Comment by perihelions
2 days ago
No, it's weapons-grade fissile material (in microscopic amounts); the engineering material used for its weight, depleted uranium, is not such a thing.
2 days ago
No, it's weapons-grade fissile material (in microscopic amounts); the engineering material used for its weight, depleted uranium, is not such a thing.
True, depleted uranium is not fissionable, but it's still nasty stuff. It is used for amor-piercing ammunition and turns into fine dust on impact. For instance, kids playing in abandoned tanks inhale it, and it still radiates alpha and beta particles, leading to lung cancer later in life. It needs to be outlawed.
You're welcome to go to the front lines and attack the Russian tanks with your own preferred tools!
The people doing the actual work, today, use depleted uranium[0] rounds, because they have common sense and prefer to not have a main battle tank survive long enough to shoot back at them. "Let's not use (mildly) toxic weapons" is a fair-weather principle that disappears the moment the weather ceases being fair. Like cluster bombs, or landmines: all of the civilized countries in Europe that adopted these idealistic bans, in peacetime, they're repealing those treaties left and right, now that the moral dilemmas are no longer academic.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/us-send-its-first-depleted-ura... ("US to send depleted-uranium munitions to Ukraine")
> You're welcome to go to the front lines and attack the Russian tanks with your own preferred tools!
By that logic, we should skip the depleted uranium and head straight to thermonuclear weapons, and throw in some Sarin for good measure. No, the purpose of prohibiting such weapons is for wartime, and whilst it is true that some countries are backsliding on previous commitments, that comes out of cowardice; it should not be reinterpreted as pragmatism. The rules of war weren't idealistic, they were prompted by very real horrors that were witnessed on the ground, especially during the Great War.
21 replies →
Yeah. An active main battle tank will kill more people faster than inhaling uranium dust will.
(This does not make depleted uranium rounds anything less than nasty. But it does make them better than the alternative.)
What was the last time those uranium rounds were fired adequately, cca 1992 from A10 on iraqi tanks? Or 2003?
Abrams tanks on Ukraine dont need uranium munition, thats a fact. Everything russia puts against them up to and including T90 can be destroyed by regular AP rounds, no armatas running around requiring some special toxic munition. Suffice to say 98-99% of those abrams shootings are aimed at much worse armor than T90 has.
Sure you can try to have the best weapon available for all cases and not give a nanofraction of a fuck about consequences on civilians, just like US did everywhere. Videos of ie Iraqi kids being born en masse with nasty radiation diseases is a worry for some subhumans far away, not most glorious nation in the world right?
Ie we could pretty effectively end current war in Ukraine easily by bombing moscow from the ground with some 10 megaton bomb, or 10x1 megaton ones, the russian state would be in total chaos. Yet we humans dont do it, even russians dont launch those bombs on Europe despite repeatedly claiming so. Moves have consequences, being mass murderer of kids aint something cold shower washes away.
> You're welcome to go to the front lines and attack the Russian tanks with your own preferred tools!
Thank you for not immediately escalating the discussion. Anyway, ever heard of Tungsten? Cool stuff.
I am not really sure but isnt depleted uranium munition kida obsolete by this point ? It was used mostly in unguided kinetic tank shells and autocannon ammo.
But most of the destroyed russiant tanks in Ukraine are due to mines and guided munitions using mostly shaped charges, ranging from Javelins to 400$ DiY FPV drones, neither of which uses depleted uranium in any form.
2 replies →
Depleted uranium is a toxic metal but not unusually so. Exposure limits are similar to e.g. chromium which is ubiquitous in our lived environment. While you wouldn’t want to breathe it in, depleted uranium is used as a substitute for tungsten, another toxic metal that you also wouldn’t want to breathe in. Fortunately depleted uranium (and tungsten) settle out rapidly; you are exceedingly unlikely to inhale them unless you were proximal at the moment it was vaporized.
The radiation is not a serious concern. It is less radioactive than the potassium in our own bodies, and in vastly smaller quantities.
Depleted uranium isn’t healthy but I don’t think we should be misrepresenting the risk either. Many things in the environment you live in have similar toxicity profiles to depleted uranium.
The alternatives are hardly better. In addition to worse penetration performance, the tungsten alloy alternatives for APFSDS rounds are not good for the body either, particularly if being breathed in as fine dust.
If you have kids playing on recently destroyed armored vehicles, there will be an incredible collection of toxic materials present. Uranium oxides from DU (which, to be clear, are primarily toxic as heavy metals, not from their low radioactivity) are really the least of your worries when compared to all of the other breathable particulates that will be present (e.g. asbestos, all of the toxic plastic combustion products, explosive residues).
> It is used for amor-piercing ammunition and turns into fine dust on impact
How can it be amor-piercing and turn in to fine dust on impact?
The energy involved is enough to turn the both projectile and the armour to liquid.
Once the projectile penetrates the armour it sprays out aa a jet of hot metal and solidifies as dust. (Depleted uranium also burns at high temperatures, so the liquified projectile is also on fire).
Penetration depth (hydrodynamic penetration) is a function of the relative density of the liquids and the length of the projectile, which is why DU is favoured.
1 reply →
The Wikipedia article says it's "self sharpening" on impact. I think this involves the projectile's leading parts ablating away into burning pyrophoric dust as they interact with the target.
1 reply →
Well… don’t stand close to a tank that is being shot at?… or are you worried about the tank crew you are shooting at? good luck „outlawing” killing means, find „more humane” methods of murdering each other. come on.