Incendiary ammunition. Topic: modern conventional weapons See what "Incendiary ammunition" is in other dictionaries

This body can be solid or hollow, streamlined (ogive) or swept, to carry a payload or not - all these factors (together with the internal device) are determined by the purpose of the projectile. Cone-shaped artillery shells were first used by the Italian artilleryman Cavalli for the rifled gun he invented in 1845, and with the spread of rifled cannons around 1860, they completely replaced the previous cannonballs. In the future, for several decades, the shells were divided into “bombs” and “grenades”, however, since the First World War, the term “grenade” has been assigned to hand grenades and shells for a grenade launcher, “bomb” - to aerial bombs, and artillery shells were called simply "shells".

Classification of artillery shells

Artillery shells of the 19th century (in order of arrangement in the figure): Top row: 1-3 - spherical projectiles (grenade, bomb, shrapnel grenade) of the first half of the 19th century, 4 - explosive bomb 5 - grenade, 6 - sharokha (rounded cast-iron grenade of the 1860s), 7 - a bomb with a thick lead shell, 8 - a bomb with a thin lead shell, 9 - a bomb of the 1867 model with a copper belt. Middle row: 10 - shotgun grenade, 11 - grenade buckshot, 12 - luminous core (illuminating projectile), 13 - annular cast-iron grenade, 13-a- a section of light and battery ring grenades, 18 - iron bomb before 1881, 20 - steel high-explosive deck-piercing bomb, 21 - mountain shrapnel. Bottom row: 14 - high-explosive powder bomb for 6-inch (152-mm) field mortar, 15 - 42-line (107-mm.) high-explosive bomb, 16 - high-explosive powder bomb for coastal guns, 17 - cast-iron bomb of the 1881 model, 22 - light gun shrapnel, 19 - steel armor-piercing bomb, 23 - shrapnel with a central chamber, 24 - segment bomb.

The classification of shells is very diverse and can be carried out according to several criteria at once. The main classification features are

Purpose of shells

• Armor-piercing projectile - ammunition designed to combat enemy armored vehicles. According to their design, armor-piercing shells, in turn, are divided into caliber, sub-caliber with a permanent or detachable pallet, and arrow-shaped feathered shells.
• A concrete-piercing projectile is an ammunition designed to destroy reinforced concrete long-term fortifications.
• A high-explosive projectile is an ammunition designed to destroy field and long-term fortifications, wire fences, and buildings.
• A cumulative projectile is an ammunition designed to destroy armored vehicles and garrisons of long-term fortifications by creating a narrowly directed jet of explosion products with high penetrating power.
• Fragmentation projectile - ammunition designed to destroy enemy manpower with fragments formed when the projectile bursts. The gap occurs when hitting an obstacle or remotely in the air.
• Buckshot - ammunition designed to destroy openly located enemy manpower in the self-defense of the gun. It is a bullet laid in a combustible frame, which, when fired, fly apart in a certain sector from the gun barrel.
• Shrapnel is an ammunition designed to destroy openly located enemy manpower with bullets located inside its body. The rupture of the hull and the ejection of bullets from it occurs in flight.
• A nuclear projectile is an ammunition for delivering a tactical nuclear strike against large targets and concentrations of enemy forces. The most effective and destructive means available to artillery.
• Chemical projectile - ammunition containing a potent poisonous substance to destroy the enemy's manpower. Some types of chemical projectiles may contain a non-lethal chemical agent that deprives enemy soldiers of combat capability (tear, psychotropic, etc. substances)
• Biological projectile - ammunition containing a potent biological toxin or culture of infectious microorganisms. It is intended for the destruction or non-lethal incapacitation of enemy manpower.
• Thermobaric projectile - ammunition containing a formulation for the formation of an explosive gaseous mixture. It is exceptionally effective against the enemy's sheltered manpower.
• Incendiary projectile - ammunition containing a recipe for igniting easily combustible materials and objects, such as city buildings, fuel depots, etc.
• Smoke projectile - ammunition containing a recipe for the formation of smoke in large quantities. It is used to create smoke screens, blinding enemy command and observation posts.
• Illumination projectile - an ammunition containing a recipe for creating a long-lasting and brightly burning flame. It is used to illuminate the battlefield at night. As a rule, it is equipped with a parachute for a longer duration of illumination.
• A tracer is an ammunition that leaves behind a bright trace during its flight, visible to the naked eye.
• An agitation projectile is an ammunition containing leaflets inside for agitation of enemy soldiers or the dissemination of propaganda among the civilian population in the front-line settlements of the enemy.
• A training projectile is, as a rule, a solid ammunition intended for training personnel of artillery units. It can be either a dummy or a weight-and-size model, unsuitable for firing, or ammunition suitable for training firing.

