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What you said directly contradicts the wiki article you linked... "Contrary to a widespread misconception (possibly resulting from the acronym HEAT) the shaped

What you said directly contradicts the wiki article you linked... "Contrary to a widespread misconception (possibly resulting from the acronym HEAT) the shaped charge does not depend in any way on heating or melting for its effectiveness; that is, the jet from a shaped charge does not melt its way through armor, as its effect is purely kinetic in nature"

nostrademons 7y ago
No, it doesn't contradict it. What I mean by "doesn't require any kinetic energy to penetrate" is that the explosive doesn't need to be moving at all to penetrate. For example, you can stick a shape charge directly underneath a parked tank, detonate it, and it will blow up the tank. (This is exactly what a landmine or IED does.) You could also just drop it by parachute from a drone (this is a cluster bomb). What the Wikipedia article is saying is that the explosive forms its own projectile out of the molten metal casing, which is expelled at high velocity from the explosive and then penetrates through kinetic energy. It's a matter of where the energy for penetration comes from: what both Wikipedia and I are saying is that it comes from the explosive charge itself, not the velocity of the projectile, and hence there's no need for recoil when fired from a drone.
- subroutine 7y ago
  Yes, now that you've completely changed what you said, from... They don't rely on any kinetic energy at all to penetrate to... "which is expelled at high velocity from the explosive and then penetrates through kinetic energy" I agee. But these projectiles only work under 2 conditions. (1) They have something very solid behind them, like the ground, or a metal gun, or (2) they are hurling toward the object at great speed. And if the drones are simply going to be kamikaze diving from 1000 feet above, almost anything you attach to it will cause significant damage. However that'd be a pretty low-precision maneuver, and sort of defeats the purpose of all those weeks spent training to perform image recognition.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Whether the impactor mass is a solid shell, or the molten ejecta of a shaped charge, Sir Isaac is going to prosecute you under his Third Law. Reactionless motion is not possible. The drone will recoil. That said, it only need fire once given the mission in question.
  - subroutine 7y ago
    It seems like we are all nearly on the same page. n.b. when the author mentioned millions of tiny drones, I immediately pictured my own... https://i.imgur.com/LU4jzeY.jpg https://i.imgur.com/LU4jzeY.jpg It probably weighs about 5 grams, mostly due to the battery, which lasts all of 3 minutes (i.e. I wasn't thinking of millions of drones the size of that in the video I linked above)

nostrademons 7y ago

No, it doesn't contradict it. What I mean by "doesn't require any kinetic energy to penetrate" is that the explosive doesn't need to be moving at all to penetrate. For example, you can stick a shape charge directly underneath a parked tank, detonate it, and it will blow up the tank. (This is exactly what a landmine or IED does.) You could also just drop it by parachute from a drone (this is a cluster bomb). What the Wikipedia article is saying is that the explosive forms its own projectile out of the molten metal casing, which is expelled at high velocity from the explosive and then penetrates through kinetic energy. It's a matter of where the energy for penetration comes from: what both Wikipedia and I are saying is that it comes from the explosive charge itself, not the velocity of the projectile, and hence there's no need for recoil when fired from a drone.

subroutine 7y ago
Yes, now that you've completely changed what you said, from... They don't rely on any kinetic energy at all to penetrate to... "which is expelled at high velocity from the explosive and then penetrates through kinetic energy" I agee. But these projectiles only work under 2 conditions. (1) They have something very solid behind them, like the ground, or a metal gun, or (2) they are hurling toward the object at great speed. And if the drones are simply going to be kamikaze diving from 1000 feet above, almost anything you attach to it will cause significant damage. However that'd be a pretty low-precision maneuver, and sort of defeats the purpose of all those weeks spent training to perform image recognition.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Whether the impactor mass is a solid shell, or the molten ejecta of a shaped charge, Sir Isaac is going to prosecute you under his Third Law. Reactionless motion is not possible. The drone will recoil. That said, it only need fire once given the mission in question.
- subroutine 7y ago
  It seems like we are all nearly on the same page. n.b. when the author mentioned millions of tiny drones, I immediately pictured my own... https://i.imgur.com/LU4jzeY.jpg https://i.imgur.com/LU4jzeY.jpg It probably weighs about 5 grams, mostly due to the battery, which lasts all of 3 minutes (i.e. I wasn't thinking of millions of drones the size of that in the video I linked above)