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From: cga66@ihlpy.att.com (Patrick V Kauffold)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Tank busting munition.
Message-ID: <1991Mar15.041735.11151@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 15 Mar 91 04:17:35 GMT
References: <1991Mar12.224821.25366@cbnews.att.com>
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From: cga66@ihlpy.att.com (Patrick V Kauffold)
> From:     John Ramsden (jramsden@enh.Prime.Com)
> 
> It was a device which descended by parachute over an  area  supposedly
> containing  tanks,  and  as  it  approached  the ground it would start
> drifting sideways and precessing at the same  time,  like  a  gyrating
> sycamore  seed. This motion maximized the coverage of a camera or some
> sort of ground-scanning detector on the underside of the device.

I believe this is a submunition weapon called "Skeet"; a joint development
of British and (West) Germany as part of the "deep strike" NATO strategy.
I have seen film recently on A&E network and on Discovery's Firepower
series.

I saw one reference to this weapon in press reports from the Gulf war,
but no video, and no details of how it performed, if in fact it was
used.

The sensor on the Skeet was IR.  Useful against tanks on the move, in
the open or in wooded areas.  Not much use against tanks dug in (not
hot), al-la Iraq.

Nifty idea, though.  Very British.