muller@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Mark B. Muller) (01/22/90)
From: muller@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Mark B. Muller) >>From: animage%sandstorm.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Cal-Animage Club) >Aw, hell. It seems apparent to me that it's becoming more and more >complicated and expensiveto try to think and research ways of defeating >reactive armor. Has anyone even thought about disabling the tank WITHOUT >having to blast it to pieces? Why don't we just go with a simple and cheap >solution of firing gooey substances that get sucked into a tank's engine that >react thermally and expand choking out the air intake into the engine thereby >immobilizing the tank by killing the engine. Heck, if it can't move it >can't bother anyone and if you fire enough of them, they can stop an entire >tank column very very quickly. Who says you gotta destroy all your >enemies, when just immobilizing them and making them squirm is 10 times >more enjoyable. Plus non-moving targets are easier to hit than moving >targets. :-) Ther is a substance that will do this even better than you described; Napalm. Against tanks, it tends to get into any opening available, including things like hatches, air intakes, and exhaust sytems. Of course, it also burns real well, causing it to not only stop the engine in question, but also burn out the whole vehicle very nicely. This has been known since at least 1939, when the Finnish used came up with the Molotov cocktail (or, at least gave it its name, after the then Russian foreign minister), which was used to gut tanks. Napalm works even better than the gasoline the Finns used. All that is needed now is some system to get the Napalm to the tank, as a flame thrower does not have enough range. [mod.note: While the Finns may have christened the Molotov Cocktail, the petrol bomb had its origins much early; at least as early as the Spanish Civil War. - Bill ] *-------------------------------------------------------------------------* * Mark Muller Undergarduate at Purdue University * * muller@gn.ecn.purdue.edu Aeronautics & Astronautics Engineering * *-------------------------------------------------------------------------*