Stackable kinetic energy ring cartridge
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army
InventorsDavid Chalfant Manley, Thomas Michael Presutti, Jr.
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Abstract
A projectile which can be used to defeat an unmanned aerial system. The projectile features sabots which do not impart any forward impedance to the sub-projectiles, and carries a payload of stacked rings enclosed in the projectile. The rings are backed by a support ring, and abut a pusher aft section. The projectile's sabots discard cleanly upon muzzle exit, releasing the ring sub-projectiles to cover a large area, thereby increasing the probability of impacting the target. The rings create large holes in the target, despite comparatively low mass of a given ring as a defeat element, allowing for multiple sub-projectiles to be fired with a single shot, thereby creating the effect of firing multiple projectiles with a single shot.
Claims11
An unmanned aerial system defeat mechanism being a projectile that is generally cylindrical in shape and which is launched in a gun barrel having a muzzle end, and which projectile includes:
- an aft pusher component (101) having a circumferential notch groove (107) therein for receiving and mating with four equal sabot sections (102), said sabot sections enclosing a plurality of rings (104) as sub projectiles that are stacked within said sabot sections forming a payload, the front end of said sabot sections being open and uncapped, and also having a lip (109) thereon for catching onrushing air flow to open said sabot sections after exiting the muzzle end of the barrel to cause said sabot sections to be thereafter discarded, there being also a flat washer support ring element (103) between said aft pusher component (101) and said stack of rings (104) for dispersing set back forces of said stack of rings across the aft pusher component, and whereby the projectile retains its payload while still in the barrel and releases the payload upon muzzle end exit, so as to allow the rings to disperse to cover a large area.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.