Can anyone provide an ID for this tail and/or the associated munition?
Photographed earlier today in Gaza!
Cheers
Photographed earlier today in Gaza!
Cheers
British Ordnance Collectors Network
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- Thread starter peteblight
- Start date
Spot on!! Many thanks and a happy new year to you too!
I do not get it, how does it work for mine clearing?
To me it looked like a standard artillery impact.
And my Klingon is a little rusty so I did not understand the gentleman in the video.
Hello Anders,
As you understand this device is used to clean an area from anti-tank mines with FAE type warheads.
Not the same operation as a MICLIC (mine clearing line charge) used to clean a long road.
Carpet is like a MLR for short range to clean a large aera in AT mines field with zone saturation. The launcher vehicule is armed and
quickly open the area for the following tanks under enemy fire. It's a good tactical weapon and maybe could be used as anti-personnel and anti-vehicule.
BUT not very useful for a long mined road or aera (only to create a breach in an indentified regular line of AT mines).
As you understand this device is used to clean an area from anti-tank mines with FAE type warheads.
Not the same operation as a MICLIC (mine clearing line charge) used to clean a long road.
Carpet is like a MLR for short range to clean a large aera in AT mines field with zone saturation. The launcher vehicule is armed and
quickly open the area for the following tanks under enemy fire. It's a good tactical weapon and maybe could be used as anti-personnel and anti-vehicule.
BUT not very useful for a long mined road or aera (only to create a breach in an indentified regular line of AT mines).
The appearance and use is very similar to the US FAE program developed during Vietnam. Essentially it was a container of compressed gas, if I remember correctly we were told ethylene trioxide. On impact the warhead ruptured through multiple longitudinal slits, the same as you see on this warhead - not designed for fragmentation. This dispensed a cloud of the highly explosive gas. Some milliseconds later two small devices (cloud detonators) were ejected horizontally which flashed at locations separate from the warhead, initiating the cloud. The detonation of the cloud creates a powerful area of overpressure, killing personnel and slamming the surface of the ground in the area of the cloud, detonating mines, etc.
The US played with the concept extensively, testing it against a wide variety of targets. Test footage was common against buildings, mines, monkeys strapped into children's highchairs, etc. In the end I believe only two weapons were adopted, the BLU-73 submunition and the SLUFAE rocket. The SLUFAE was massive, about 3m long. There was also a BLU-96 (2000lb?) but I never heard of it actually being standardized/stocked. Much of the testing was done at China Lake by the Navy, you can find it online.
I would be willing to bet that the FAE program was an influence on the Soviet beginnings of their thermobaric program, there are a number of similarities and the timeline is pretty close.
Big and Ugly - the SLUFAE Rocket
This is one of my largest rockets. Designed for clearing passage through minefields, it used a 5-inch Zuni rocket motor to push a 345mm fuel-air-explosive (FAE) warhead out over the minefield. The warhead carried a cargo of compressed highly explosive gas (typically ethylene oxide or the like)...
www.bocn.co.uk
