Patent Application
20090320711
This invention relates to a novel munition.
Munitions, whether fired from a weapon such as a rifle or launched from a launcher or carrier missile or whether in a form of warheads or other projectiles are well known and include fragmentation munitions. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,089,267; 4,648,323; 4,942,820; 5,243,916; 5,763,819; 6,230,630; 6,619,210; as well as Published Patent Application Nos. US 2004/0069176A1 and US 2004/0129162, all incorporated herein by this reference.
Typically, an explosive is housed in the core of a munition casing. When the explosive is detonated, it fractures the casing into fragments designed to strike a target.
Other munition designs are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,789,484 and 6,672,220 as well as Published Patent Application No. US 2002/0166475.
Most of these prior art designs, however, are fairly complex in design, expensive to manufacture, and many cannot be deployed from conventional weapons. Moreover, munitions including explosives can result in unintended collateral damage to surrounding structures and/or targets.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a munition with increased lethality but which is less complex in design.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a munition which is versatile in design.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a munition which is inexpensive to manufacture.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a munition which prevents unintended collateral damage.
The subject invention results from the realization that a simpler munition with increased lethality is effected by attaching a number of particles to the external surface of a munition core which, upon impact with a target, dislodge from the munition core.
The subject invention, however, in other embodiments, need not achieve all these objectives and the claims hereof should not be limited to structures or methods capable of achieving these objectives.
This invention features a munition comprising a munition core and a plurality of particles attached to an external surface of the munition core designed to release from the munition core upon impact of the munition with a target.
In one example, the munition core is made of a dense material such as a tungsten carbide composition. The particles may be made of a brittle material such as glass. Typically, the particles are attached to the munition core with an adhesive. Preferably, the particles are microparticle in size.
Other objects, features and advantages will occur to those skilled in the art from the following description of a preferred embodiment and the accompanying drawings, in which:
Aside from the preferred embodiment or embodiments disclosed below, this invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced or being carried out in various ways. Thus, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and the arrangements of components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. If only one embodiment is described herein, the claims hereof are not to be limited to that embodiment. Moreover, the claims hereof are not to be read restrictively unless there is clear and convincing evidence manifesting a certain exclusion, restriction, or disclaimer.
Small particles 10,
In accordance with the subject invention, the core carries the many smaller particles to enhance the particle density upon impact. The smaller momentum particles 10 are typically epoxied on core 12 and fracture off during impact of the core with a target. Such a munition can be used for soft targets because the core has the overall mass to penetrate and provide a hole for the smaller particles to go through. The smaller particles then create a dense spray pattern upon release from the core.
Munition 14,
The munition of the subject invention can also be used to destroy items or structure internal to target 16 but not necessarily directly in the direct path P,
In one embodiment, munition core 12,
Munition 14,
The size, shape and composition of the core, however, as well as the size, shape, number, and composition of the particles will vary depending on the specific implementation, the deployment method, the lethality desired, and the type of target to be penetrated. The result is a simple in design munition with increased lethality.
Although specific features of the invention are shown in some drawings and not in others, this is for convenience only as each feature may be combined with any or all of the other features in accordance with the invention. The words “including”, “comprising”, “having”, and “with” as used herein are to be interpreted broadly and comprehensively and are not limited to any physical interconnection. Moreover, any embodiments disclosed in the subject application are not to be taken as the only possible embodiments. Other embodiments will occur to those skilled in the art and are within the following claims.
In addition, any amendment presented during the prosecution of the patent application for this patent is not a disclaimer of any claim element presented in the application as filed: those skilled in the art cannot reasonably be expected to draft a claim that would literally encompass all possible equivalents, many equivalents will be unforeseeable at the time of the amendment and are beyond a fair interpretation of what is to be surrendered (if anything), the rationale underlying the amendment may bear no more than a tangential relation to many equivalents, and/or there are many other reasons the applicant can not be expected to describe certain insubstantial substitutes for any claim element amended.
