Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: esunix!sim.dnet!jcallen@cs.utah.edu (John Callen, x3933) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: exploding bullets ... Message-ID: <7549@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 17 Jun 89 04:45:41 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Lines: 58 Approved: military@att.att.com From: esunix!sim.dnet!jcallen@cs.utah.edu (John Callen, x3933) re. Article 1162 of sci.military: >From: Michael J. Tighe [ Discussion on exploding bullets] my reply re-orders Tighe's original posting ... > One more thing. Don't the accords from the Geneva Convention ban the > use of any bullet that is not a full metal jacket? This doesn't mean > you can't use them against your own people, but it makes one wonder > why the Chinese Army has them... It was my understanding that exploding bullets were listed in the Geneva Convention as outlawed war implements. Of course, this is along with chemical weapons, too. Even though it is illegal, most (and I'm not claiming all, here) countries seem to be doing their own R&D in both chemical and biological weapons. I believe the justification here is along the lines of "preventative study, just in case the troops come up against it" rather than "building up the national arsennal". Still in all, exploding bullets are kind of hard to justify under that clause. If my memory serves me right the first "exploding" bullets were called Dumdums, named after the Dumdum armory, run by the British in India. Dumdums were particularly vicious leaving gapping holes in people when they exploded. The resulting wounds were extremely difficult, if not impossible to repair, and so deemed particularly unhumanitarian by the Geneva Convention. Early experiments in constructing exploding bullets inserted a standard shell primer in a hollowed out tip of a bullet (or just used a hollow point bullet). It was intended that when the bullet struck something hard (like bone) it would go off. This often wasn't the case. There was some research where an impact sensitive compound (like mercury fulminate) was formed directly into the tip of the bullet. It was hard to regulate just exactly would set it off, though. > I am not familiar with the bullets used by the Chinese Army, but I am > familiar with exploding bullets in the US. The brand I know best is > called Devastator, and they come in a variety of calibers. > [description ...] I was totally unaware that there was such a thing called the Devastator. Thanks for the update. Are Devastators available to the general public or are they "services only" ammunition? And here all I thought I had to worry about was the Teflon-coated bullets! One explanation why exploding bullets were even designed might be that when they work, exploding bullets do a heck of alot of damage to the target. You could argue that a good mushrooming slug is all you need, but it is depending on the energy remaining in the bullet at point of impact. An exploding bullet only needs enough energy to set itself off and the charge provides the energy for mushrooming. Also, an exploding bullet shouldn't go beyond the first contact, so secondary targets aren't likely. This would be crucial in crowds, where a bullet might pass through the first target and strike one or more additional (and unintended?) targets. Still in all, these are pretty nasty rounds ... --John