Use of depleted uranium munitions photos

[Shizamus]

These pictures are very graphic and depict the use of depleted uranium munitions.

http://www.denniskyne.com/DU%20Photos.htm

[Zigzag2]

Wow, now that's some nasty stuff Shiz.

Does anyone care to elaborate on this?

[1952Sniper]

A couple of comments.

For starters, I didn't see anything here that had to do with depleted uranium munitions, except for a huge hole in the side of a truck. Everything there seemed to center around some "secret" nuclear blast.

There seemed to be a recurring theme on those pages, about looking for the shadows. I really didn't see any. But when I tried really hard and pretended that I could see shadows, they all seemed to be right next to the bodies on the ground. If there really was a nuclear blast, wouldn't the shadows be cast from the person standing up? The "flash" from a nuclear blast is so quick that you're not going to fall down before the shadow is cast.

From the little I know of nuclear weaponry, the pictures I saw on those pages didn't look like the result of a nuclear blast. The guy talks about nuclear weapons being designed to kill all life but leave the property intact. What kind of BS is that? That's what chemical/biological weapons do. Not nuclear.

Let me ask you a question. And I'm not defending the use of nuclear weapons. But for these dead soldiers, would it have made any difference if they had died as a result of a nuclear blast or just plain old bombing/strafing? I mean, if I were going to die, I think I'd rather opt for the instantaneous death instead of being slowly burned alive or being shot and suffering for hours before dying. The real issue is the after-effects of a nuclear blast.... the ligering radiation and such. Not the immediate death toll. I just think the focus of that site is all wrong. It's misleading and incorrect.

[Shizamus]

Could it be microwave weaponry ?

[1952Sniper]

That is a distinct possibility. It certainly would jive with what I'm seeing in the pictures. And I do remember hearing that the military was testing some microwave weapons.

[inplanotx]

If you go back and look at the bodies fron the Hiroshima blast, what you saw was an image of the person, laying on the ground with nothing more than WHITE ash showing that the body was incinerated with a high degree of heat. The heat of a nuclear explosion is measured in MILLIONS of degrees reached instantaneously. If you have ever seen a cremation of a corpse, you will find that the remains are WHITE ash.

Based on what this yahoo is trying to demonize, is a depleted uranium round made for tanks guns and 20mm and 30mm cannons in the nose of an A-10 Warthog antitank airplane. We do not make bombs out of depleated uranium due to the fact that depleated uranium is stable and cannot explode. That is why they use PLUTONIUM for nuclear bombs. If he had taken pictures in that area after a battle, he would, by now, be dead due to radiation poisoning, seeing as plutonium is one of the most highly toxic substances on earth. So what if the tire is intact. How do we know the crater is not behind him while he took the picture if that is what you believe? I tend to belive that there is a piece of armored vehicle somewhere in the picture that is NOT shown. Notice how all the pictures are close up without a field of view? How do we know if the depleted uranium round did not hit a tank that was behind the photog. Ever see a tank that was hit with one of these rounds? First thing it does is explode!!!! Blowing off the turret and sending body parts and flames from the tank to wherever they fall!! Ever see what molten metal, caused by the depleted uranium round, does to a human body? It incinerates it, but not at nuclear blast heat, more like a giant BBQ!

Depleted uranium is used because it is heavier than lead, but stronger than the material used for armor piercing rounds.

This is a real crock of infantile BS made up by someone who knows nothing on the subject and craves sensationalism.


I beleive this about as much as I believe there is a Santa Claus and Easter Bunny. I feel sorry for the people that believe this crap!

[Zigzag2]

No Santa Clause???

No Easter Bunny???

Ha!

I have proof!

http://www.nicktarr.com/nickrabbitsml.jpg
http://www.nicktarr.com/anick10s.jpg
:D

[wuzzagrunt]

"Notice the shadows!" :eek:

What a maroon! I wonder if Sgt. Einstein has figured out that they are in the freaking desert! Of course there are shadows! :mad:

There is no nuclear detonation associated with depleted uranium munitions. This is due to the fact that the uranium is DEPLETED!

