Fletchettes?

[Blanket]

air dropped

[357Mag]

All -

I recall seeing news footage from the " Gulf War ", where a ( Iraqi ? ) civilian complained that his leg was penetrated through the upper thigh, by a flechette. He was posed near a building that showed evidence of multiple penetrations through concrete, apparently made made by a sub-calibre munition.

He claimed that these penetrators originated from harassing fire being made by a U.S. battleship ( Wisconsin or Missouri ), which was visible from the nearby shore.

In NAVWEAPS literature describing the 16"/50 calibre Mk7 naval canon, para 7a stated.... " During the 1980s deployments several new projectile assemblies based on the HC Mk13 projectile body were deployed or planned. Some of these were in service during the Gulf War ( 1990 )."

This projectile would be be characterized as a having an " Active Component Warhead ", one of which would have been the flechete-dispensing warhead .

I myself have seen a sectionalized Air Force " Cluster Bomb " cannister, that was outfitted with a large flechette payload..... seen @ the USAF Armaments Museum @ Eglin AFB, FL .

The US Army's " Multiple Launch Rocket System " has a warhead that can " rain nails " using flechettes in similar fashion to the Air Forces'
CBU-107 " Passive Attack Weapon " ( 3,000 flechettes ).

For a notional 12ga application, review US Patent US8281720B2 " Flechette Cartridge " .

Another interesting read is the Air Force Armament Lab's AFATL-TR-84-03 Sec XV pg 113, which discusses darts/flechettes; and a pic is included of the XM645 5.56 cartridge that included a saboted flechette penetrator.


With regards,
357Mag

[Brasso]

The little bomblets were called "Lazy Dogs". The Beehive was also loaded in 90mm recoilless rifle. We humped 1 90 per platoon.

[daengmei]

We fired the 105mm tank rounds at Ft. Polk. Infantry targets at 800m. Set fuse for 800 and when fired a major dust storm hit the targets. When we recovered the targets the majority had horizonal holes...very nasty round for sure.

[Chainsaw76]

They were available for the 105mm cannon in the M-60's I was on. There was one that had a fixed fuse and another that was timed and could be set to open up farther out. We never uploaded them. All our stuff was sabot or heat with a few willy Pete's thrown in to provide cover and start fires. We were first in to the Fulda Gap. Cold war guys will recognize that. If I remember correctly they had something like 8000 flechets in them. It's been a long time. Nasty anti personnel stuff.

Ditto on all that. I was on the M60a1's also, and slated for Fulda Gap if we could ever get there from Lee Barracks.

Jim

[nelsonted1]

A neighbor talked about being infantry under guns that shot.flechettes most of a night. He said the trees all the way around the position were shreded like WW1 and bloody shredded clothes and body parts. This was in the mid 80s and he was still terribly traumatized spending time in a VA hospital every year.

One day we were shooting and a helicopter flew.overhead. he disappeared for awhile. I waited until he came back. I asked if he'd been in Vietnam. He nodded and we went back to working on loads.

I really felt bad for him. He could talk about hiding under barracks and and they'd have to find someone who could talk him into coming out. And being in mental hospitals but the war, that was tough.

[nelsonted1]

Here is Medal of Honor recipient discussing firing a cannon filled with flechettes. He talks of losing track of the bags of powder he shoved into his 105 as he was over-run. He said the gun barrel rocked back until the muzzle was stood straight up. His story is beyond belief.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aOWBw7muH9M&t=6s

[ChuckJaxFL]

Attachment 276094

A million years ago, I thought these would be cool to play with. So, I bought several pounds of them.

Then I learned (the easy way, reading, thank goodness ) that it is an F3 to put a flechette shell together in Florida. So, luckily all that I wasted was a few bucks. That could have been a much more expensive lesson.

