Merged Depleted uranium

[WildCat]

I guess I couldn't post anything that wouldn't be classified as "junk science" by you, and I'm not qualified to evaluate the evidence myself. But here you go:

Uranium Medical Research Centre, Toronto/Canada
http://www.umrc.net/


Prof. Dr. Albrecht Schott, who did the genetic testing of British Gulf war veteran Kenny Duncan, hosts soveral documents on his "WODUC" (World Depleted Uranium Centre) page, none of which is purely scientific. They all have a strong activist streak, and the site is in German, unfortunately.

I'm still working my way through "The Doctor, the Depleted..." trying to find scientific references online.

Wow, 9 whole test subjects!

 

[Eligbak]

You know, some people may consider it rude to bump multiple dead threads on the same subject. If you want to discuss something, try starting your own thread or confining the discussion to one place instead of spamming the forum.

Sorry, I considered it rude to start a fourth thread. Will do so.

 

[WildCat]

I must've missed the Iraqui attack on the US - could you post some pictures please?

This leads nowhere.

Have you compared birth defects in Iraq pre- and post- US military activity? Are the birth defects more common in areas where DU was used (such as the south) and less common in other areas (such as the Kurdish areas)? Does Iraq have more birth defects than would otherwise be expected for a country with their level of prenatal and other medical care? Etc etc.

You can't just say "Oh look, birth defects! It must be because of DU".

 

[HansMustermann]

Ok, too many posts to answer individually, but the short story is kinda this:

The DU in a sabot round is basically a long sharp metal spike with fins at the back. Not unlike a crossbow dart. Penetration being a function of kinetic energy vs surface of impact, using an 120mm barrel to put all that energy into a thin and heavy rod is causing a massive increase in penetration. (The padding around the rod is called the sabot, btw.)

The main thing you want there is a material which is hard and dense. Tungsten was used in older rounds, but DU basically beats it. As a bonus, DU is also ductile. Which doesn't mean you could draw it through a hole into wire at home, but at the immense forces involved in an impact against armour, it does basically tend to squeeze through that initial hole rather than, say, shatter. And if it does fracture, DU tends to fracture at an angle, so basically you've still got a sharp rod going through armour. That's what's sometimes called "self-sharpening".

When the round goes through metal, it is braked a lot. Kinetic energy is lost. As energy can't just disappear, it has to transform in to something else. In the case of friction, that something else is heat. Even through relatively thin armour, at least the surface of the dart and some of the armour it went through will melt and come out the other side as a spray of hot molten metal. Through very heavy armour, you can basically have the last inch sliced through more by a jet of superheated molten uranium, than a solid rod.

Again, here DU has the advantage of sheer weight. A denser liquid is still going to have an easier time going forward through that armour.

As that spray of molten metal and hot little splinters comes the other side, it burns in air. The vast majority of metals do that, actually. That's why a flintlock musket worked, for example: shaving iron splinters with a flint wedge caused a shower of burning iron splinters. Uranium does it too, and the old Tungsten sabots, or even WW2 iron sabots did the same. Parts of the broken armour do the same.

(Which cooks the crew and detonates ammo and fuel on board.)

Note that although this is often mis-represented as burning while going through the armour, that is actually false. It doesn't have nearly enough oxygen in there for that. And at any rate, that's not why it stays sharp.

The main problem really is with that spray of burning uranium the other side. It causes a lot of fine dust of uranium (and iron) oxides. And if the tank then goes boom, it can get spread around a bit. Or if kids go play in that destroyed tank, well, it can be bad for their health too. The oxides _can_ be absorbed through the lungs. Some of those oxides are partially soluble too, so they can get into soil and ground water too.

The main problem isn't with radiation, it's with it being a heavy metal. It will indeed do much the same damage in your system that lead would. Or that tungsten would, if we were to return to pre-DU penetrators.

Comparisons to the lead in a bullet, or measuring radiation levels for crates of ammo, are misleading though.

The lead in a bullet doesn't (partially) turn into a cloud of lead oxides when you shoot it, or you would see some real health problems from that one too. And measuring the radiation in an ammo crate is misleading because that's not the problem, and that's not the situation where the problem happens.

That said, I don't think it would be a very large problem, as basically there weren't that many of these rounds used in the first place. Of course, again, if some kid actually goes playing in a destroyed tank, he/she can get a bit more of that dust than their fair share.

I also don't think there's all that much we can do about it. For better or worse, even if we went back to the old Tungsten penetrators, they would still cause as much heavy metal contamination. Possibly even more.

The only realistic solution is, well, to avoid ending up having to use them, i.e., to avoid going to war. And I'm all for that, actually. But if the feces hit the ventilator and push came to shove, you have to use whatever works best for winning it. That means a bunch of toys which can be hazardous to the health of everyone there. There is really no way to make war pretty or safe.