Some of these classification features may overlap. For example, high-explosive fragmentation and armor-piercing tracer shells are widely known.

projectile design

• The material of the body or core of the projectile is steel, cast iron, tungsten, uranium, etc.
• Type of explosive (high-explosive, etc. shells)
• Projectile body geometry - sharp-headed, blunt-headed, long-range
• Projectile payload - unloaded solid projectile or artillery grenade with load cavity (explosives, shrapnel bullets, leaflets, anti-personnel mines)
• Type of gun - howitzer, cannon, rifled or non-rotating shells
• Other design features - a projectile with a leading belt (English)Russian, winged projectile, active-rocket projectile (with an auxiliary jet engine), guided (corrected) projectile, etc.

guided projectiles

• For longer-range projectiles, a correction is applied to reduce the deviation from the target due to pointing errors and atmospheric disturbances. For this, an inertial control system and/or correction based on signals from navigation systems (eg GPS) is used. For example M982 "Excalibur".
• To destroy moving targets at long distances or targets without topographic location, laser target designation is used. The target is illuminated with a laser, and the homing head aims the projectile at the illuminated target. These are, for example, "Copperhead", "Krasnopol", "Flower Garden", "Russian. ”, “BONUS-155”.

Undermining method

• Contact (the fuse is triggered by hitting a target, ground or other obstacle), it can be instant or delayed action;
• Non-contact (no need to hit the target, ground or other obstacle), in turn, is divided into subspecies:
  • Remote (after the specified flight time - shrapnel tube, electronic timer, mechanical timer, chemical timer (not used since the 40s, due to too high temperature dependence environment), radio rangefinder (used in air-to-air missiles and impact core ammunition);
  • Radio command (on command from the fire control system, most often at a smaller specified distance from the target);
  • Barometric (undermining at a given height based on the measurement of atmospheric pressure);
• Combined (a combination of several methods in one ammunition).

In the historical past, artillery used other types of projectiles that are now out of use, such as cannonballs.

Any artillery projectile, with the exception of training, solid and some types of sub-caliber armor-piercing ammunition, is an extremely life-threatening item. If you find an unfired or unexploded projectile, you should immediately contact the authorities for its prompt elimination. The design of some types of sub-caliber armor-piercing ammunition uses depleted uranium, which makes them somewhat dangerous to the health of military personnel and the environment. These include // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.

History of artillery [Armament. Tactics. Biggest battles. Beginning XIV century - early XX] Hogg Oliver

Incendiary projectiles

Incendiary projectiles

Incendiary projectiles have a long history. One of the first such projectiles was invented by a certain Valturio in 1460. It consisted of two bronze hemispheres fastened together with hoops with a small hole for fire access to a bird's feather tube filled with an incendiary substance that ignited a compressed powder charge. Another such projectile, of approximately the same time and construction of two iron hemispheres, was filled with resin and rosin. Such shells existed until the advent of carcass- "frame" incendiary projectiles, invented in 1672 by a gunner in the service of Christopher van Galen, the belligerent Bishop of Munster (Province of Ireland). The name Carcass is probably due to the fact that the fireballs were originally tied together with iron bands wrapped in cloth and tie cords, which was necessary in connection with the gradually improved weapons. At first, they tried to make shells oblong in order to contain more incendiary mixture, but their flight was so chaotic that they had to return to spherical shapes. Gradually the iron hoops and cloth gave way to thick spherical projectiles with vent holes to start the fire after the fuel had been ignited. Then the wall thickness began to be reduced in order to increase the internal volume of the capsule, while it came to the point that the thin walls could not withstand and the projectile crumbled in the barrel. During the siege of Quebec in 1759, to avoid this, sod was laid between the "frame" and the charge. Initially, the number of ventilation holes in the sphere was not specified, there could be 4, 5, and even 1 or 2. However, by 1828, all the "frames" of the British Armed Forces had 4 holes. The experience of the Crimean War, almost thirty years later, showed that this was an unfortunate number, experiments conducted in 1855 showed that 3 holes performed their functions ideally, which was adopted. By the time of Waterloo (1815), the obsolete oblong "frames" had already disappeared, but the new three-hole ones did not appear until July 9, 1860. Until 1854, a primitive prototype lighting projectile was used as an incendiary. It consisted of a "frame" filled with the composition "Valenciennes stars" - a mixture of saltpeter, sulfur, antimony and linseed oil, which also splattered during combustion. However, the "stars" had a bad property to explode, which reduced their effectiveness. In 1863, this type of incendiary projectile was officially abandoned. A new type of incendiary projectile was fired by smoothbore guns of all types and calibers from 12-pounders and above, except for 100-pounders. The projectile consisted of a hollow iron sphere, with three ventilation holes. Since the thickness of the metal of such a projectile was slightly greater than that of a conventional projectile, then, naturally, they were heavier. Such shells were filled with a mixture of saltpeter, sulfur, resin, antimony sulphide, turpentine and fat, poured in a hot state; three recesses in the filler were made in continuation of the ventilation holes. A fuse of the appropriate composition and a fast-burning igniter cord for ignition were inserted into the holes. The holes were plugged with brown paper, fixed with putty. Before the shot, the putty and paper were removed, the igniter cord was released. Such projectiles burned with a fierce intensity of fire, which was difficult to extinguish. The big drawback of such shells was the rapid deterioration of the composition, too short storage periods, so they were not included in the official list of ammunition, although they were made from time to time for special purposes as long as smoothbore guns were used. The next incendiary projectile worthy of our attention is Martin's projectile. This projectile, filled with liquid iron, was proposed by Martin - a civilian - in March 1855. In April 1856, tests were carried out, and on October 29, 1857, its 8-inch version was presented to the Secretary of War and approved for use in the British Armed Forces. latest model such a projectile was approved on February 10, 1860, and in the same year, on May 30, a 10-inch version of this projectile was approved. Only two of these calibers were produced: 8- and 10-inch. The shell consisted of a cast-iron hollow sphere, covered on the inside with loam and filled with liquid iron through a special hole before loading the gun. Such a projectile had a thickened bottom to withstand the impact of firing, and an appropriate thickness at the head with a flat inner surface to cool upper layer hot metal to a temperature below the melting point. The projectile filled in this way was clogged by the cooled molten metal itself. The side walls were molded thin to shatter on impact and eject the molten contents. The internal coating of loam acted as a heat-insulating medium, preventing the outer surface of the projectile from overheating and keeping its contents in a semi-molten state.

