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We humans aer capable of some pretty horrific things. Over the years we've created weapons
design to kill, main and generally cause unpleasantness to people around the world. So we thought
we'd take a look at some of the ones that are still being used today, and just how easy
it will be to rid the battlefield of some of the most horrific things that humanity
has put together.
So without further ado, number five, is heat rounds. Now, they're at number five because
they aren't really that dangerous to civilians, but they are unpleasant nonetheless.
You'd think you're pretty safe sat in a tank - a big old metal box with several inches
of steel surrounding you. And you were, until late ww2. That's when HEAT rounds came in,
and turned your tank from a nice snug steel shell into a fiery metal coffin waiting to
happen. Despite the name, High Energy anti-tank rounds have nothing to do with actual heat.
They're all about pressure. They work by having, amazingly, an empty cone, usually of something
like copper, and diamond shaped at the front. Behind that is an explosive. When the Shell
hits a tank, the explosive charge is set off before it hits, creating a massive pressure
wave inside the copper shell, which is forced through the tanks armour as a stream of particles
travelling at 25 times the speed of sound. When it enters the tank the huge pressure
wave and scabs of molten metal left from its journey through leave little chance of escape
for the poor crew inside. As armour on tanks has improved to counter the threat, so has
the technology of the shells, the most modern now have three stages of blast that ignite
split seconds apart, just to make *absolutely* sure.
Depleted Uranium - Depleted Uranium is a by-product of nuclear enrichment, a form of uranium that
has less fissile materials than natural uranium. But whilst it's not all that radioactive,
it IS very, very dense and just lying around, making it ideal for armour piercing bullets
and tank shells.
So why is it so horrible? Well, it's what it does when it hits its target. When the
shell hits the tank, it fractures into several razor sharp chunks and a fine powder so hot
that it burns on contact with air. So when it gets through the tank hull and into the
tank, it sprays razor sharp shards of metal around and a huge fireball, making life very
unpleasant for the people inside, and quite possibly making the tank itself explode.
And when it does all that powder flies into the atmosphere and settles on the ground,
where it eventually gets ingested. The health risks are disputed by some studies, especially
supposed cancer causing properties - but when ingested it can have horrible effects. Hospitals
in parts of the Balkans and Iraq have reported massive increases - in Basra and Fallujah
in Iraq, the infant mortality rate due to genetic malformation and childhood lukemia
is a staggering 13.6%.
Although depleted uranium shells are still in widescale use, the UN has recommended that
they could potentially fall under the title of chemical weapons, which would make their
use illegal.
*** White Phospherous. On the surface, white phospherous
is just fine and dandy. It's a chemical compound fired out of artillery shelld and grenades
used to create smoke to hide tanks and troops and used as a marker to illuminate targets.
Nothing quite so dangerous there - it may even directly save some lives. Oh, except
when it actually hits something. Because then it becomes a bubbling, roiling substance that
sticks to everything and can melt flesh down to the bone. And once it's done that, the
chemical gets into the blood stream and can cause multiple, massive organ failures. If
it hits a tank or is thrown into a bunker, the rapidly burning chemical uses up all the
oxygen in the vicinity whilst spreading noxious fumes, suffocating those inside.
It's also really difficult to put out. It's use as a weapon is *partially* banned - you're
not allowed to fire it in the hopes of using its chemical properties to kill people. Although
in a rather sick twist you *can* use its heat-based melty properties to kill. Far more humane.
America admitted to using the stuff in Afghanistan and in Fallujah in 2004, Israel against Lebanon
in 2006 and Gaza in 2008.
It's legal status? Well as long as it's only used against soldiers in open ground, it's
more or less fine.
***
Cluster bombs - What's worse than a bomb? Several thousand tiny ones, that's what. Especially
when half of them don't go off either by accident or because they're waiting for some unfortunate
soldier - or just as often civilians - to step on them or pick them up. Cluster bombs
are tiny explosive devices carried in one giant 'bomb holder', either a large single
bomb or an artillery shell. At a set distance above the ground, the shell disintegrates,
spreading anywhere from a few dozen to thousands of bomblets over a wide area of ground. These
bomblets aren't designed to destroy buildings, but to hit infantry, roads or airfield runways,
or to lay minefields. To take out soft targets in a way that will keep them from being repaired.
The problem with that is that the bombs can simply sit around. Either some don't explode
for whatever reason, or they aren't meant to explode - left as minefields ahead of approaching
troops. They can lie for decades, just waiting for someone to step on one. Add to that the,
by nature, indiscriminate nature of the attacks, and collateral damage is almost a certainty.
And the remains of the weapons are everywhere - In Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, Chechnya,
Croatia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. After the admitted use of 1,500 cluster weapons
on Baghdad, including in residential areas, in 2003, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the
joint cheifs of staff, declared that 'one one civilian casualty' had been recorded.
This is what cluster bombs look like. The plinking is unexploded ones. Unsurprisingly,
there are records suggesting far, far more were killed and injured, and tens of thousands
of bomblets remain unexploded. A 2008 convention banning cluster munitions was signed by 83
countries. The US and Russia were not among them.
*** MIRV's. Nuclear missiles are the most terrifying
things we've ever built. More scary even than Beliebers. So what would happen if you crossed
a nuclear missile, with a cluster bomb. You'd end up with a MIRV, or A multiple independently
targetable reentry vehicle. The premise is simple and totally bastardic. Why have one
missile for one target when you can destroy multiple cities with one missile. The idea
is simple - the missile takes off, flies to the edge of space, and then splits open, dropping
several remotely guided bombs back to the ground. These smaller bombs are, combined
with radar confusing flares, harder to shoot down and because you're not putting all your
nuclear eggs in one basket, far more destructive when they hit. Think they'd have been scrapped
by now? Nah. The US minuteman missile carries three nuclear bombs, and the trident system
used by the US and UK carries 12 per missile. That's one missile with the potential to single
handedly wipe out London, Berlin, Mardid, Rome, Paris, Bucharest, Vienna, Budapest,
Hamburg, Warsaw, Barcelona and Munich. Which is pretty flipping evil.