 

[Lamafarmer]

Professor Schott is (or was) being touted by the usual (German) mélange of truthers etc.; he doesn't mind giving elaborate interviews to them either.
I'd argue you can deduce much from this alone.

 

[Travis]

I'm just scratching my head and wonder why we talk about "Gulf War syndrome" in US soldiers all the time. The population of Iraq appears to have been much more seriously affected. I guess we've all seen videos of deformed children on the internet over the years, and they've even made it on some newspaper titles.

Which doesn't prove anything itself because deformed kids happen all the time in all populations.

If depleted uranium ammo doesn't cause cancer and birth defects, it must be due to all the Iraqui WMD's we haven't been able to find.

If there is a higher rate of cancer and birth defects, which you haven't established yet, I think a more reasonable cause would be the actual chemical weapons that Saddam did actually have and did actually use on his own people.

 

[Travis]

Yes, and that's why I posted it.
"You" people are just complacently sitting on your asses.
Check the other link, to the Uranium Medical Research Centre (http://www.umrc.net/), and don't bother with the ********. If depleted uranium is implicated, it will be proven eventually. Meanwhile, don't smoke, breathe or drink it.

Are you this worked up over lead too? It's pretty much just as deadly as U232 is...and I wouldn't recommend smoking, breathing or drinking lead either.

 

[theprestige]

I'm not fixated on the idea it's depleted uranium, but the people seriously affected by this clearly deserve a sound answer.

Deserve a sound answer from who, exactly?

Indeed, they're the accusers, aren't they? Isn't it the accused that deserve a sound answer, regarding the evidence that justifies the accusation?

You can't just say, "I suspect DU!" and then claim you're entitled to a sound answer from DU proponents. Quite the reverse: you have to prove that your suspicion is justified, before you're entitled to anything at all from your suspects.

So, is there anything justifying your suspicion of DU, other than it contains two words, one of which is "uranium" and the other has more than two syllables, and that the military sometimes uses it for bullets?

 

[theprestige]

I must've missed the Iraqui attack on the US/QUOTE]
You must have also missed all the other known factors implicated in birth defects in Iraq, the US, and everywhere else in the world.

Going to war with Iraq didn't magically eliminate all those other factors and replace them with DU.

Although, that would be an awesome way to eliminate birth defects worldwide, from effects such as malnutrition, impurities in food and water, genetic defects, etc. Just have the U.S. swoop in and light off a few thousand rounds of DU ammunition at some high-value targets, and pow! All other birth defect sources neutralized!

Because you know that's what happened in Iraq, right? It can't possibly have been something so mundane as a breakdown of infrastructure due to armed conflict, resulting in a higher incidence of conventionally-contaminated food and water consumption by pregnant mothers, could it? Nothing like that at all?

I believe I'm entitled to a clear answer from you on this issue.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

U-238 has a half-life of about 4.5 billion years, and emits alpha radiation. A human body is more radioactive than an equal mass of U-238, so there isn't any danger of radiation.

An alpha particle is composed of two protons and two neutrons. After travelling a few inches through air, it picks up electrons and turns into a helium atom. Most helium on earth is former alpha particles from decaying isotopes.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

I guess I couldn't post anything that wouldn't be classified as "junk science" by you, and I'm not qualified to evaluate the evidence myself. But here you go:

Uranium Medical Research Centre, Toronto/Canada
http://www.umrc.net/


Prof. Dr. Albrecht Schott, who did the genetic testing of British Gulf war veteran Kenny Duncan, hosts soveral documents on his "WODUC" (World Depleted Uranium Centre) page, none of which is purely scientific. They all have a strong activist streak, and the site is in German, unfortunately.

I'm still working my way through "The Doctor, the Depleted..." trying to find scientific references online.

If depleted uranium were such a health threat, we would see rampant effects in any population near coal fired power plants.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=14224

Sparton Resources announced that it had successfully produced a small quantity of yellowcake (U3O8) from fly ash from a Chinese coal-fired power plant.

The uranium extraction test work is being conducted by Sparton's processing engineering consulting firm Lyntek Inc of Denver, Colorado, USA. The test to produce yellowcake used 6.1 kg of mixed fly ash produced at the Xiaolongtang power plant. The ash averaged some 0.4 pounds of U308 per tonne of ash (160 parts per million uranium).​

Large amounts of uranium also goes straight up the smoke stack where it settles out of the air and into local water tables and food crops.

If you live near a coal fired power plant, you probably have, or will have in your life time, eaten or inhaled several ounces of uranium.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Because you know that's what happened in Iraq, right? It can't possibly have been something so mundane as a breakdown of infrastructure due to armed conflict, resulting in a higher incidence of conventionally-contaminated food and water consumption by pregnant mothers, could it? Nothing like that at all?

Or it could have been the breakdown of the infrastructure due to Saddam diverting resources towards his aggressive program of palace construction.

 

[MikeMangum]

I'm a hazmat technician. I have been trained by my local municipality, and recently the federal goverment on WMDs.

