#Explosive

The Polish Special Forces support unit Jednostka Wojskowa Nil has ordered a batch of 27 60mm vz. 99 Antos ultralight mortars, following up a previous order earlier this year. MilMag has an excellent article detailing this acquisition and the features of the Czech-engineered Antos, which you can read by clicking the link here.

At the 2017 National Defense Industry Association small arms conference in April, the US Army revealed its efforts to produce new improved varieties of 40mm low velocity ammunition for the M203 and M320 grenade launchers. Product Director for Medium Caliber Ammunition Christopher Seacord’s presentation at NDIA lists three new types of 40mm ammunition: XM1166 High Explosive Air Burst (HEAB), XM1167 Door Breach (DB), and XM1168 Short Range Anti-Personnel (SRAP):

The war in Syria and Iraq has seen the development of a whole range of scratchbuilt and improvised weapons that are as ingenious as they are destructive. Recently, a kind of serially-produced rocket launcher has come to light as part of Da’ish (ISIS) propaganda, which appears to demonstrate a capability to serially produce clandestine weapons of a fairly high degree of sophistication. The weapon, a multipurpose missile launcher with a high explosive warhead, is unassuming and appears roughly equivalent to the US AT4, though cruder. It is a simple tube with almost no fittings or sights, a carrying/support handle, and a safety pin securing a fold-out firing grip.

We have been covering the US Army’s latest M855A1 and M80A1 “Enhanced Performance Rounds” (EPRs) here at TFB for the past few years. We’ve seen how in independent tests both M855A1 and M80A1 fragment early, thanks to their yaw-independent characteristics and special jacket design. One question that has not been answered publicly, however, is at what point do these rounds fail to fragment and upset; in other words, at what velocities do the EPRs not have enough gas to create the kinds of dramatic terminal effects we’ve so far seen from them?

South African defense firm Denel Praetoria Metal Pressings (PMP) have announced a new project for a derivative of their radical 20mm PAW handheld semiautomatic cannon. The new weapon will reportedly be tripod-mounted, fully automatic, and compatible with the same 20x42mmB (belted) explosive ammunition used by the handheld version. Denel PMP is advertising a rate of fire for the new machine cannon of about 200 rounds per minute; via defenceweb.co.za:

While digging through the IAA Forum (an excellent resource for the cartridge collector) archives for data on the 7.65 Argentine, I came across these two threads chronicling two separate instances of spotter ammunition detonating while using an impact puller to remove the bullet! Yikes!