Microwave bomb? I tend to doubt it. The so-called "microwave bomb" the military is attempting to develop doesn't cook people and it certainly don't blow people to pieces. It is one of the Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) weapons. These type weapons disable electrical/electronic equipment but have virtually no effect on humans or animals. There is some conventional explosive used in the detonation of EMP bombs and there is a high energy electrical discharge (similar to, but more powerful than, a lightning strike) but the "kill radius" would be very small. Casualties could legitimately be considered colateral damage. There are three main types of these being developed.

1.) HIGH POWER MICROWAVE DEVICES (HPM) can produce a wider range of wavelengths than other EMP devices so it will be more difficult to shield equipment against the effects of HPM devices.

2.) FLUX COMPRESSION GENERATORS (FCG) can produce a very high energy pulse that is measured in tens of megajoules. They can produce electrical energy thousands of times more powerful than a lighting strike.

3.) MAGNETO-HYDRODYNAMIC GENERATORS (MHD) are not practical due to their size and weight so any future deployment appears to be a long way off.

The R&D is probably pretty far along but no deployable system has yet been fielded. Even if a weapon of this type were deployable, it would make very little sense to use it against a "low tech" adversary like the Iraqi Army. If a "dud" weapon were to be captured and reverse engineered, the US military would be far more succeptible to this sort of weapon than any of the opposing forces we would be likely to encounter. EMPs won't do anything to jamb up an AK-47. Our guys, on the other hand, rely on a lot of Gee-Whiz technology.

The military has also been working on a variety of Directed Energy weapons. These weapons would--ideally--be significantly less lethal than conventional munitions, though.

It wasn't a "neutron bomb" either. Enhanced Radiation Weapons (ERW) are not what the media has been misreporting for a generation. They go BANG just like any other thermonuclear device. The energy yield of ERWs is about half that of a typical nuclear weapon but it produces nearly as much prompt radiation. Even still, blast and thermal effect vs. yield is not a linear equation so they still make a good deal of noise and heat. It's not the "clean nuke" that people have been led to believe.

[vonotterskull]

Man what a crock. To me it looks like the 'shadows' are more like typical decomposition stains. As a human body decomposes, the fat starts to break down and produces a "slick" around a body. The guy that wrote this article sounds a few fries short of a happy meal.

[inplanotx]

The guy that wrote this article sounds a few fries short of a happy meal

Now that's cookin'

[Go-Get Beer]

I'm no expert, but those bodies don't look burned to me (except for the first guy in the cab of the burned truck and the guy in the second last photo). They sure are ripped apart, I don't know whether by explosions, gunfire (30mm bullet passing through a body can take a bit with it) or animals (they are bound to have some carrion eaters there) and decomposing.

AFAIK DU is used in armor piercing bullets because it's the densest metallic material, which isn't radioactive in any meaning of the word which could be used against it (any irradiation can be prevented by putting a single sheet of paper between you and the material and if you become irradiated the layer of skin affected will be shed as part of normal skin renewal within 48 hours). It's so effective because when anything strikes a tank's armor the denser material comes through.

It's just another isotope of Uranium - a byproduct of enriching Uranium for use in nuclear power plants. Uranium ore consists of the two isotopes U235 and U238, IIRC. They are separated by centrifugal forces. The radioactive material is used in power plants, but it still contains about 1% of the non-radioactive one. The rest is useless junk, called Depleted Uranium. DU is used for cases for radioactive material in hospitals, because it stops radiation due to it's density.

There were horror stories about DU becoming radioactive under pressure and in extreme heat, like when it strikes its target, but they were never proven. Just think of it: a significant portion of the Uranium atoms in the bullet would have to be injected with 3 neutrons each for U235 to become U238. How probable is that?

The sad reality is that DU ignites as it strikes, making it a very effective incendiary round, but also spreading Uranium Oxides around the strike point. As any heavy metal Uranium- oxygen compounds are quite toxic. While there's no noticeable increase in radioactivity in places where DU ammo was used, it's still advisable to use protective equipment to prevent inhaling poison.

I'd imagine the heat which 'burned' the people in these pictures would have the same effect on their clothes, which are organic material after all. The heat effect, if any, seems to be localized. No molten rubber, the truck even retains some if it's paint job, like in a normal fire. IIRC, in a nuclear explosion the first factor is the shockwave. The second truck seems to have been penetrated at least twice by a large-caliber round and I'd think a hand grenade inserted under the hood would produce more twisted metal than the alleged nuclear explosion.