Talk:Flechette

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Contents 1 Depleted uranium 2 Heavy flechette 3 Usage 4 The photo 5 The In Fiction part

[edit] Depleted uranium

Why is there a part about depleted uranium rounds in the Flechette article? Depleted Uranium rounds are neither Flechette or even anti-personnel... just found it perplexing. -Peter

What is the difference between an ACR flechette round and a 120mm APFSDS round, other than scale? The entire purpose of flechette is to maximize penetration, which means maximizing the sectional density, and that is commonly done through high strength, high density materials such as tungsten and depleted uranium. scot 14:31, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Heavy flechette

I have never located, anywhere, an actual reference to a "Heavy Flechette" (especially not anti-tank). As far as I know, there is no such thing. Flechettes are small metal darts (with emphasis on the small) used in the anti-personnel role. Typically the small darts are bundled into packages, and fired from a variety of weaponry, shotguns, rifles, tanks, artillery, rocket launchers, etc. After the round is fired, the package disperses the flechette contents into a wide pattern with the hope of hitting and doing severe damage to as many soft targets (people) as possible. Flechettes are usually useless against hard targets.

Further:

I have continued my research. I have located a single manufacturer (Oerlikon Contraves Pyrotec, seen on a Rheinmetall Defence website) that describes a 30mm round as an APFSDS-T "heavy metal flechette". This is the heaviest AP-type round I have found that the manufacturer calls "flechette". That and this Wikipedia page are the only sources I have so far been able to locate that equate "flechette" with "armor piercing". It's appearance seems more like a mistaken use of terminology than an endorsement that "flechette" rounds are AP-type ammunition. All other sources I have located so far refer to "flechette" as an anti-personnel round that packages small metal darts (sometimes only one) for use against soft targets.

Some research.

What you may have missed was the fact that they are only known as heavy flechettes in french - les flechette lourdes. In english, both British and American, they are known as discarding sabot rounds.

The M1A1 (The US Army Main Battle Tank) and the Challenger (the British Army MBT) both employ APFSDS (Armour-Piercing, Fin-Stabilised, Discarding Sabot) rounds as their primary AT capacity, fired from a 120-mm smoothbore. In fact, the reason they have the smoothbore is to allow for the use of such rounds. In addition, the MGM-166 LOSAT is a man-portable APFSDS system that was scrapped last year due to cost-effectiveness issues.

A picture of an example of the topic in question would be nice.

The main article did not make this clear in its previous incarnation. There were people who were taking the main article to state that "flechette" and AP were equivalent. They are not in most cases so far as I have been able to determine. The re-write of the heavy flechette section is an improvement, although I still do not believe that heavy AP rounds should be classified as Heavy Flechette except as a note in regards to French terminolgy.

There is a picture in the link I provided above.

[edit] Usage

“These 1 3/4" bomblets were air-dropped at height in canisters by aircraft, or scattered from buckets by helicopter crews, reaching sub-sonic speeds as they fell…” Does this make sense? They started at subsonic speeds. -Ahruman 23:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I re-wrote that section, and added a reference in the "external links" with pictures of various air dropped flechette from WWI to the 1970s. Take a look and see if you think that's better now. scot 14:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

also "supersonic" in the next paragraph does not make sense to me. if they come flying supersonic, you would not hear them before they impact at you. --Scanner 12:54, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

While you wouldn't hear them until after they hit you, flechette are pretty survivable, and the sound can be heard from areas that are safe, such as under cover. The low lethality of the individual flechette is one of the reasons the ACR and CAWS programs were canceled, the idea of a flechette firing individual weapon wasn't as attractive when you consider that a single flechette hit does very little damage. Now the beehive rounds, on the other hand, are capable of generating a large number of hits to targets close to the detonation, and even at longer ranges the high sectional density can penetrate light armor. Use of a beehive round against a legitimate target located in an area with civilian population does potentially run a higher risk of hitting a civilian than traditional round ball shrapnel, due to the wide range of the flechette, but since the risk of multiple hits drops rapidly as the range increases, the risk of a lethal injury to noncombatants is probably pretty small outside the effective radius of the shell due to the low lethality of a single flechette. scot 14:22, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The photo

Could somebody put a note beneath the photo, clearly stating that the ruler-scale under the fletchettes is in inches. Many casual readers would assume it to be a scale of centimeters, since SI uinits are used (and assumed by default) by the vast majority of this planet's population. I don't know how to place such a note, so I can't do it myself. --Peter Knutsen 02:12, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It's probably not necessary, since the units in the photo are clearly divided into sixteenths, rather than tenths. But yes, it's a valid point. -NordsternMN (talk) 04:33, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The In Fiction part

I believe that the information about the Flak cannon from Unreal should be ommitted, it has nothing at all to do with flechettes. It's kind of obvious that Flak is taken from the anti-aircraft guns, both in name and in the actual type of ammunition used.

I have removed said reference to UT as its obviously wrong to anyone who has played any/all of the games.Remember BE BOLD —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.203.37.15 (talk) 09:16, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm removing the "trivia" tag from the article, and renaming the section "in popular culture", as is seen in many other articles. --Muna (talk) 19:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I removed the Halo reference the "needler" fires some kind of homing energy thing that explodes a couple of seconds after impact not ar Flechette at all apart from them being needle shaped--58.173.5.125 (talk) 10:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)