🚀 go-pugleaf

From Andreas Laangstroem <e2anla8@etek.chalmers.se>

In article <C19o9K.46A@law7.DaytonOH.NCR.COM>, chadwemy@wpi.wpi.edu (Chad Barret Wemyss) writes:
|> 
|> From Chad Barret Wemyss <chadwemy@wpi.wpi.edu>
|> 
|> In article <C124wI.7op@law7.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> "John M. Wu" <johnwu@netcom.com> writes:
|> >
|> >1)  When anti-aircraft shells go up, they have to eventually come
|> >back down. 
[stuff deleted]
|> >Wouldn't not firing anything cause less damage to Baghdad?
|> >
|> 
|> 1)  All large caliber (23mm and above) anti-aircraft shells have a fusing 
|> system that causes them to explode at a preset altitude.  In theory, they all 
|> explode at or around that altitude, and all that's left to hit the ground is 
|> fragments, which won't penetrate anything signifigant after falling that 
|> distance.  However, with the large number of shells going up, I cant imagine 
|> that all of them worked exactly as designed.  
|> 	The more modern anti-aircraft guns have proximity fusing in addition to
|> their altitude fuses, which causes them to blow up when they come within a 
|> certain preset distance of a solid object, ie an aircraft or helicopter.  This 
|> makes them much more effective against attacking aircraft, because they do not 
|> require the aircraft to fly through a specific altitude range to score a 
|> successful hit.
|>
 
Not all large calibre AA shells are of that kind. The Swedish 40mm AA shell
m/48 from Bofors does _not_ explode at a certain altitude, it explodes
when the loss of rotation causes a couple of spring mounted balls to press
the firing pin into the detonator (aprox after 7-8 sec fligth time) or by 
hitting something which causes the impact fuse to go off. The newer shells
to the same gun wich has proximity fuses use a timer to cause selfdestruction
after 7-8 secs.

Since i have recieved e-mail after my last posting on this subject telling
me I'm dead wrong, I shall soon post a detailed description of the Bofors
40mm AA prjectile.

|> Chad Wemyss
|> Worcester Polytechnic Institute

-- 
Andreas Langstrom
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