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"The quality required of fuze designs is usually specified by two values: functional re-liability, which ranges typically from 0.95 to 0.99 for complex missile
by ethbro 8y ago
"The quality required of fuze designs is usually specified by two values: functional re-liability, which ranges typically from 0.95 to 0.99 for complex missile fuzes, and to 0.999 for projectile and bomb contact fuzes; and safety reliability, for which a failure rate not greater than 1 in 106 must be proved prior to release of items for service usage."
https://fas.org/man/dod-101/navy/docs/fun/part14.htm https://fas.org/man/dod-101/navy/docs/fun/part14.htm
The reason cluster munitions were banned is that the form factor and econonics lead to less reliable detonation, not because we can't build a reliable fuze, given a larger space and weight budget.
- jessriedel 8y agoThe convention on cluster munitions wasn't signed by the world's 5 largest armies, so the ban is of limited extent. (Or do you mean another agreement?)
- perl4ever 8y ago1 in 106 is a strange ratio. It seems that this article was reformatted, particularly because of all the random hyphens. Is it possible that the original said "1 in 10⁶"? I would be a little concerned if I was in the military dealing with bombs that had around a 1 in 100 chance of exploding (or even arming) unexpectedly.
- darpa_escapee 8y agoI'm hoping that's the failure rate for detonation and not unintentional detonations.
- maym86 8y agoYeah 1 in 106 seems like an unbelievably high allowable failure rate.
- perl4ever 8y agoI think "functional reliability" of > 0.95 means that a failure of 1 in 20 to detonate could be acceptable, whereas "safety reliability" of > whatever refers to the chance of improper arming of a weapon. False negative vs. false positive, if you will. While both could be catastrophic under some circumstances, it seems reasonable that you would expect "safety reliability" to be much higher because it's tested more often. Near the end of the document it talks about how safety reliability should be very high.
- ethbro 8y agoI'd strongly suspect it was OCR'd 10^6 into 106. Specifically as they talk about using multiple systems in series to increase safety reliability, where every system must function correctly in order for the weapon to be armed.