Name that Weapon...
 

I see that Yon is now claiming to be a former SF soldier . . . :munchin

Michael Yon's Special Forces time is spelled out in his book "Danger Close."

Interesting read. He killed a man in a bar fight which resulted in his going to trial. Probably one of the reasons a popular bumper sticker in Fayetteville is:

You picked the wrong town to pick a bar fight in.

No Clue...
 

No clue but appears to have rifle scope style optics, shoulder fired and from the look of the shoulder mount area and end - not much backblast.

Then again Eastern style employment never was much on clearing the backblast area. Ouch.

Pete

The first thing that hit my mind when I looked at the picture was the "Poor GI Joe held prisoner".

As a side note - I see the media has a new fancy name for weapons that fire/employ a shaped charge. "A fist size chunk of molten copper". Got to have a fancy 3 letter name for everything these days.

Saw this earlier and have no idea. I put it in Photoshop and enlarged it a bit.
Click to enlarge
Attachment 7194

Wouldn't be surprised if it's something being made by Hezbollah. They are manufacuting a lot of things these days.

IIRC he was in 10th Group.

Looks like a mock-up or semi-homemade weapon to me. That is, as noted, a commerical rifle scope, not a military type which would have a dedicated reticle appropriate to the round, adding to my suspicion that it is modded or homemade.

Definitely not the way you normally fire an EFP, as the diameter is very small for an EFP and you could not contain the blast that way.

Not going into too many details here, but I worked on EFPs with Ernie T. and an EFP is not a shaped charge. A shaped charge is launched and detonates at a specific standoff distance from the target, melts the conical liner, and turns it into a very narrow jet of molten plasma. This is an process known as the Munroe effect.

When fired, the EFP inverts the bowl shaped liner and it stays in one solid piece, striking with more mass than the shaped charge, and having much less criticality in standoff distance. Very hard to defeat in sufficient sizes for the desired target thickness.

HTH.

TR

He was in 10th SFG(A)

40 Lb Shaped Charge
 

Platter Charge?

Anyway - So who fired the 40 lb shaped charge upside down at night? Best results are on a real dark night, no moon and a low rise of ground between you and the charge. On the 4th sometimes you have to improvise.:D

Pete


Oouuuu, aaaahhhh.

I think they must've gripped the blue prints for my tater gun.

I can think of a few ways that you might be able to launch explosives with a tater gun and a can of ether.

All kidding aside..
 

All kidding aside;

You have the shaped charge type weapons that are launched at the target and detonate at the right distance by way of a fuzed nose standoff like the law and RPG family of weapons. Easy to aim and have a good range but can be defeated by standoff protection like grills and chain link fence.

Then you have the platter style charges that explode at the launch site sending the metal chunk through anything. These are limited to range and aiming. Factory built ones would be more consistant on firing/aiming but would still not be a bullseye type but more a "Hit the truck" thing.

A high tech combination of the two, a device that is fired like an RPG but has some type of sensor that detonates it before/or at hitting stand off protection and then fires the metal would be very effective. But you now run into size. How large a platter can be utilized?

Small enough to be moved around and the blast would only shake up the crew and punch a hole where it hit. In a cargo truck if it didn't hit the engine, running gear or driver the truck might keep on going, not even a mobility kill. If the blast was big enough to take out the truck why mess with the platter effect.

As with anything a weapon is designed for a specialized problem and taking it outside that narrow window makes it less efective. Better to switch to a different weapon.

Man, I'd love to get a look at one of those new critters. Maybe a little range time?

Pete

A platter charge does not have the armor penetration that an EFP does.

I would say that there is no way to make one that would be safe to launch in a shoulder-fired configuration that would penetrate anything of significance.

The ones we used were at least 100mm in diameter, and you could make them up to 250mm or more in diameter.

I believe that I saw them being shown on Modern Weapons the other night, to include underwater use.

TR

EFPs
 

OK Guys;

We can split hairs here all day. I looked up some pictures of the EFP found in Irag. Round concave copper plate backed by explosives.

ST31-180 dated January 1965, pg III-20 "Platters do not have to be round or concave although a round concave platter is undoubtedly best."

EFP - Sexy name for a dressed up old timer. Better materials but the same concept.

Pete

Suit yourself.

When I ran Demo Committee, we taught them as separate charges.

Either way, no worries.

TR

Vintage!

Jim