BOEING RESPONDS TO FBI REPORT

7/10/02 | John E. Fiorentino

[HardStarboard]

>>>Neither the fuel, explosive or warheads of antiaircraft missiles are composed of pellets. <<<

Are you willing to say ALL anticraft missiles? How about Chinese? North Korean? Pakastani? Israeli? Cech?

I think your position is reasonable - but there are a lot of potential manufacturers out there. Have you looked at all of them?

[timestax]

bump for justice

[Poohbah]

I still think that if it is found that a SAM of the TWA800 vintage had a warhead that incorporated such ceramic balls - in a continuous rod or other component - there is the smoking gun in TWA800.

Then you'll never find it--the ceramic balls would not be used in any SAM warhead because of the extremely poor lethality thereof.

[Hoplite]

I'm currently designing a MANPADS with a nuts and bolts fragmentation warhead and a micro frangible water soluble body for conspiracy buffs - should meet all their needs.

This is a parallel development to the Llama pellet warhead design, for use by my Shining Path client - not only does this wonder material help clean polluted water, it clears the skies of the oppressive bourgeoise power structure's air pirates to boot!

Boy, if I get too good at this lying and propagandizing, WSWS is gonna offer me a job - hey, you notice that if you put those letters upside down they stand for Monde Site Moose Socialiste? Hmmm....

[Rokke]

"Have you looked at all of them? "

No. But that isn't necessary. Poohbah is absolutely correct (he almost always is;) ). Continuous rod warheads don't have "joints". They are composed of a single piece of very dense material scored in such a way that when the explosive inside it explodes, the metal expands, transforming it from a cylinder shape into a ring, which subsequently divides into an expanding circle of separate, rod shaped fragments. Missile warheads represent the pinnicle of design efficiency. They must maximize destructive capability, in a very small package. There is no room for the waste represented by small, low mass, non-explosive ceramic spheres.

[HardStarboard]

Thanks for the explanation Rokke. Makes sense to this mechanical engineer.

[eno_]

Well he's probably right: if it can be done in a single cleverly engineered piece of metal, that's the way to do it.

So it's probably not part of the warhead.

Still, where did this stuff come from? Ceramic ball bearings and ball joints are for high-strength applications. And these were violently embedded in victims' bodies. I'd still bet the answer will be interesting.

[timestax]

bumped for newbies to read

[timestax]

bump FYI

[timestax]

bump