New materials enhance US military capabilities
The US Bureau of Scientific Research published the results of experimental development of a completely new material for various types of warheads. In the United States, work on this material lasted about ten years, and now the material can already be considered received. Its design name sounds like HDRM, which in Russian means "high-density reactive material." The composition of the new substance for the American weapons includes polymeric compounds and the integration of several metals. Such filling makes the material truly dense, but at the same time, rather plastic - at the level of mild steel. What are the main advantages of HDRM?The main advantage of the developers of the new material is that it can withstand a tremendous acceleration when launching missiles with warheads, as well as its ability to increase the damaging ability up to five times. If we compare the HDRM case with a conventional steel one, the steel only served as a material intended for transportation. The new material itself is already involved in the defeat of the intended goal. So HDRM-shells in contact with the purpose of heating to huge temperatures. This in turn is accompanied by a special kind of chemical reaction with the release of high energy. The energy value reaches the values at which the target is completely affected.
The test results at one of the US landfills allowed to establish that HDRM, due to its special properties, leads to much less damage than in the case of a warhead with a steel body. Such results can also speak of a potentially smaller number of civilian casualties. With the modern doctrine of the development of military technology, this allows using the material both as a corps of warheads for the naval forces and in relation to the missile defense system.
Despite the high cost of new material, it must quickly pay for itself. This is due to the fact that the destruction of the target before it took more ammunition. Savings in HDRM-based ammunition are a major factor in reducing the overall cost of rearming the United States Army. It is planned that at the end of August test test shooting will be conducted. If they lead to the desired results, large-scale tests of warheads, made on the basis of high-density reactive material, will begin in September.
It is worth noting that studies of the first results of the use of HDRM-shells showed that they behave more stable when moving and more accurately hit the target.
Surprisingly, not only American scientists and engineers, but also their Indian colleagues took part in the creation of a new thermoplastic material. For its development, a team of specialists from India was awarded high awards. It remains to wait for the introduction of new material in the serial production of warheads, in order to finally state the strengthening of the combat power of the United States in the naval sphere and in the use of missile defense.
Information