Hi List...
Today I was happily driving my deuce around town gathering parts for
our entry in this season's BattleBots competition (our robot is called
"Tracula" and is a tracked heavyweight with an electromagnetic coil
gun which will fire tethered projectiles as rams into other robots at
about 3,000 Joules, about the same as a 7.62mm round...there's a
sketch at www.Tracula.com).
Anyway, at one of my stops, I told the owner I was looking for
hardened steel tips for on the iron projectiles in the coil gun (all
the better to puncture robot armor). He told me to stay put and that
he had just the thing. He came back and gave me a handful of these
items that look like little bombs with fins on the back.
The bodies are unfinished solid hardened steel and the fins are
stamped and folded mild sheet steel, and spot welded to the bottom of
the body. They are about 1 13/16" long and 0.5" wide at the fins, and
the diameter of the body at its widest point is 7/16" which is about
the same as a 44 slug. They weigh 0.6 oz, or 18 grams.
Here is a page with some pictures of one of these objects:
http://www.Tracula.com/ram_tips.html
The guy at the place "that I did NOT get them from" said that they got
several big barrels of these in the 70s from the military and were
instructed to destroy them for scrap. For some reason they kept them,
but they aren't supposed to sell them (which is why the guy that owns
the place told me to just put them in my pocket and shut up). He said
these were supposedly dropped by the crate-full from bombers in the
Vietnam war, and would come down pointy end first at terminal velocity
guided by the fins and ram into anything it hit and do damage similar
to a rifle round...people, vehicles, facilities, whatever.
What the hell are these things?
Thanks!
--Jim "Ike" Newton
o 1984 M1007 CUCV Military Suburban 6.2 Liter Turbo-Diesel Engine 5/4 Ton Cargo Capacity, 4WD
o 1971 M35A2 Military Troop/Cargo Truck "Deuce and a Half" 478 Cubic Inch Turbo-Diesel Multi-Fuel Engine Air Shift Front Axle 2 1/2 Ton Cargo Capacity, 6WD
See them at: http://www.CUCV.net
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