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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Damion Milliken <adm82@***.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: Flechette
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 22:28:38 +1000
Paul Jonathan Adam writes:

> In repeated tests, a US Army ballistician found that rifle-fired flechettes
> were almost ineffective at inflicting incapacitating wounds, although their
> penetration was excellent.

Was this the SR style "bundle" flechette, or a single "dart" type
flechette?
Or is there a difference?

--
Damion Milliken Unofficial Shadowrun Guru E-mail: adm82@***.edu.au

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b++ D B? e+$ u@ h* f+ !r n----(--)@ !y+
Message no. 2
From: Paul Jonathan Adam <Paul@********.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Flechette
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 18:39:59 GMT
> > In repeated tests, a US Army ballistician found that rifle-fired flechettes
> > were almost ineffective at inflicting incapacitating wounds, although their
> > penetration was excellent.
>
> Was this the SR style "bundle" flechette, or a single "dart" type
flechette?
> Or is there a difference?

This was the single-dart type. There's no current real-world equivalent
to Shadowrun 'bundle' flechette apart from exotics like Glaser Safety and
MagSafe ammo, both of which almost stop dead on any armour by design.


--
When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better or
for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him.

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
Message no. 3
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Flechette
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 1995 11:25:30 +0200
>Was this the SR style "bundle" flechette, or a single "dart" type
flechette?
>Or is there a difference?

In modern terminology, a flechette is a dart-type projectile, of which
there's one or a small number in a cartridge. It's usually 1, maybe up to 4
in a cartridge case for rifle or machine gun ammo, but these are fairly
large; for shotguns, they stack up to 20 in a case, but these darts are much
smaller than for rifles. Anyway, I believe the original poster said
something about these being flechettes from "beehive" rounds, which are
cannon shells used in Vietnam to kill VC with -- a shell that explodes after
a preset time of flight, showering its area with a couple thousand
flechettes... a 152mm round contains almost 10,000 of the buggers :)


Gurth@******.nl - Gurth@***.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Give it birth to the machine
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B? e+ u+@ h! f--(?) !r(--)(*) n---->!n y? Unofficial Shadowrun Guru :)
Message no. 4
From: David Hinkley <dhinkley@***.ORG>
Subject: Re: Flechette
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 1995 01:48:29 -0700
On Tue, 11 Apr 1995, Gurth wrote:

> >Was this the SR style "bundle" flechette, or a single "dart"
type flechette?
> >Or is there a difference?
>
> In modern terminology, a flechette is a dart-type projectile, of which
> there's one or a small number in a cartridge. It's usually 1, maybe up to 4
> in a cartridge case for rifle or machine gun ammo, but these are fairly
> large; for shotguns, they stack up to 20 in a case, but these darts are much
> smaller than for rifles. Anyway, I believe the original poster said
> something about these being flechettes from "beehive" rounds, which are
> cannon shells used in Vietnam to kill VC with -- a shell that explodes after
> a preset time of flight, showering its area with a couple thousand
> flechettes... a 152mm round contains almost 10,000 of the buggers :)
>
>
The flechette used in U.S.Army APERS (anti-personnel) Rounds for the 90mm
and 106mm Recoilless Rifles and the 105mm Howitzer is about 1 inch
(2.54cm) long is made of soft steel and could be best discribed as a
finishing nail that someone impressed a set of fins on to. I wittnessed a
demonstration of 5 or 6 (it was a few years ago, 1976 to be exact) 90mm
RR deployed on line firing all at once at a line of E type silottes
each covered with a number of inflated balloon type objects. The line was
about 25 meters long and about 2-3 meters deep. After the volley none
were standing and all the balloon type objects were popped. Of particular
intrest was the number of holes in the cardboard targets that indicated
that a quanity of the flechettes went through the target sideways. As to
the use of the round for close-in battery defence in South East Asia they
were extremly effective with one side effect. When the round was fired in
to a ajacent gun pit the flechettes tended to distroy all the optics on
the other gun.
As this type of round is also available for grenade
launchers, my Street Sam loads one barrel of a double barreled grenade
launcher with one. If caught out in the street by vehicle mounted
opponents he fires at the driver side windshield while it does not
pentatrate it does scar the glass to obscurity. The combination of big
target and big pattern makes for a shot that can be taken at a dead run
with a chance of success. And if it fails the barrle is clear for
reloading after the HE in the other barrel wakes up the neighborhood.

David Hinkley
(dhinkley@***.org)

Further Reading

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These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

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