I still have them. If anyone is interested in some to play with, speak up.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[beagle]

Played with them in the Army in VN a lot. They were made in a variety of weights from 6 grains to (as I recall 106 grains). The ones we used in 2.75" rockets were 20 grainers. The 6 grainners were loaded in 12 guage shells. Don't know about the rest of the weights. I've dismantled dozens as all the pilots wanted an inert 2.75" rocket with a unit crest on it as a souvenir. The flechettes are loaded in "belts" with flechettes loaded one forward and one backwards. Then rolled into wafers which were inserted into the casing over a point initiating, base detonating fuse which expelled the payload out of the warhead aluminum cannister. 7 layers of "wafers" as I recall. A red dye was placed over each "wafer". Rumors said this was an anti-coagulant but it was used to see where the warhead was opening so the pilots could adjust fire by looking for the dye cloud. I've been on missions where they were used in a rubber plantation and it made a mess on the ground as I went through not long after our mission. Nails in trees all along the ambush site bleeding rubber sap.
One of the gunners was given a VC wallet for a souvenir by a SF guy. It had 5 "nail" holes in it. Nails was the armament talk for flechette rounds.
We'd fly out and be reconning and we'd always establish contact with the local firebase. They'd always ask for nails around the perimeter. Said it was very effective on booby traps and that made 'em happy.
Was involved in an experimental test once. Specially loaded flechettes of all sizes on obsolete tanks. Results were very surprising to me. The 20 grainner we used was very effective on tanks. No penetration but it did tear up and render unusable the antennas and periscopes and externally mounted machine guns and any water and fuel containers on the outside. A blind/deaf tank is virtually useless. Don't know if this concept was ever used or not.
It's an interesting, devastating round and I still have several in my Viet box./beagle

[biffj]

I knew a few artillerymen that were stationed in Vietnam during the war. They said about the only good use for the flechette rounds was defoliation of the jungle. They said the 105 shells would clean the leaves off a lot of trees and vines but weren't much good for antipersonnel use due to the dispersion. One flechette wouldn't take out a man and they spread so quickly that the hits were few. Lots of dust and not much effect.

Frank

[Omega]

My last unit still uses them in 2.75" rockets, they penetrate a mud hut real well and those inside don't complain much.

[TNsailorman]

I read a story about an incident in the Korean war when a artillery battery was in danger of being over run by chinese troops infiltrating down a narrow gorge. They lowered the muzzles of their 105's level and started firing "beehive" rounds(whatever a beehive round is) into the valley. After a short period of time they ceased fire and sent a small patrol out to check out if there were any chinese still in the valley. All they found was piles of bodies and the ground looking like it had been recently plowed up ready to plant. james

[jaysouth]

In 67 we got our first 40mm fletchettes for the grenade launchers. I was aware of their use in ARA rockets and got to see first hand what the 105 Howitzer beehive round could do to massed enemies. My company landed just after daylight at LZ Byrd in II corps after it had been partially overrun the night before. The cannoncockers were boresighting the guns and shooting behive rounds into massed attackers. There were bodies stacked like cordwood in front of the gun pits. The ones in close were missing limbs, the ones further out were riddled with pinpoint holes where the fletchettes penetrated through and through. Inside the perimeter there were intermingled bodies of NVA and GIs. I had only been in country a month or so and had not seen anything like this before. The memories kept me awake when I was on guard at night thereafter.

Later on, as the rounds became more common, the gunbunnies would salvage wood from ammo crates and use the flechettes as nails to build all sorts of creative structures.

Here is a link to a survivor's account of LZ Byrd on 12/27/66. https://warstoriesweb.wordpress.com/...rst-blog-post/

[Ural Driver]

I knew a few artillerymen that were stationed in Vietnam during the war. They said about the only good use for the flechette rounds was defoliation of the jungle. They said the 105 shells would clean the leaves off a lot of trees and vines but weren't much good for antipersonnel use due to the dispersion. One flechette wouldn't take out a man and they spread so quickly that the hits were few. Lots of dust and not much effect. Frank

Performance for this round depends on the fuze settings. If set for "muzzle action" the deployment is almost instantaneous thus resulting in poor performance at distance......much as shotgun pellets will do.....but inside the initial disbursal area it makes a real mess of everything.

[W.R.Buchanan]

These rounds or more properly the nails (they are 2D nails with fins instead of a head) don't fly like a dart. They are just like chaff and if they hit meat sideways it hurts more than if it flew strait thru you and left a 1/16" hole. They must have been effective or they wouldn't have shot so many of them. I can't really see the shotgun rounds being all that bad, but coming out of a 105, that would be devastating.

I think the efficiency went up exponentially with the number of darts in the shell.

Randy