I guess because of the DUs lower melting point and air friction affecting the penetrator at higher speeds?
its actually less complex than that, is just that DU its naturally less strong and even more brittle than Tungsten alloys so it begins to have premature fracture and fragmentation at speeds higher than 1600 m/s wich can affect between a 5 to a whooping 30% of penetration depending on how fast and how much it traveled
rather funny this controversy caused a wave of missinformation in 2009 wich painted DU as the ultimate killing machine and how its incenidary properties were deadly and stuff, the incendiary properties were overexagerated, it basically was a new years spark in terms of incendiary capacities, and even media cut out important parts during interviews such as the claim “At present, there is no tungsten alloy or other material that provides armor penetration performance as good as DU” but they did not include the next part wich he said “at standard velocities”, it is a great option since its cheap but reallistically talking Tungsten alloy its still better than DU per weight
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Well propaganda doing its work right there :D Quite familiar with such “bending” of reality.
But on the topic of the penetrator speed, I cant seem to wrap my head around why the speed other than air friction would degrade the projectile that hard since with every passing second the forces affecting on the projectile are getting weaker because the projectile itself loses speed with range? The biggest force that is put on the projectile is during firing, the sudden inertial kick/acceleration
Did a quick read…basically its due to the air friction on the penetrator tip which makes it lose its advantages due to the lower melting point compared to Tungsten
air resistance, take into account tank projectiles are traveling at absurdly high speeds, even tho they are designed to resist such speed that is not their main priority but penetrating enemy tanks, and mechanical stress on apfsds its much lower than on stuff like space rockets for example since its not their main priority, as per the inital kick, it would apply if it was a longer object or it was attached to something more heavy but since this isnt the case its just an arrow being launched at too much speed, objects can start quite literally desintegrating at certain speeds, some disassemble, some get ruptured and some other just start becoming dust due to the excessive force
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not melting point but mechanical strenght, its basically just projectile material dosent have a structure stable enough to withstand the strenght, its made to penetrate for the most part
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Mechanical strenght is compromised due to the heat build up in the rod from the air friction and it fails to keep its upsides up until it reaches the armor. Interesting, genuinely didnt know that but also I never really explored the topic of DU penetrators for some reason
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yeah basically, tungsten has higher thermal conductivity and stronger strain-rate sensitivity, wich means its gonna resist this changes in the surrounding factors like heat transfer and strain much better than DU, and these are more obvious at 1600 m/s or more for DU shells and this is also part of why the Adiabatic Shear Banding Behavior its different on DU and tungsten
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yo nice one, this actually perfectly explains the DU shells
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I’d like to understand why every time I see you commenting it’s about you complaining about the Su-30SM2. Are you really that bothered by it?
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what do you make of this part? ive also heard that pyrophoricity of DU rounds was an overblown capability but this article mentions it a few times as an advantage
oh it has advantage at turning on highly incendiary stuff like wires, fuel, and more delicate stuff on the style, but i meant it like in a spall way, people think of it as “melting everything in the tank” kind of thing
hahahahah, do people genuinely think depleted uranium is Super thermite?!?!?
a lot of them sadly do think its some super thermite, and apprently the pyrophoricity was greatly overexagerated, some even think it triples the spall for some reason, and the melted metal becomes some kind of incendiary round that absolutely sprays the crew inside and turns them on fire aswell
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there are people that still think shrapnell acts like a pinball inside tanks so im not that surprised
LMAO, that’s actually pretty funny but yeah incendiary rounds do have a purpose if not why would have germany developed incendiary rounds, they saw its pretty useful at doing damage to tanks but not the way people think they do, def would be cooler if it had such properties in wt like spall doing double damage at certain components like hydraulic or electric systemsso even if just a bit of spall hits they actually do something
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Verry interesting read! This one is worth bookmarking :D
if ur interested in that, go search about Korea’s K279 apfsds and Japan’s type 10, the only 2 apfsds in the world made out of tungsten that have the Adiabatic Shear Banding Behavior of the DU rounds, i do need to re find the source for type 10’s tho, cuz K279 was in a presentation but i believe the claimed ASBB of the Type 10’s was in a document
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Hmm thats interesting. Thats basically the main reason as much as I understood for the DU rounds, Tungsten loses a lot of kinetic energy on mushrooming. The alloy they use would be interesting to see what its made of but Im guessing also thats not something we can find?