Flechette

[benstern]

Bringing this up since it seems that there is not a topic on them on spudfiles.

Flechettes are very small darts made to fire out of guns. They can be bought somewhat cheaply. They have good accuracy and penetration.



http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/AMM005-57714-1395.html

http://www.auctionarms.com/search/aucti ... =Flechette

[VH_man]

HAHAHAHA ive been looking to buy these for so long but i have never been able to find them. haha im buying a pound of these. screw blowgun darts........... i just have to find a sabot now..........

[Fnord]

I always just made flechets out of thin steel rod. They tumble in flight so they don't hit straight like an arrow/dart, but they seem to do more damage that way.

[VH_man]

but accuracy is what im going for.......... any good ideas for sabots?

[Fnord]

What barrel size?

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

A cheaper and easier solution is to take a nail and hammer the head flat to give a fin.

but accuracy is what im going for.......... any good ideas for sabots?

These flechettes were never made for accuracy - they're usually loaded into artillery shells for use as area weapons in the manner of a giant shotgun, such as in the M546 105mm round - in fact some would actually be loaded tail first, in order to flip around in flight and spread out more. There are (dubious, but cool) tales of Viet Cong guerillas being found nailed to trees after having been struck by such rounds.

Also available in 12 gauge as a potentially armour piercing alternative to buckshot, and interestingly the recent CBU-107 air launched projectile that dispenses 3700 flechettes that devastate an area target by sheer gravity fuelled kinetic energy.

As you can see, flechettes are generally more area than point targets, unless you consider this to be a flechette.

[VH_man]

i do consider that a fletchette...........

i am sure those fletchettes are accurate. i know the US millitary did an in-depth study on fletchette-based weapons, where the weapon fired one fletchette at a time.

from what i remember, the gun itself cost less because it was smoothbore, and the gun had very low recoil.

the problems were that the fletchettes didnt do enough tissue damage and that the fletchette rounds themselves cost aobut twice that of a normal round. besides cost and tissue damage, the fletchette based assualt rifle the US millitary constructed was quite good.......

basically, these fletchettes SHOULD fly straight as an arrow........

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

i am sure those fletchettes are accurate. i know the US millitary did an in-depth study on fletchette-based weapons, where the weapon fired one fletchette at a time.

from what i remember, the gun itself cost less because it was smoothbore, and the gun had very low recoil.

the problems were that the fletchettes didnt do enough tissue damage and that the fletchette rounds themselves cost aobut twice that of a normal round. besides cost and tissue damage, the fletchette based assualt rifle the US millitary constructed was quite good.......

I think you mean the rounds developed for the Special Purpose Infantry Weapon program



From here:

Others have attempted to achieve the same aim by using flechette technology (in principle, a scaled-down APFSDS tank gun round - APersFSDS?) to achieve an extremely short flight time and flat trajectory resulting from a muzzle velocity of around 1,400 m/s. This gives such weapons an almost ray-gun like performance, with allowances for range, wind-drift and target movement being hardly needed at normal battle ranges. This was first seriously proposed in the American Special Purpose Infantry Weapon (SPIW) project of the late 1960s, in which several manufacturers produced weapons using basically similar ammunition firing 1.8mm diameter darts. Accuracy was not as good as conventional rifles, however, and the cost of the ammunition was very high.

I can understand your thinking:

basically, these fletchettes SHOULD fly straight as an arrow........

and indeed, they *do* fly as straight as an arrow - but the direction in which they fly is heavily dependent on how effectively the sabot separates without interfering with the flechette, something which even the military found hard to achieve.

It's the same story with the Steyr AMR. This awesome weapon fires a 20 gram tungesten flechette at almost five times the speed of sound and can punch through over 1.5 inches of steel from a kilometre away - but fearsone power is no use if you can't hit your target, note how no mention is made of accuracy potential anywhere, unlike other anti-material rifles.

[Fnord]

Just for the hell of it, I made some flechettes out of .075" steel wire a few minutes ago.

I shot them from 5 feet away (I was inside) at a stack of 4 magazines with this result.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

What did you use as a sabot, ie were they flying straight when they left the muzzle or did they strike at an angle?

[benstern]

A nail or wire with a flattened end is not a true flechette. Flechettes have 3 or more fins.
SEE:


Also I believe that was the Beehive round.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive_%28ammunition%29

More sellers:
http://www.wvguns.com/products_surplus.htm
http://hi-techammo.com/ (bottom of page)

[Fnord]

I used a paper towel wrapped tightly in electrical tape, so that it formed a solid cylinder. They probably were not flying straight, as I didn't add fins to them.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

A nail or wire with a flattened end is not a true flechette.

but the effect is pretty much the same.

I used a paper towel wrapped tightly in electrical tape, so that it formed a solid cylinder. They probably were not flying straight, as I didn't add fins to them.

That and they either shot out of the sabot while it as still in the barrel, or slowed down in the air because of the sabot's massive drag.

[VH_man]

ahhhhh ok......... thank you now i understand.

if someone with a large bore cannon buys these and does a shotgun spread on their target, please capture it on video...... think like jack-o-loanterns or something that just NEED to be taken care of......... or those pesky street signs.......... (not one on the street. just stick with sheet metal.......)

[POLAND_SPUD]

Nails are great

I often fire 4 to 7 6cm long nails together. After about 40-50 meters from the muzzle they slow down so i can actually see the whole array of them dispersed (I hope you can understand what i mean ? ). My barrel is much bigger (volume) than the chamber so the gun is so silent that i can hear the sound of nails cutting the air.

I tried modding them with a file in order to move the centre of gravity to the front. However it takes some time before thay stabilise so most likely they are loosing a lot of energy because of that.
I would really love to test these flechettes from beehive rounds