Читать книгу Damaging Effects of Weapons and Ammunition - Igor A. Balagansky - Страница 12

In order to ensure a damaging effect on targets, it is necessary to exert any action on them. It is customary to highlight:

 action of fragment flow;

 penetrating action;

 shaped charge action;

 action of a shock wave and explosion products;

 incendiary action;

 action of penetrating and electromagnetic radiation of a nuclear explosion.

All ammunition is divided into the following types, depending on its main effects:

 fragmentation (with natural, controlled fragmentation, and preformed fragments; rod warheads; gunpowder and explosive shrapnel; case‐shot);

 penetrating (small arms ammunition, armor‐piercing, and concrete‐piercing);

 shaped charges (with single or tandem shaped charges; explosion‐formed projectiles);

 high explosive (blast) ammunition, including volumetric explosion ammunition;

 incendiary;

 nuclear (based on fission or fusion);

 unified by type of action.

Ammunition that does not damage targets but serves as a countermeasure to protect or reduce the damage from the enemy's ammunition can be identified as a separate group. For the same purpose, active protection of armored vehicles is developed to destroy enemy ammunitions as it approaches the target.

There are also many auxiliary and special‐purpose munitions: lighting, smoke, and others that will not be considered here.

As we can see, there are just a few ways for ammunition to act on targets, despite the huge variety of weapon and ammunition designs. For the most part, all of them are determined either by the kinetic energy of the munition itself or by the chemical energy of the explosive that the munition is equipped with. In both cases, the equations that describe the behavior of materials during impulse loading determine the parameters of the field of damage and the processes of damage itself.

In this textbook, we will examine in some detail the effects of fragmentation, high explosive, penetrating ammunition, and ammunition with shaped charges.