LK>> I guess I should've prefaced my paragraph above with "From
LK>> what I've read..." to make it a bit clearer; my mistake.
LK>> Not being military myself, what's all the nomenclature stand
LK>> for?  Always looking to expand my knowledge base.  :-)
 RW> Basically it describes the type of rounds to be fired.
 RW> The rounds have to match the type of target.
 RW> You have High Explosive (HE) which can be fused so it;
 RW> A) TIMED, explodes before impact (good for spraying
 RW> fragments on troops), B) QUICK, explodes ON impact
 RW> (good for use against a mixed target, i.e. troops and
 RW> equipment) or C) DELAYED, explodes after impact (so it
 RW> will penetrate buildings, bunkers etc.)
I more or less knew the =function= just not the nomenclature.  A friend who
has a small gun shop hereabouts told me about some AA rounds that they used
to shoot in Korea.  Seems that they had a small radar unit in the nose with
the nosecone being fiberglas.  The battery to run the thing was dry but a
small acid vial would break when the round started down the barrel and
started its spin.  This would then charge up the battery.  The radar was set
so that the warhead would go off about 15-30 feet from the aircraft and the
shrapnel would do the rest.  One of the tricks they'd play on other units
during practice would be to slip them a round where the fiberglas nosecone
would have been rubbed with either pencil lead or graphite lubricant.
Basically what'd happen was that as soon as the battery would charge up,
about 100-150 feet from the end of the barrel, the radar would get a
bounce-back from the graphite and set the round off.  Needless to say the
range officers did NOT like this stuff going on.  :-)
 RW> There is also Improved Conventional Munitions (ICM).
 RW> Think of these as artillery shells filled with either
 RW> hand grenades or mines.  They break apart over a target
 RW> and cover a large area.  The "grenades" are used
 RW> against troops and the mines can be used against troops
 RW> or equipment.  BTW, the neat thing about the mines is
 RW> the fact that they can be set to disarm after a set
 RW> time.  That way you can lay a mine field in front of a
 RW> position so the enemy can't move but you can attack
 RW> through it after it disarms.
Okay, like Snake Eye aerial bombs filled with submuntitions.  The ones =I=
like are the new ones being developed that have "smart" bomblets.  These are
the ones that have a small 'chute on them that makes them spiral down while a
tiny TV camera scans the ground for enemy vehicles.  If it recognizes one it
then fires a small rocket motor that propels it down and, hopefully, into the
target.  If it sees nothing, it goes inert.  Some, though, have a dual
function in that once they hit the ground they then take on a mine function
and will explode unless an IFF signal is sent out to disarm them.  Not as
effective as a true mine, but better than nothing.  I thought this concept
was particularly neat-o.  :-)  (Saw this in Aviation Leak, uh, er, WEEK
magazine.)
 RW> White Phosphorus (aka; WP, Willie Pete, Willie Peter).
 RW> WP burns on contact with air (oxygen technically).
 RW> It's usually used as a spotting round but it can be
 RW> used as a incendiary round.  Nasty stuff!  Worse then
 RW> napalm, IMO, because napalm is nothing but thickened
 RW> gasoline and can be extinguished.  WP just keeps
 RW> burning.
Oh yeah; heard of this stuff.  Gives one the willies just to =think= about
it.  Bleah!
 RW> Now the calling unit can request the number, type and
 RW> variety of rounds.  Usually fire control does this
 RW> based on the description of the target given, he can
 RW> also change it if he feels you are calling in the wrong
 RW> thing.  If you give a target of "armor, buttoned up",
 RW> i.e. tanks with the hatches shut, and you call for HE,
 RW> TIMED you ain't going to get it.  He's either going to
 RW> give you HE, DELAYED or ICM.
 RW> In my call there where troops in the open and I wanted
 RW> either high explosives going off at ground level or
 RW> improved conventual munitions.  The sadist wanted every
 RW> third round to be white phosphorus.
 RW> Now its been a while so some of this might be off a
 RW> little but it should be more or less correct.
I've got a couple of friends in Arty, one in 155 tracks and the other in
Abrams.  =Good= stories they tell since both were in Desert Storm.  :-)  One
even sent my bro an "autographed" picture of dear old Saddam taken off the
wall of a bunker they overran.  Brought home several AK bayos, too.
        Lyle    --INTERNET:  lyle.knox@iotp.com
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