Martin's shells replaced the red-hot shells used against ships. They were sometimes used against buildings and other flammable targets. The Artillery Technical Re-equipment Committee recommended Martin shells for four reasons:

1. They were easy to fill.

2. They were easier to handle than hot shells.

3. They were safer.

4. Their incendiary power was higher.

Martin's shells were declared obsolete in 1869.

From the time of the abandonment of Martin shells until the beginning of the 20th century, a lot of time passed during which not a single incendiary shell was considered. In 1911, one such projectile, designed by Dr. Hodgkinson, was approved, but remained in action only during the First World War, serving to revive interest in this type of projectile. During this war, two patents were approved for use in the British Armed Forces. One of them (the AZ projectile) was directed against the "zeppelins" (German airships), and the second - to set fire to obstacles, crops, etc. in the field. In the AZ projectile, the base was drilled out and replaced with a steel plug, secured with copper shear pins and steel pins to prevent screwing. The projectile was filled with a special composition and equipped with a fuse with a response time setting, located in the bow. When triggered, the composition ignited, and the cork at the back of the projectile flew out. In this case, ignition occurred at a given time, and the projectile could burn out before falling to the ground. The base of the second type of shells was solid, and the shell itself was filled with seven light candles. When fired, the incendiary composition was ignited by a flash passing down to the explosive charge on the bottom, and then the candle was thrown out. Their successive spontaneous ejection hit a large area. Incendiary shells were declared obsolete in September 1920, but were produced in limited numbers in 1940 for rapid-firing 25-pounder and breech-loading 5.5-inch guns. Shells of this purpose are not in demand in peacetime, but the Second World War aroused interest in developing better methods of spreading fire in enemy territory and among enemy troops. These methods need only be mentioned for the sake of completeness. There are two of them: incendiary bombs, dropped from aircraft over specially selected targets, and flamethrowers - melee weapons. Flamethrowers such as the "crocodile tank" (based heavy tank"Churchill"), had nothing to do with incendiary shells, it was rather a development of the method of siphoning Greek fire from the bow of the ship. On February 7, 1709 (100) at Woolwich (Woolwich), Warren tested the Orlebar and Powell flamethrowers. German was used during the First World War flammenwerfer. This method of flamethrowing is based either on the ejection of an ignited jet of fuel, or on the ejection of compressed air from vessels placed in an armored car. The basis of the method is a burning liquid that is highly flammable when set on fire, fluid enough to provide the effect of a fire hose, but sufficiently viscous to not splatter in flight and stick to the target. The effective range of such a weapon is about 175 yards (160 meters), the effect can be described in one word - deadly. Considering the development of armaments, one can hardly expect the development of new artillery incendiary projectiles.

CHAPTER 4 INCENTIVE MIXTURES Incendiary mixtures, like the rose-red city, are "half an eternity old." After all, fire was one of the first secrets won by man from nature. The ancient people soon realized how great its potential for both good and evil -

INCENSIBLE MEANS IN THE VET SYSTEM Fighter P.A. Tikhonov ties up grenades Molotov cocktails were prepared nearby To fight tanks and armored vehicles from the very beginning of the Second World War and throughout its entire duration, various incendiary