US Government as Represented by the Secretary of the Army

Henry Hsieh

Richard Fong

Peter Rottinger

Vladimir M Gold

Tom Blyskal

A fragmentation warhead includes a cylindrical body, and an explosive charge disposed within the innermost part of the warhead body comprised of slidable positionable explosives, their times of detonation controllable by an operator. The apparatus can produce numbers and sizes of fragments ranging from relatively large to relatively small.

Low collateral damage fragmentation warhead

A fragmentation warhead comprising manual selection means for generating larger fragments versus smaller fragments upon detonation. The warhead includes a generally cylindrically shaped fragmenting metal outer warhead within which lies a generally cylindrically shaped explosive charge. Cylindrically arranged ring mechanisms within the warhead may be rotated to select desired fragmentation patterns.

Adaptive fragmentation mechanism to enhance lethality

The dynamically configurable controlled fragmentation insert mechanism of this invention includes an assembly of three or more sleeves with differing through hole patterns thereon, that fit inside the shell casing. The individual sleeves can move independently of one another and a simple pinning mechanism holds the parts in place for a selected configuration. The warfighter can realign the insert sleeves by to create different geometric patterns of holes, each designed to engage a different target set with optimally sized fragments. The aligned patterns of holes creates individual geometric shapes that focus high-velocity jets to cut into the steel shell casing to correlate to the through-holes in the aligned patterned sleeves. Realigning the insert sleeves changes the through-hole pattern to produce different fragment sizes and mass distributions. To defeat light armored vehicles for instance, a warfighter can deploy a sleeve hole pattern to produce larger fragments with greater penetrating power, while to engage enemy troops for instance, a warfighter can 'dial in' another hole pattern through the fuze assembly to otherwise produce a much larger number of smaller, lighter fragments.

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Riverdale, NJ, United States of America

Henry Hsieh