What does "mm" refer to?

Discussions on the fortifications, artillery, & rockets used by the Axis forces.
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Scott Smith
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#16

Post by Scott Smith » 26 Jul 2003, 09:27

Lawrence Tandy wrote:And materials such as tungsten etc. would increase these penetrating factors I would guess, plus what is tungsten? Super hard Steel?
Yes, and it has a very high vaporization point so the steel armor melts first by the energy. Uranium works good as well not because it is hard but because it burns easily and is heavier than lead (more kinetic energy), so it hits like a blowtorch and burns rather than punches through the vaporized metal. Of course, if you have an "irresistible force meeting an immovable object" the universe comes to an end...
8O

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Lawrence Tandy
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#17

Post by Lawrence Tandy » 26 Jul 2003, 09:29

Hence depleted uranium rounds. My thanks Scott Smith for sharing your knowledge.

LT


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Scott Smith
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#18

Post by Scott Smith » 26 Jul 2003, 09:36

Lawrence Tandy wrote:Hence depleted uranium rounds. My thanks Scott Smith for sharing your knowledge.
You're welcome! But it doesn't have to be "depleted" uranium. Any uranium isotope will do. The U.S. uses depleted uranium because it is a byproduct of uranium isotope separation from atomic bomb manufacture. Depleted uranium is uranium isotope 238 and has the 0.07% fissile U-235 taken out. (Depleted uranium is still mildly radioactive like U-235 and just as chemically poisonous as any heavy metal.) Speer claimed to have diverted German uranium production to ballistics research under the SS called "N-material," an armor-piercing incendiary. This proves that the Germans were not seriously working on the atomic bomb, he says.
:)

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Christian Ankerstjerne
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#19

Post by Christian Ankerstjerne » 26 Jul 2003, 14:49

Two other ways to give added penetration is:

1) Make a squeeze bore gun. With this gun, the amunition used has a wider diametre than the muzzle, and the barrel slowly gets smaller towards the end of the barrel.
You could say that the effect is that the projectile 'pops out' of the barrel at a very high speed. The German Panzerbüsche worked this way.

2) Use a soft cap about a small, extremely heavy core. This sounds somewhat like a standard Tungsten core, only the cap is not meant to be destroyed at inpact, bu rather fall apart in flight. With this method, once the heavy core is released, it'll continue at an even higher speed.
Interrestingly enough, this method was already used in ancient Greece during the olympics, where the length jumpers would jump with relatively heavy objects (eg. two stones), and then drop them in-air. This gave them a 'boost', and made them jump longer...

Christian

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Von_Mannteufel
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#20

Post by Von_Mannteufel » 27 Jul 2003, 01:06

Lawrence Tandy wrote:And materials such as tungsten etc. would increase these penetrating factors I would guess, plus what is tungsten? Super hard Steel?
Tungsten is a raw material not an alloy or anything like that. It's found as W in the periodic table and is the metal with the highest melting temperature (more than 3000°C).

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