OT-Secret Military Experimental Ammo??

[Sixgun]

Howdy Guys,
I went to this auction today (50 miles--what a waste of time) and witnessed JUNK going for 30% more than you could buy it new. (example-used and beat Marlin Model 60 for $225, Winchester commeratives for 5 and up, H&R 32 short for $210)

OK, you heard enough but......... Only thing I bought was this full box of 40 rounds of 5.6 dummy ammo. Never saw anything like it. The case is 2.4" long and has a belt like magnum cartridges do. I saw some of it (in another box) with machine gun links. Check this out.---------Sixgun

flanked by an '06 and a .22 LR




Next to an OLD $2 bill

[deerwhacker444]

Interesting looking stuff.!

I wonder if there's a reward for turning you in...?

[awp101]

Dunno if this helps or not:
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/Assault.htm

2/3 of the way down (roughly), in the section regarding flechettes, there's a pic.

[JohndeFresno]

I could find only one document on the Internet, using "FAT 209" 5.6 mm as a Google Search.

It looks like the prototype "FAT 209" round was a high-speed round, a bit over 4,000 fps, used for an experimental Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) system for firing strings of short controlled bursts, in tests to improve combat effectiveness at 300 meters or less. Per the document, this is what they deemed the most realistic combat range. The document is hard to pull up, but is a February, 1968 Aberdeen Proving Ground (MD) Army paper that has its initial classification
"DOWNGRADED AT 3 YEAR INTERVALS
DECLASSIFIED AFTER 12 YEARS" -
making the document (at least) unclassified as of 1980.

I guess the MP's won't come after you; but what a fascinating find!

4,000+ fps with a .22 rifle bullet - pretty fast little stinger.
[EDIT - Per Document - 4800 fps! JdeF]

[Bogie35]

Very interesting indeed. Thanks for posting.

And great research John!

bogie

[Ysabel Kid]

Cool!

[Bronco]

Howdy,

Usually don't find that in the local hardware store!!

John

[MrMurphy]

Yeah.....haven't seen that particular one before but the 5.6mm, and various other SPIW and other tests done in the last forty years have come up with some odd rounds (like flechettes).


Considering that the military considers almost anything above a duty roster or toilet paper confidential, I think you're ok.

[Sixgun]

John, awp and everybody---you 'da men! Yep, I do remember another person at the auction saying that a lot of the stuff being sold was owned by a military guy who spent most of his life at Aberdeen Prooving ground. We were only about 30 miles from there.

There were all kinds of weird looking stuff there---dummy 20 mm, 30mm, 40mm, 50 bmg. I guess I should have bought it all but I hate spending money on stuff that I don't know what it is. Oh well, that was yesterday and todays a new day. Gotta move on--------------Thanx guys ----------------------------Sixgun

[JohndeFresno]

As an addendum, please look at the website cited by AWP101. There can be little doubt that your dummy round was the flechette prototype as shown towards the bottom of that post.

The factory specs show the .220 Swift (4200fps) to be the fastest rifle round ever commercially made, I believe. This round bested it by 600 fps, possibly owing at least partly to the streamlined flechette.


Above is a view from page 107 of the declassified document showing eleven (11) shooters' trials using full automatic fire ("FA") versus controlled short bursts ("CB") of the ammuntion, using a short burst setting on the prototype SPIW rifle's fire selector switch.

You can see that the ammunition in burst mode would make a target into Swiss cheese at close range, and would most likely tag its target with at least one dart up to 300 yards using the controlled burst. The document also talks about various spray techniques, such as spraying an area with two shooters, reminiscent of various SEALS tactics of throwing out a wall of lead as they retreat from an area under fire.

There are many more charts, some showing dozens of hits with a certain target area; but this page is perhaps the most revealing. Cross-referencing AWP101's website find, it would appear that this project was abandoned due to the expense of the individual rounds. I would think that a long, hyper-fast flechette would penetrate all the body armor that a soldier would wear, and this round would certainly be devastating to the enemy with its beehive effect.

Its photos and graphics are unfortunately mainly gray and black blurs; the military document was most likely batch fed onto a platen with preset contrast settings to create microfiche records, owing to the limited technology of the late 60's when it was published. If you cannot download it from its website, you can download it for now from my online archives by clicking on:

http://www.box.net/shared/jkhjhdmpcx

[Sixgun]

John,
Many thanks and it would be recommended for individuals here on the board to read at least parts of the document. When the military tests something, they test it to the fullest.

