US Government As Represented by the Secretary of the Army

Chuck L Chin

Vladimir M Gold

Ernest L Baker

William J Poulos

Arthur Daniels

Jack Pincay

Stanley DeFisher

Irene Wu

The invention describes a wall breaching explosive fragmentation ammunition and further a warhead having means for efficiently penetrating concrete and masonry walls, effectively delivering an explosive fragmentation case payload with minimum structural damage to the ammunition's projectile body. The effective wall breaching is achieved using an ogive-shaped, high strength, light weight boron carbide ceramic nose cone cap disposed adjacent to a tungsten alloy nose insert, at the fore of the ammunition. The projectile body is generally cylindrically shaped, preferably made of steel or aluminum to withstand expected forces in the launch environment. The ogive-shaped nose cone may be secured circumferentially to the projectile body with a rubber O-ring to ensure a tight seal. The ogive-shaped nose cone minimizes the penetration resistance force and provides more favorable loading onto the ammunition projectile's wall structure, ultimately minimizing the damage to the projectile's fragmenting case and the explosive payload which follows it. The remaining back projectile area may be filled with propellant. Use of light-weight boron carbide material also minimizes interference with possible steel fragment and tungsten alloy fragment spray. The projectile body includes rotating bands to trap propellant gases from escaping during launch which bands can be attached to the projectile body as a separate part.

Wall breaching fragmentation warhead

A warhead includes a body, a patterned liner made of plastic, and an explosive charge disposed within the liner. The liner pattern is formed of gaps and liner elements. The explosive charge includes a first set of sections that are disposed adjacent to the liner gaps and a second set of sections that are disposed adjacent to the liner elements. Upon detonation of the explosive charge and because of the temporal delay in transmitting the detonation energy between these two sets of sections, the warhead body is caused to shear and break into fragments with controlled size. The use of plastic as the liner material also provides a welcome safety feature for this warhead. In the event of unwanted heat ignition, the plastic (which is also low melt temperature material), would melt to seal the explosive and would also flow. Because of the plastic, neither sudden pressure nor heat/ignition inside the round, would therefore be as catastrophic.

More safe insensitive munition for producing a controlled fragmentation pattern

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Ledgewood, NJ, United States of America

Chuck L Chin