The US Army, in its training manual, says that depleted uranium shells have a “high density”, which, added to the moment of launch, makes it “unable to escape” the enemy. This is the secret missile that Britain has promised to send to Ukraine in the coming days: the ability to penetrate the weapons of the heaviest tanks in Vladimir Putin’s navy. The NATO armed forces are clear about this, and leave a blank in their commanders issued to the fighters: “The main objective is to destroy the tank”.
The Minister of Defense of the Viceroy of the Kingdom of Great Britain, Annabel Goldie, also subscribed to this mantra last Tuesday, when she confirmed that, along with the Challenger 2 tanks that have left her country in Kiovia, the upcoming weapons: vehicles can beat the poultices more severely.’ Russia’s response was to stir up a hornet’s nest of fear of the atom and put a bow on the old controversy that exists around these cartridges: the nuclear ones generate contamination when they hit the target. And by the way, Putin cut out the threat: “Russia must respond. The West has started using nuclear weapons.
Evolution and effectiveness
Dan Fahey, a member of the United States, is among the experts who have studied the origin and development of this type of web. In the document ‘Depleted Uranium Weapons: Evidence from the 1991 Gulf War’, he indicates that they were produced in the 1950s, when Washington became involved in their use after discovering that they ignited spontaneously on contact. with air – and the material existed in abundance in his country: “During the 1960s and 1970s, the field proves its effectiveness in “the movement of penetrating energy” demonstrated: solid metal rods fired from handguns.
The Department of Defense did not detonate this ammunition, but, upon hitting the target, found it “shredded and burned by the pyropholic armor of uranium metal and the extreme temperatures generated on impact.” In the words of the ‘Museum of Radiation and Radioactivity’ in the United States of America, the key is that the temperature of these missiles it rises a lot after it hits the target, and this softens the area of the local armor.
Effective, cheap, lethal. In the following years, the United States began large-scale production of this ammunition. And it didn’t take long to explain it in ‘Operation Desert Storm’, the invasion of Iraq in the 1990s. Fahey argued that Allied tanks – M1A1s, M1s and M60 Pattons and British fighters – fired “thousands of these large depleted uranium shells” at their counterparts in the Middle East. The same was done by the A-10 and AV-8B – both local attack aircraft – to support the infantry. They used to shoot snipers and armored vehicles as well. There was not one stone upon another.
Later, the projectiles of depleted uranium passed through different regions of the Balkan War. Since then it has been one of the American and British secret weapons; nations, moreover, have developed specific weapons for their use. “Some versions of the M1A1 fire large quantities of this 120mm ammunition. Until the recent Phalanx Navy system, these cartridges were also used to fire incoming missiles,” the Museum explains in its files on the subject. The problem, as Scott Peterson points out in “Uranium contamination destroyed by invasion of Iraq”, is that the Pentagon “has been secretive when it comes to uranium enrichment” and did not provide accurate information about the tons produced until recent years.
In the aforementioned commentary, experts assert that only some partial disclosures have been made about the amount of uranium stockpiled in Iraq: “A spokesman for the US Central Command stated that “A-10 type combat aircraft fired 300,000 projectiles. The normal mix of ammunition for those 30 mm rounds is five rounds of uranium to one, a mixture that would have left 75 tons of this stuff in Iraq.” And this, without counting from tanks or small arms, which would represent another 20% more.
nuclear danger
But the web hides the dark secrets that have been with him, because they have composed. The main criticism is that its radioactivity could have serious consequences for health and the environment. At the moment, studies conducted by the Office for Disease Control in the Gulf in 1998 contend that each projectile launched from the Abrams tank contains between 900 and 3,400 grams of uranium dust, which can be absorbed with great ease and “remain in the human body. For years. And as if that were not enough, it can be carried through water scattered and of course through the air.
“If fragments or even whole crusts around Uranium are struck, the risk to health is not acute, but the radioactivity will certainly be above the levels of radiation protection,” says the Deputy Director General for Nuclear Sciences and Applications. Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Werner Buekat. This was used in the opinion of experts that it was “necessary to decontaminate the places” that were affected after the battle. Many other analyzes over the years have confirmed that the ammunition immediately contaminates the soil and, if ingested by children, will cause serious health problems.
Among the illnesses that can be generated are radiation sickness due to immediate tissue damage; the same ones that happened to be affected by nuclear weapons in the territories. And that in moderation. In severe cases, it could cause tissue destruction and death. Add to that the risk of cancer increases. On the other hand, post-war reports produced by the Pentagon and in Britain argue that these claims are nothing more than mere exaggerations. This was confirmed by the Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom last Tuesday: “enhanced uranium weapons have nothing to do with nuclear weapons or capabilities.” In these words, scientific research shows that “any impact on human health or the environment is likely to be low”.
