A-10 warthog not being retired until 2022...and oh btw we're using depleted uranium bullets

a reply to: Bedlam

I cleared vehicles RIGHT after an A-10 strike it's what gave me most of my PTSD issues,the dead.

It is a borscht-o-matic.

Eta: it's probably better to clean up that sort of thing right away than after three days of desert sun.

The half life of depleted uranium is 4.468 billion years, about the same age as the Earth.
This DU powder is being scattered around the world.
You are effectively dealing with your nuclear waste by dispersing it to other places in the world.
I think that pretty much counts as a war crime.

originally posted by: Dr X
The half life of depleted uranium is 4.468 billion years...

The longer the half-life, the less the radioactivity. DU isn't more active than natural uranium metal, which is also quite low.

It's not nuclear waste. In any sense. The usefulness of DU is in its density.

a reply to: pryingopen3rdeye

uh, no...

that cannon can shoot a wide variety of rounds, ONE of which uses depleted uranium... those are the tank busters, if the mission doesn't call for tanks busters they load something else.

It is only weakly radioactive because of its long radioactive half-life (4.468 billion years for uranium-238, 700 million years for uranium-235; or 1 part per million every 6446 and 1010 years, respectively). that's pretty low...

the only real drawback is the toxicity...because its half-life is so ridiculous, it remains toxic for quite awhile. BUT that then comes back to how often we DONT use them... unless the mission calls for it.

And now the Air Force has announced that they're going to be sustaining the A-10 indefinitely.

Uranium? Is that not a war crime?

a reply to: Zaphod58

Deleted Uranium?

That actually sounds even scarier.

originally posted by: bandersnatch
a reply to: coldkidc
The plane will retire about 500,000,000,years before the bullets reach half life.....not good ....that's half a billion yrs...
But they sure sound beefy don't they......Yay US!

perhaps you need to look up the definition of 'depleted'
DU emits less alpha radiation than natural uranium

radiation is minimal, but it is toxic like lead, and beryllium, and most other heavy metals

Here's a nice vid of the A-10 doing some attack runs, refueling, flying and re-arming.

a reply to: grey580

No deleted uranium is a German specialty, not American, especially post ww2.

Though I'm convinced the term breeder reactor started as an inside joke between General Groves and the other guys fully briefed in on Manhattan...

Specifically, considering the total supplies of enriched uranium and plutonium Manhattan had by the end of 1944, when asked how we managed to have enough for the bombs we used in mid 1945...

The answer had to go something like this... Ummmm... Breeder reactors... YES THAT'S IT!!!

BREEDER REACTORS!!

You see, when a mommy isotope and a daddy isotope love each other VEEERRRYY MUCH....