Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: gahooten@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Greg A. Hooten)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: HEAT shell question and proposal.
Message-ID: <12756@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 4 Jan 90 04:24:42 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
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Approved: military@att.att.com



From: gahooten@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Greg A. Hooten)

I was reading some information about HEAT rounds lately, and
was wondering if this idea has been tested.  In the article,
it was stated the spinning an HEAT shell caused it to lose
penetration ability, this makes sence, the gass would have a
tendency to spin as it fired, and lose energy more quickly.
So, they moved to a smoothbore gun.  This prevents the spin,
and thus produces greater penetration.  Then came this box
armour with a charge in it that would explode when the core of
the heat shell melted (that is essentially what happens)
through it.  This explosion disrupted the molten jet and
prevented extensive penetration.
  The problem then is to again
allow the warhead's shaped charge to seal against the actual
armour and before detenating rather than having it detenate
against the boxlike covering allowing the jet to be disrupted.

Has anyone tried to marry a hard cap onto the top of a heat
round?  In essence, what I see as advantageous it to penetrate
the box armour with a hard penetrator that will get through
that and any of the front of the 12-15 " of armour on the
front of a t-80, then as the penetrator begins to slow, the
collapes of the penetrator triggers the HEAT round.  It would
be a combination of a penetrating round and HEAT.  The
penetrator gets past the box, and the HEAT can defeat the
standard armour.  

This seems too easy to me, but I could not think of any
technical reasons why it would not work, only some unknowns.
Can the penetrator get a wide enough hole in the box (I wish I
could remember what the stuff is called, ah, REACTIVE(!), what
a dolt.)  that the HEAT would not set of an explosion that
would ruin the jet?  

The other problem is that it may be too short a range, though
it shouldn't unless the reactive armour is thicker and more
resistant to penetration than I think.  

Any comments?  Please.

Greg Hooten