The symptoms of Gulf War Syndrom are dead on with exposure to chemical nerve agent, the kind army engineers destroyed in bunkers (burnt) durng the war. When they did that, the stuff was carried downwind for many miles.

With only minimal exposure (a few PPM), it will lie dormant in your system for years before manifesting any symptoms. Thats a fact regarding the agents.

Its hard to prove about the soldiers definitively, but that is my theory, as well as many Federal technician I've trained with.

All those guys aren't getting deathly sick from nothing.

Nerve agents are almost all cholinesterase inhibiting organophosphates. They have acute toxicity but do not have residual effects. In other words, you either die when exposed to them, or you recover fully. Aside from short term effects caused by reductions in cholinesterase (twitching, loss of body function, and respiratory failure), there aren't really any long term effects to nerve agents.

I used to get a blood test to check my cholinesterase level every month for an old job I used to have.

 

[MikeMangum]

You could say that these guys have an agenda, but so does the other side. If DU doesn't cause the medical conditions ascribed to it by "believers", what did?

'If breathing in bad air doesn't cause malaria, what does?'

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

As interesting as this topic is., I don't have the time or patience to track 4 different threads. So all responses will be posted to this, the largest of the recently reanimated zombie threads.

If depleted uranium were such a health threat, we would see rampant effects in any population near coal fired power plants.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=14224

Sparton Resources announced that it had successfully produced a small quantity of yellowcake (U3O8) from fly ash from a Chinese coal-fired power plant.

The uranium extraction test work is being conducted by Sparton's processing engineering consulting firm Lyntek Inc of Denver, Colorado, USA. The test to produce yellowcake used 6.1 kg of mixed fly ash produced at the Xiaolongtang power plant. The ash averaged some 0.4 pounds of U308 per tonne of ash (160 parts per million uranium).​

Large amounts of uranium also goes straight up the smoke stack where it settles out of the air and into local water tables and food crops.

If you live near a coal fired power plant, you probably have, or will have in your life time, eaten or inhaled several ounces of uranium.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Depleted Uranium is what is currently being used to build tanks

Nope. It wasn't true when this was first posted, and it isn't true now.

 

[quarky]

I skimmed.

War still sucks, though?

 

[MikeMangum]

Nope. It wasn't true when this was first posted, and it isn't true now.

You sure about that?

http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/faq/faq_du.jsp

Q. What are the health effects of contact with unfired depleted uranium munitions or unperforated (intact) armor on the various weapons systems, such as the Abrams Heavy Tank?

A. No adverse health effects are expected from such contact. Unfired depleted uranium munitions are encased in thin metal jackets that seal in alpha and beta particles. The amount of gamma emissions from DU is very low and falls well below regulatory health and safety limits. Similarly, depleted uranium panels used in tank armor pose no health risk because the depleted uranium is sealed inside several inches of regular steel armor. Alpha radiation, which is the major concern for internalized depleted uranium, is not an external concern because alpha radiation does not penetrate the outer layers of skin. The second source of radiation is from the depleted uranium rounds stored on board the tank. While soldiers are exposed to an increased level of radiation from the stored munitions, the cumulative exposure levels for tank crewmembers are within applicable guidelines. Since depleted uranium munitions are only used in combat, only forward-deployed vehicles are routinely uploaded with depleted uranium munitions.

Notice that that comes from a .mil address - in other words, it ain't wikipedia.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m1.htm

An improvement program will eventually upgrade all M1A1 tanks with steel encased depleted uranium armor, which has a density at least two-and-a-half times greater than steel. The depleted uranium armor will raise the total weight of the Abrams tank to 65 tons, but offers vastly improved protection in the bargain.

FAS.ORG usually gets things right.

From an article in the WaPo in 1988:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-1245332.html

The United States has developed a new tank armor made from a uranium byproduct that is impervious to any Soviet antitank weapon, the Pentagon said yesterday.

The officials said beginning in October, new Army M1 Abrams tanks will be equipped with the armor, made from a mesh of "depleted" uranium encased in steel. It is 2 1/2 times as dense as steel.

Pentagon officials estimated it would take the Soviet Union "almost a decade" to duplicate the new armor plate.

ETA: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/du.htm

US forces also use DU to enhance their tanks’ armor protection. In one noteworthy incident, an M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank, its thick steel armor reinforced by a layer of DU sandwiched between two layers of steel, rebuffed a close-in attack by three of Iraq's T-72 tanks. After deflecting three hits from Iraq's tanks, the Abrams’ crew dispatched the T-72s with a single DU round to each of the three Iraqi tanks.

 

[HansMustermann]

I skimmed.

War still sucks, though?

Harder than an expensive hooker, I'm affraid.

 

[WildCat]

Nope. It wasn't true when this was first posted, and it isn't true now.

That would make for one heavy tank!

eta: oh, I see some is used, don't know if it still is. Seems to me you'd want a lighter armor that works as well.