Re: Nuclear Weapons Material

["Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com>]

Jim choate says:
> The pieces in most cases are simply slivers of metal that breaks off the
> inside of the tank because of hyper-sonic shockwaves.  They are not molten
> and do not in general cause a fire. Other than a lucky hit on a live
> round with the ammo door open there is little chance of starting a fire. 

Actually, my last comment was premature -- I hadn't read what you said
carefully. If you meant to say that such things as discarding sabot
shots don't penetrate the armor directly, according to the Illustrated
Encyclopedia of Ammunition, non-shaped charge armor piercing
projectiles do indeed pierce the armor.

Incidently, I was wrong on one point -- there is a kind of shell
called a "piercing shell" designed to explode after penetration -- but
these are apparently not very successful with modern armor and are
rarely used.

Perry

PS again, this really should be terminated -- it doesn't belong in
cypherpunks.