US 5,063,855 AGranted

Projectile arrangement

AssigneeRheinmetall GmbH

InventorsRainer Diel, Achim Sippel, Jurgen Meyer, Heinz-Josef Kruse

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Abstract

A projectile arrangement including a subcaliber projectile body and a segmented, discardable propelling cage sabot provided with a common form locking zone for the transmission of the acceleration forces. To reduce the notch effect on the projectile body, and thus the danger of breakage, due to the conventional thread grooves in the form locking zone, particularly in long, slender penetrators made of a breakage susceptible tungsten heavy metal, a novel form locking connection for the inner form locking region between the propelling cage and the projectile body is provided. This novel form locking connection is characterized in that in the region of the form locking zone beneath the exterior gas pressure receiving surface of the sabot, only the exterior surface of the projectile body is provided with preferably annular microgrooves and the surrounding inner surface of the sabot is smooth. The microgrooves are produced preferably by non-cutting shaping such as, for example, rolling or pressing in, and are configured as arcuate recesses having a relatively flat groove bottom and pointed lands between adjacent recesses. When the projectile arrangement is fired, the microgrooves of the relatively hard projectile body press themselves into the previously smooth interior surface of the relatively soft sabot, and thus produce a corresponding form locking connection only at the moment of firing.

Claims17

Dependent claims

In a projectile arrangement including a subcaliber projectile body, a segmented, discardable propelling cage sabot having at least one radially extending flange and a gas pressure receiving surface extending rearwardly from said flange, with said propelling cage sabot at least partially surrounding a portion of the length of an outer cylindrical surface of said projectile body to provide a common form locking zone extending along the surrounded portion, and means, disposed within said form locking zone, for transmitting the acceleration forces from said propelling cage sabot to said projectile body, with said means for transmitting being composed, at least in part, of one of corresponding thread grooves and annular grooves structurally worked into said outer surface of said projectile body and into an interior surface of said propelling cage sabot;

the improvement wherein:
said common form locking zone is divided into at least first and second locking zone regions extending over its length;
said first form locking zone region is disposed in front of said second form locking zone region, and extends rearwardly beyond said radially extending flange to a length adjacent said outer pressure receiving surface;
the portions of said interior surface of said propelling cage sabot and of said outer surface of said projectile body within said first form locking zone region are provided with said corresponding grooves;
the portion of said outer surface of said projectile body within said second form locking zone region, beneath said exterior gas pressure receiving surface of said propelling cage sabot, is provided only with microgrooves;
and, the portion of said interior surface of said propelling cage within said second form locking zone region is smooth.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.