Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: dcn@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (david.c.newkirk)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Depleted Uranium rounds & armor
Message-ID: <8229@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 13 Jul 89 03:09:20 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Lines: 13
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: dcn@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (david.c.newkirk)
Assuming the DU round is pure U238, it would occasionally fission spontaneously
and in the presence of fast neutrons.  A small DU bullet hitting a tank would
not do anything special.  If there was some U235 left in the bullet, then
there is a possibility that a small amount of U235 could be compressed to a
near critical density, generating a burst of slow neutrons that could penetrate
the tank armor and injure the crew.  But without a source of neutrons to start
the fission process in U235, even this method is unlikely to do anything.  It
would depend on a natural source of neutrons (a U238 atom happening to fission
at the correct instant, or a stray cosmic ray hitting something and generating
a neutron), which would make the weapon unreliable.