Surgeons who worked in European and al-Aqsa hospitals describe extensive wounds caused by ‘fragmentation’ shrapnel experts say is designed to maximize casualties
RG-42 is a ww2 era design that relies on natural fragmentation. it has no PFF, it has rolled steel sheet fragmentation liner with no indentations or anything that would aid in separation of fragments. that thing has pre-cut steel cubes, Spike uses tungsten cubes, steel balls or cylinders (soviet designs) are often used too. natural fragmentation results in wide range of fragment sizes, with either too small (and braking on air, causing no significan injury) or too big (produced in small number and missing intended fragment). RG-42 and to lesser degree RGD-5 fragments are just pieces of steel sheet, so few tens of meters away it’s just angry glitter, because it brakes on air rapidly due to nonaerodynamic shape
i thought that RG-42 was smooth inside, and i still think that RGD-5 is
anyway, these are still not pre-formed fragments, because some of these grooves will not cause fragments to separate
it’s not that different from any other weapon that throws around fragments, just that PFF covers highest area or whatever metric you choose per kilogram of weapon. this works only if you don’t care too hard about cost and can ignore some engineering constraints (such as acceleration survivable by weapon etc)
e: you can see in that video at 5:50 how a few of these squared remained unseparated as a single fragment
My point is that new weapons are better than old ones but they’re still fulfilling the same intention. It’s not like the inventor of the old grenades wouldn’t jump at the chance to increase the lethality of their creations.
The GMLRS used in Ukraine are also optimized for fragmentation and nobody is complaining because they’re fired at military targets.
RG-42 is a ww2 era design that relies on natural fragmentation. it has no PFF, it has rolled steel sheet fragmentation liner with no indentations or anything that would aid in separation of fragments. that thing has pre-cut steel cubes, Spike uses tungsten cubes, steel balls or cylinders (soviet designs) are often used too. natural fragmentation results in wide range of fragment sizes, with either too small (and braking on air, causing no significan injury) or too big (produced in small number and missing intended fragment). RG-42 and to lesser degree RGD-5 fragments are just pieces of steel sheet, so few tens of meters away it’s just angry glitter, because it brakes on air rapidly due to nonaerodynamic shape
https://youtu.be/HCoUTCBALZI?t=130 shows indentations for a RG-42.
But anyways the point is fragmentation munitions are commonplace.
i thought that RG-42 was smooth inside, and i still think that RGD-5 is
anyway, these are still not pre-formed fragments, because some of these grooves will not cause fragments to separate
it’s not that different from any other weapon that throws around fragments, just that PFF covers highest area or whatever metric you choose per kilogram of weapon. this works only if you don’t care too hard about cost and can ignore some engineering constraints (such as acceleration survivable by weapon etc)
e: you can see in that video at 5:50 how a few of these squared remained unseparated as a single fragment
My point is that new weapons are better than old ones but they’re still fulfilling the same intention. It’s not like the inventor of the old grenades wouldn’t jump at the chance to increase the lethality of their creations.
The GMLRS used in Ukraine are also optimized for fragmentation and nobody is complaining because they’re fired at military targets.