Patent Application
20170205214
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The invention generally relates to projectiles for weapon systems designed for multiple target types.
Men have been sending projectiles at each other, at game, at buildings, and at vehicles for centuries. The most fundamental projectile is a naturally-occurring item such as a stone, boulder or log. Early man-modified projectiles include such items as pointed sticks (e.g., spears, javelins, etc.), metallic balls, and burning pots of oil. More recent projectile designs include metallic shells, bullets, flechettes, exploding ordinance, laser-guided ordinance, and satellite-guided ordinance.
Mechanisms and methods of accelerating and aiming such projectiles have varied, including hand throwing (e.g., stones, grenades, spears, etc.), centrifugally acceleration (e.g., sling, bolos, etc.), cocked springs (e.g., bows, cross bows sling shots, etc.), compressed gases (e.g., blow darts, air guns, some spear guns, paint ball guns, etc.), expanding gases from ignition of powdered and/or solid chemicals (e.g., firearms, artillery, mortar, etc.), and even magnetic acceleration (e.g., rail guns).
Projectile designs vary as widely as the mechanism and methods to accelerate and aim the projectiles. Each projectile design is intended from one or more target types, with the design including features to overcome certain challenges presented by the intended target. For example, air-to-air cannon rounds are designed to traverse a predictable arc in thin air at high altitudes. Anti-personnel rounds, however, are designed to be accurate in certain scenarios, such as short range (e.g., close quarters combat, designed terminate movement in the target to minimize the danger of an unintended target being impacted by the round after passing through the actual target) or in long range (e.g., designed for stable flight over hundreds of yards). Anti-equipment rounds may include features to overcome armor protection, such as the use of depleted uranium in anti-tank rounds. Anti-building rounds similarly may include features to destroy certain types of structures, such as “bunker buster” rounds or incendiary rounds.
When a “mission” is defined, the anticipated targets are considered, and appropriate equipment, vehicles, and personnel are selected for the mission. For example, in a military mission, a sniper may be selected for the mission with appropriate rifle and long-range anti-personnel rounds, while his team may also include personnel trained to enter and clear buildings, who are equipped with shorter-barrel weapons and ammunition suitable for indoors use that does not penetrate walls to avoid danger to other team members in adjacent structural rooms. For other missions, anti-equipment ammunition and weapons may be employed, or anti-structural ammunition for breaching certain structural elements (e.g. doors, gates, etc.).
If the mission is a hunting excursion, the anticipated game animal may determine the type of weapon (rifle, shotgun, pistol, etc.) and ammunition (caliber or gauge) to be taken on the excursion.
So, a variety of anticipated targets drives the need to take a variety of specialized ammunition having specialized projectiles. And, since unexpected targets may be encountered or may present themselves during the mission, it is also wise to carry at least a small amount of ammunition for those potentialities as well.
One or more embodiments are disclosed and illustrated for a projectile for acceleration and delivery to a target having a jacket having rear surface, a cylindrical side surface, and a tapered rupturable front surface with a cavity between the surfaces, a core disposed within the cavity, and a mantel packing the core within the cavity, wherein the core is comprised of a denser material than material comprising the jacket, the front surface ruptures upon impact to a target, and the core is ejected through the ruptured front surface to penetrate the target.
The description set forth herein is illustrated by the several drawings.
The present invention relates to a dual-mode projectile design which can effectively engage two or more different target types. It is suitable for acceleration by a plurality of means, such as explosive chemicals (e.g., gun powder, liquids, solid explosives, plastic explosives, etc.), compressed gas, and magnetics.
By providing an effective round against two (or more) different target types, the burden on personnel and equipment to carry multiple types of ammunition for a particular mission profile may be significantly lessened. This provides a smaller footprint of the mission (e.g., smaller vehicles, fewer vehicles, less fuel, etc.) and/or a longer range of force projection due to the improved efficiency (e.g., vehicles travel further with less weight on the same amount of fuel, and personnel can walk further and travel faster carrying less weight).
The present invention encompasses two general variants, one including flechettes, and one without flechettes. In both variations, an outer case contains a core which is packed into the case by a powdered metal. The core may be of a solid type or may be frangible, such as breaking into flechettes. The case can be cast, stamped or milled from a suitable material such as copper, brass or steel.
A unique feature of the new bullet or projectile design is that the core, not the case, is the primary effective projectile, while the case and packing powdered metal are a vessel to deliver the core to its intended target. By way of comparison to known bullets, Instead of the entire bullet being penetrating projectile, or an AFram or Nosler™ partioned design, the new projectile configuration reduces the penetrating mass and entry surface cross-sectional area. This improves the penetrating capability of the core because it is more sleek and has less surface area for the target's mass to slow it. However, by accelerating the new bullet while the core is still contained in the larger-diameter casing, the round provides a rear surface area for engaging expanding gases which is larger than the surface area of the core on the entry surface. This unique combination allows for the acceleration of the round upon firing like a larger caliber round, but provides penetrating capabilities of a smaller round.
The core is the penetrating component of the round upon target impact, while the mantel (compressed metal powder) surrounds the core and packs it into the casing for rifling and ballistic dynamics of a solid bullet. The case or jacket encloses the core and mantel, and the case makes surface contact with the fire arms rifling and grooves. The case may be comprised of metal, lead, ceramic or an alloy, and core may comprised of a relatively higher density material such as tungsten or steel. This allows trajectory definition (e.g., aiming) and rifling within a barrel with less damage to the barrel, while providing substantially more penetrating capability by delivering a high-density component (e.g., the core) to the target.
Turning now to
While this depiction is provided for general information, it will be readily recognized that the acceleration means may be slightly or even significantly different for different weapons, such as revolver cartridges do not usually have a rim (205), rim-fire cartridges do not have a cap (206), and some means have no cartridge at all such as compressed gas and magnetic acceleration mechanisms. As such, the present disclosure is directed to an new projectile design which can be employed with a wide variety of acceleration means, including but not limited to the foregoing devices and mechanisms.
Referring to
When the projectile (202a) is in unitary flight prior to target impact, it has full momentum Mfull in the direction of flight (from left to right in this diagram). The core may be comprised of relatively higher density material, such as tungsten, steel, depleted uranium, other suitable high density material and combinations of these materials. In this first mode of travel, the unitary projectile (202a) presents a larger surface area for absorbing energy from the acceleration means, and allows for a larger casing with no (or a reduced) neck-down section of the shell casing.
Upon target impact, the projectile (202a) of
In a second embodiment of a projectile (202b) according to the invention, the core's effectiveness is enhanced by the addition of some frangible components, such as one or more flechettes (301) surrounding a solid core (300), as depicted in
Turning to
It will be recognized by those skilled in the art that the disclosed embodiments do not define the limits of the invention, whereas the following claims define the spirit and scope of the present invention including variations and alternatives. Except where structurally necessary, “a”, “an” and “the” may refer to singular or plural.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof, unless specifically stated otherwise.
The corresponding structures, materials, acts, and equivalents of all means or step plus function elements in the claims below are intended to include any structure, material, or act for performing the function in combination with other claimed elements as specifically claimed. The description of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. The embodiment(s) was/were chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention and the practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.
It will be readily recognized by those skilled in the art that the foregoing example embodiments do not define the extent or scope of the present invention, but instead are provided as illustrations of how to make and use at least one embodiment of the invention. The following claims define the extent and scope of at least one invention disclosed herein.
