Lessee........Depleted Uranium..............means that it's not radioactive any more or that it's the residue of what's left over when they separate the U-235 from the U-234. Either way, it's not radioactive. Now to the point......why do they use it?......because it has twice the mass of lead. That means that a projectile the size of a 50 cal. round that used to weigh 1 oz. now weighs 2 oz. .......What does that mean?.............When you hit a tank with 30 or 40 rounds of this stuff (which is extremely hard...harder than steel) it punches a hole in the side of the armor by kinetic energy alone....no explosives needed. The vector for all of this mayhem is the A-10 "Warthog" with it's gatling gun.
The dust from this is toxic if you breathe it in at the point of impact but once things have "Cooled down" it is just another composit of normal dirt. To say that people are dieing from Radiation Sickness from depleted uranium is an out-and-out lie!
To suggest that this is causing deaths is an indication of profound ignorance. I rather think that this is the opening salvo for an assault upon the VA to get 100% disability. Methinks that most applicants will have never been within 10 miles of the stuff, just like most of the PSTD applicants never saw real combat.
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