Science Forums 2

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by paigetheoracle

I wasn't thinking of the DU tank shells as being used deliberately to kill civilians but there was a bomb dropped by plane that was displayed prominently on TV when it hit a building at night, completely demolishing it.

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As far as I know, and I know pretty far since these things are a passion of mine, there is/was no bombs dropped or even made that are encased in depleted uranium. there is no reason to encase a bomb in depleted uranium, it would in no way enhance the effects of the bomb and just make the bomb more difficult to manufacture. They have made special bombs that are very powerful called fuel air devices but they do not use depleted uranium in any way. Depleted uranium is used in armor piercing munitions, it is wasted on any other type of munitions. One of the reason depleted uranium is used on armor piercing munitions is that modern tanks are partially composed of depleted uranium and it takes a very hard dense round to penetrate it. so even if the US hadn't used depleted uranium the standard tungsten tipped shells would have still released uranium vapor and dust when they hit the tanks targets. Depleted uranium tipped shells are effective at a much greater range than tungsten tipped shells. The US has denied that depleted uranium has ever been used in "bunker busting bombs" Lots of people have claimed this to be false but so far no evidence of radioactivity connected with the use of a bunker busting bomb has been shown. In some cases there have even been claims of highly radioactive enriched uranium being used in bombs and even reactor waster but all of these claims have either been proved false or were unable to be verified due to lack of any radioactivity being found. there is a lot of intense emotions and claims being made in this mostly due to unreliable groups using the possibility to radiation to drum up support and to scare people into believing the worst about who ever is being charged. So far no substantiated deliberate use of depleted uranium against civilian targets has ever been shown. Use of these weapons designed to be used in nuclear confrontation should be stopped. But to say they are being used deliberately to increase collateral damage when so many billions of dollars have been spent to curtail such damage is not credible.