridge.

Several types of underwater firearms were experimented with using flechettes.

During the Vietnam War the United States employed 12 gauge combat shotguns that were used with flechette loads that consisted of around 20 flechettes per shell. The USSR/Russian federation had/has the AO-27 rifle as well as APS amphibious rifle, and other countries have their own flechette rounds.

A number of prototype flechette-firing weapons were developed as part of the long-running Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) project. Some of these showed up as entries in the Advanced Combat Rifle project as well.

A variation of the flechette addressing its difficulties is the SCMITR, developed as part of the Close Assault Weapon System, or CAWS, project. Selective-fire shotguns were used to fire flechettes designed to retain the exterior ballistics and penetration of the standard flechette, but increase wounding capacity through a wider wound path.

Artillery

Smaller flechettes were used in special artillery shells called "beehive" rounds (so named for the very distinctive whistling buzz made by thousands of flechettes flying downrange at supersonic speeds) and intended for use against troops in the open – a ballistic shell packed with flechettes was fired and set off by a mechanical time fuse, scattering flechettes in an expanding cone. They were used in the Vietnam War by 105 mm howitzer batteries and tanks (90 mm guns) to defend themselves against massed infantry attacks. There was also a flechette round for the M40 recoilless rifle, which was sometimes employed by American infantry.

Heavier artillery, including 155 mm howitzers, 8-inch howitzers, and 175 mm guns, did not have a flechette round.

The 70 mm Hydra 70 rocket currently in service with the US Armed forces can be fitted with an anti-personnel (APERS) warhead containing 96 flechettes. They are carried by attack helicopters such as the AH-64 Apache and the AH-1 Cobra.

The Israel Defense Forces have been accused of using 105 and 120 mm flechette shells during the occupation of southern Lebanon and later in the 2009 and 2014 incursions into the Gaza Strip. The Israel Defense Forces had drawn criticism for their use of tank-fired flechettes in urban areas. In 2008, a flechette round from an Israeli tank fired at Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana'a killed him along with two adjacent civilians. During the invasion in the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, numerous human rights groups documented the IDF'S use of flechette munitions and declared this use to be against international humanitarian law, due to the imprecise nature of flechettes. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, IDF tanks fired six anti-personnel munitions at the town of Khuz'a on July 17, resulting in the injury of one Palestinian woman.

Legal controversy

Randomly firing shells full of then in to a urban zone and\or a civilian crowd can be considered a indiscriminate attack. Those made of plastic (other than inevitably the metal penetrating tip) don't show up easy on X-rays, thus making removal very difficult and in some cases impossible. Both of these things are illegal under international law!

Also see

  1. Guns
  2. Artillery
  3. War Technology
  4. Beehive anti-personnel round
  5. 'Killer Junior'
  6. Tanks and APCs

Sources

  1. http://www.btselem.org/firearms/flechette
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flechette
  3. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/20/israel-using-flechette-shells-in-gaza
  4. http://www.antipersonnel.net/sdllc/001.html
  5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flechette
  6. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-gaza-conflict-israeli-military-using-flechette-rounds-in-gaza-strip-9617480.html
  7. http://www.google.com/patents/US5325786
  8. http://www.patents.com/us-3941059.html
  9. http://www.google.com/patents/US3941059
  10. http://www.antipersonnel.net/sdllc/003.html
  11. http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30087787
  12. http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30000153
  13. http://www.enmsports.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=80
  14. http://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/7/20/1405856512428/Flechette-shell-darts-emb-011.jpg?w=620&h=-&s=bbfd2889c2f0b9c64609a683dab7c5e7
  15. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/20/israel-using-flechette-shells-in-gaza
  16. http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib/197/media-197382/large.jpg
  17. http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30087787
  18. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/flechette
  19. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/flechette
  20. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flechette
  21. http://www.definitions.net/definition/fl%C3%A9chette