Did you notice how they figure it all out mathamaticly? Square roots and divisions with powers added.----whoa--way over my head. Individual shooters with every shot scored.

Maybe I missed it, but I did not see if these fletchettes (or whatever they are called) have any kind of serious penetration other than what you said. I guess the military found out good 'ole lead is better. Imagine getting shot with these things way out yonder and having them sticking out of your forehead? They just have to loose kinetic energy pretty fast.

On another note, the link posted by AWP101 is also very interesting. It has the history on the assault weapon from beginning to now and all of the different projectiles, rifles, even caseless ammo. Pretty neat and informative. (Here I am still using cast bullets at 14-1800--talk about "antiquidated")

Many thanks John, for all your legwork. ---------------------Sixgun

[Bis]

Very interesting. There is all sorts of stuff we will never know about. When I was in nam we had some guys from Colt Firearms that had a back pack setup that held 2,000 rounds of M16 ammo and fed the rifle with a metal flexiable clip.

[BigSky56]

Sixgun, saw what flechettes will do to flesh and bone seen it in gunship rockets and 105 & 155 mm beehive rounds bad JuJu for charlie. I have seen 12 ga. flechette rounds one of the guys that was point man in the blues platoon used them in a brning auto 5 with a mag extension. danny

[JohndeFresno]

Sixgun, you are certainly welcome.

I wouldn't rule out those flechettes, though, as being deadly. Remember that they started out at 4800 fps(!!), and the charts above show that they had enough energy to stay straight enough in flight to reach several hundred yards when shot in bursts of automatic fire. I really doubt that Aberdeen would have bothered with targets of up to 500 yards if they knew that the things would just bounce off the adversary. I think that economics played more heavily into their non-adoption, since precise loading and the metallurgy itself would no doubt prove costly.

From what I have read in the past, flechette rounds in a variety of loadings and firearms have proven to be super pentrators, penetrating steel and kevlar alike, at combat distances.

Besides their presence in "Beehive" rounds which were apparently used as anti-personnel tank-fired rounds, the flechette was indeed used in shotgun rounds in the Viet Nam war. This is documented in the link below; and there is some more information about the flechette round in general here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flechette

[Sixgun]

Very interesting topic. I learned something new. But I guess you never really know something 100% until you experienced it like Danny did. Thanks for your service Danny! ----------Sixgun

[JohndeFresno]

Sorry, Big Sky - didn't see your post above; must have scrolled wrong. Great info. I never saw them over there; just heard about 'em. I had heard of one tale (legend or true, I don't know) from one soldier that he had seen Charlie pinned up against a tree from a round fired from one of our tanks (11th Cavalry). Very nasty.

[BigSky56]

John no problem beehive rounds are nasty have seen vc hit by cobra rockets 70 mm, when the rocket is shot it has a c4 burster charge that detonates about 100- 200 yds from the bird and each rocket has about 1200 6 penny nails in it you could always tell if it was a beehive round cause the burster charge had a red dye cloud I was glad I was on the giving side and not the receiving side. Beehive rounds out of a cannon are used as a last resort if a base is being overrun when a red star cluster flare goes up all cannons level the barrels and fire the BH rounds till the base CO gives a all clear a green star cluster you can crawl out. Even small FB with no artty other than mortars would have a 106 recoilless with BH it is a tie breaker. danny

[Hobie]

I had a sergeant in one of my units (who was also a game warden) who had served in Korea and Vietnam. When in Vietnam he said that the one firebase he was on had a Paladin (might not have been called that at the time) that was a dedicated flechette gun as the flechette rounds would make the artillery barrels unsafe for providing overhead fire. He repeated the oft told story of VC and NVA pinned to trees by flechettes. That said, in WWI small flechette like items would be tossed/dropped from aircraft over trenches and purportedly pinned soldiers to the parapets.

[BigSky56]

Hobie the BH rounds are set in a standard projectile and go down the tube contained about 35 to 50 yds from the muzzle a burster charge opens the canister and depending on the caliber of the cannon there can be 5 to 10k of little steel arrows headed down range it is devastating. According to the artty guys half of the arrows are put in backwards as it would cause them to spread out. danny

[336A]

I remember hearing/reading that at some point in time the U.S. Army had contracted Roy Weatherby to build a super fast .22 center fire cartridge. I wonder if the cartridge in the OP could be linked to that research in any way?