Everything You Need to Know About Uranium
4th July 2019
Last one: In 2002, the medical journal The Lancet published an article on the concerning potential for depleted uranium—the waste leftover after uranium-235 extraction—to end up on the battlefield. The concern is that its high density would make it an incredible projectile, capable of piercing even the most well-enforced battle tank. Worse yet, it could then contaminate the surrounding landscape and anyone it.
Except that it doesn’t, any more than other traditional munitions. The ‘depleted uranium’ is U-238, which the article has just informed us is not radioactive. This ‘contaminate the surrounding landscape’ is just eco-Nazi fear-mongering. Sure, if it’s ingested, it’s bad for you — but so is lead.
Depleted uranium makes an excellent anti-tank penetrator rod because (a) it’s damned heavy, (b) it’s damned hard, (c) when it abrades going through something, it does so in a way that sharpens, rather than blunts, the projectile, and (d) it is pyrophoric. It’s about as effective a munition as you’re going to find.
The autocannons used by the Stryker fighting vehicle and the A-10 Warthog use depleted uranium ammunition, but the eco-Nazis have managed to get rid of uranium ammo for tanks and the Navy’s Phalanx CIWS.
July 5th, 2019 at 07:15
“Heavy” is not really accurate. “Dense” would be more appropriate.
The US military is switching to small arms ammunition that has no lead. (Lead, of course, is both dense and cheap.) They don’t want to deal with the eco-Nazis.
When did people decide that war could be fought without hazards to human life? War is pretty much the ultimate hazard to life.