From:	Michael Orion Jackson <moj0001@****.ACS.UNT.EDU>
Subject:	Re: APDS
Date:	Thu, 15 Jun 1995 10:25:47 -0500

On Thu, 15 Jun 1995, Stuart Marsh wrote:

> As far as I can tell APDS is ment to be a personal body armour piecing ammo, not
> the kind of ammo to punch through tank armour!!!
>
> Cinder.
depends on what caliber APDS you are talking about, hehehehe...

Conceptually, a pistol to LMG class APDS round is probably some
derivation of the KTW round, i.e. a hard, pointed bullet with some sort
of coating. This bullet was originally developed by police in the 60s (?)
to punch through car bodies (not engines, just bodies) and other barriers.
Later a side benifit was discovered: it cut through Kevlar-mix body armor
like a hot knife through cheese.
APDS of .50 caliber and above, though, I see as being a designed to go
after a different cat altogether: military armored targets. These are
rounds that have a much more noticible (needle-like) sub-caliber
appearance. They are long, thin, and usually made out of Wolfram
(Tungsten) or Depleted Uranium. Their small frontal cross-sectional
area, high velocity, and high mass enable them to puncture metallic slab
and/or Chobham. Examples of this would be the American .50cal SLAP
(Saboted-Light-Armor-Piercing) that has been rumored to take out a Soviet
BMP and the American APFSDSDU 120mm tank round
(ArmorPiercingFinStabilizedDiscardingSabotDepletedUranium) that is un
surpassed in terms of lethality.

IN shadowrun terms, I think this means that vehicular rounds
(rotary asssault cannon,etc.) would ignore the detrimental effects of
hardened armor. In other words, they would not be reduced a damage level
automatically. APDS from a Panther or HMG would be in the gray area
between vehicular/small-arms APDS effects.

Peace.
__________________________________________________________________________
|Michael Orion Jackson |"A college student is a mechanism for |
|moj0001@****.acs.unt.edu |converting caffeine into finished |
|>Flaming is immature.< |homework" -unknown, but perceptive author |
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