Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!cbnews!henry@zoo.toronto.edu
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Tank question
Message-ID: <6155@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 2 May 89 03:29:52 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Lines: 17
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>My dad has a question: Why do modern tanks use a smooth bore barrel
>on their guns? Doesn't that hurt accuracy?

The shells are generally fin-stabilized, which gets back a lot of the
accuracy.  Not all, last I heard, but a lot.  Smoothbore guns have a
higher muzzle velocity, due to reduced barrel drag, and are better
suited to laser-guided shells and shaped-charge shells, which don't
want to spin.  (For laser guidance, spin complicates guidance; for
shaped charges, centrifugal force interferes with formation of the
"jet" when the charge fires.)  I'd imagine the barrels also last longer.
Of late, it's looked worthwhile.

                                     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
                                 uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu