grayfox Wrote:Yeah I personally think the use of a 6.8 diameter is to satisfy some whim of a DoD manager... no bone either with it only that, as 55 points out, an increase in SD for the narrower caliber is an advantage -- ergo a 6.5 would be even better. 2 other things leap out to me and they are
1) correct in stating that angle of attack, bullet path to plate, makes for an apparent "thicker" plate when the bullet is not perpendicular in flight to the plate. So even if it penetrates head-on in your test, in a fire fight wouldn't be as effective since you can't guarantee what angle of strike your bullet will have when it hits... and if there's more yaw at the end of 600m, well that's another factor hindering performance.
2) your experiences for penetrating effectiveness were at 25 m, and even there they basically failed, yet somehow a bullet after 600 m of flight, will succeed. Guess I could crunch some numbers (at 2 AM who's kidding who??) but doubt if that pill at 600 m would always exceed current ammo ke and momentum at 25.
Agree the one benefit of this is stirring up some tech innovation, but I would bet that you'd get more positive penetration (and at virtually any distance where the bullet had some ke left) in inventing a bullet with an explosive tip that wouldn't go off until it hits (here's the tech, inert until something like 0.1 sec after muzzle exit). Being a personal-efp style projectile would take some tech for sure, and could be a clip of same you could insert when needed but keep mostly normal ammo in your pack. It's not every day you face someone at 600 m, and wearing armor at that. I would think that most armor you would see, would be bad guys that were more up close and personal... just my 2 cents.
I'd rather call in some 155 "penetrators" for that 600m bunch of guys anyway. Or invent a squad level man-pad rocket you could carry and pull out when needed that could work off your laser-guide helmet head's up-seeing-thingy. Maybe even invent a small robot-mule that goes with the squad and carries that stuff (an armed "r2d2" companion) - off loadable if it breaks down.
...We need some DOD guys to pay us money to work on these ideas!!!
There is great merit to the statement that a slower moving projectile has an easier time penetrating things. Ship builders understand this and so do guys who design bullets or projectiles to penetrate armor.
I worked with EFPs on a program and getting one into anything under about 105mm won't happen. They are a plate that inverts like a shape charge -- hence the name 'explosively formed penetrator'. Have been around since WWII.
And yes, you can take a 6.5 diameter bullet and make it long but you can do the same with any bullet if you want to pay the price in terms of weapons design, burden to the soldier, cost, logistics, etc.
The 'Green Tip' did what it was designed to do. It would defeat Soviet body armor of the 80's and into the 90's. So, it worked but like any other armor / anti armor technology -- the armor got better. That has been the cycle going on for probably 4K years.
Will be interested to see if DoD decides to go with a new weapon when all it said and done. Sure, I think one is in order because the one we are using now is obsolete in terms of what we think future warfare brings. Just funny that the cycle of armor / anti armor going back several thousands of years is still going strong.
LR-55