Tuesday, April 16, 2013

"Shrapnel"...

Aside from the misuse of the word "shrapnel" (this is, for most laypeople, one of those "clip/magazine" distinctions without difference) the reporting of this thing is getting up my nose.

The chief of emergency medicine at Brigham & Women's keeps telling NBC reporters that the only "fragments" they're pulling out of people are bits of debris from objects you'd expect to find on the street. They keep asking him about "shrapnel". To save wear on his vocal cords, perhaps he could hold up a card on which he's doctor-scratched "We haven't pulled any ball bearings out of anybody yet that I'm aware of, but we'll keep looking for you."

NBC has theme music already.

On the spacing of the two explosions, Brian Williams (who humped a mic all over the Green Zone, you know) kept reiterating that "Those of us who've been to the wars overseas will find the second detonation* a common tactic..." or words to that effect. Anyhow, he wanted all the listeners to know he'd been in the $#!+. The Marine vet he used this schtick on didn't crawl through the line and choke him, more's the pity.

Meanwhile, the Boston police chief, who just had a herd of zebra charge down Main Street, can probably be forgiven for not expecting horses when he heard more hoofbeats that day. (And that's not to say that it wasn't deliberate, but it's looking like that's not the way to bet.) Like always, all the speculation being vomited onto the airwaves to sell commercials in the immediate aftermath is just future fodder for the the conspiracy 'n' coverup buffs.


*Like spacing a second charge to catch responders is some sort of Islamist innovation. *CoughEricRudolph'BortionClinicCough*

33 comments:

  1. Tam, I'm genuinely curious - what's the distinction? Without looking it up, I'm guessing that shrapnel comes from the bomb itself rather than something added in with the explosive? Like a grenage produces shrapnel but not a stick of dynamite in a bucket of screws?

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  2. I'll leave it to Tam to answer; I just had to register appreciation for "... they fear if they don't feed the microphone a steady stream of words, it will become hungry and eat their face.". The babbling from MSNBC on the screen nearest my desk required a headphone administration of Guns n Roses antidote.
    Would that the mikes rise up and EAT some of those faces, whether fed words or not...

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  3. And the word of the day is "langrange"- good luck finding the definition.

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  4. If I remember correctly shrapnel is actually a type of artillery shell.

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  5. Jay,

    Shrapnel shells are explosive cannon shells packed with lead bullets.

    It has largely become synonymous with any fragments thrown by an explosion, but that is technically incorrect.

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  6. Shrapnel is properly only used to refer to the payload of a specific kind of artillery anti-personnel shell obsolete by WWI, basically a canister round with standoff capability. Closest current equivalent would be a beehive round.

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  7. Invented by Lt. Henry Shrapnel, IIRC, in the latter days of the 18th century, while in service to the British Army, is defined as related to exploding artillery shells (Shrapnel was, in fact, assigned to the Royal Artillery).

    As is common in Our Age, "shrapnel" has become defined as any fragment propelled by an explosive of some sort.

    Methinks it's time to redefine the terms, bringing them back to reality.

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  8. Robert is about right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrapnel_shell

    Shrapnel shells were named for the brain-father of the concept.

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  9. And this is what I get for leaving a tab open too long.

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  10. And Tam beat me to it, with less pedantry to boot.

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  11. Jay -- Let me put on my Pedantic Warfare Systems Engineer hat for a second.

    Shrapnel is preformed fragments in a explosive shell or device intended to spray the target zone.

    The original shrapnel shell was a time delay cannister shell, intended to more efficiently scour teh target zone. Modern airburst HE shells aren't technically shrapnel, despite acting pretty much the same way.

    Chunks of grenade body (like the old "pineapple" grenades produce) don't technically equal shrapnel. BBs embedded in epoxy in a thin walled grenade is shrapnel, technically. (Being a positional weapon, the ouchie bits from a Claymore or other directional mine are not considered "shrapnel"; a Claymore is just a factory produced, easily emplaced fougasse.)

    Cannister shells (artillery shotgun shells) aren't shrapnel -- a PROX fused directional AA shell that blasts a cone of steel cubes towards the plane is.

    More informally, any fragments or pellets intended to cause injury by being sprayed at the target by an explosive charge going off after leaving (or without involving) a gun barrel is called "shrapnel". Odd bits of terrain or bomb bits not specifically designed as "casualty producing" (like fuse pieces or pebbles near the device) aren't shrapnel under any informed (formal or informal) definition of "shrapnel".

    Realistically, the difference between "shrapnel" and other "primary fragments" (any pieces of the device you plan on inflicting ballistic injuries with) is pedantic, even to ordnance developers (all shrapnel is primary fragments, but not all primary fragments are shrapnel, technically).

    The distinction between shrapnel & primary fragments vs. "secondary fragments" (other shit lying around that gets carried by the blast to targets) is primarily pedantic other than for forensic and medical treatment reasons, although someone emplacing a charge, device, or shell may want to take into account to ensure they desired effect on target is achieved.

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  12. Second detonations may not be uncommon or new, but if the aim is to take out first responders, the second one would be set off several minutes after the first one, not just a few seconds later.

    And let's be glad that whoever set these off wasn't smart enough to plant them near the starting line when there were thousands of people packed in very tightly.

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  13. Spelling langrage correctly may assist your search.

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  14. The whole shrapnel distinction is, if you'll forgive me, a bit pendantic.

    It has, at least since the WWI - which I remind you all is approaching it's 100 year anniversary - been used popularly for all shell fragments, and very often for all the incidental crap that exploding shells dig up and fling into soft mushy humans who have the misfortune to be nearby.

    I'm sure there are more careful technical forensic terms & distinctions for professional clarity, but like clip/magazine you are basically pissing against the wind in popular usage.

    (And unlike clip/magazine which at least have an obvious & important difference, dangerous flying crap ejected by a bomb is pretty well all the same.)

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  15. "The whole shrapnel distinction is, if you'll forgive me, a bit pendantic."

    Yes, which is why I said as much in my opening paragraph.

    "And unlike clip/magazine which at least have an obvious & important difference..."

    Not really, Cpt. Pedant: They'r both names for the thing you use to put bullets in a gun, as any layman can tell you.

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  16. Yeah -- I work in this field and and as I said up front, it's a pendantic distinction most of the time, even for us.

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  17. Knowing the difference between a clip and a magazine is one of the "secret handshakes" of the gunnie fraternity and is about as important as any of those handshakes.

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  18. All this pendantry just leaves us hanging.

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  19. Dad the artilleryman just hated it when people called shell fragments "shrapnel," but even as a kid I knew he was fighting a losing battle.

    Maybe the distinction was a "secret handshake" at Fort Sill.

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  20. {snicker} Ouch. . .

    @staghounds
    All this pendantry just leaves us hanging.

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  21. Cavalry ride horses AND STAY MOUNTED FOR THE FIGHT.

    If they get down from the horse to fight, they're dragoons.

    It's amazing how recursive military terminology can be!

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  22. Well, if you allow for the fact that motor vehicles have taken over every combat and support role that livestock fulfilled up until WWII, tankers can arguably call themselves cavalry. The guys who commute in IFVs and APCs ought to leave off at dragoons.
    (Precedent: nuclear wessels still sail from point to point, despite a distinct lack of topmen clearing the raffle with clasp knives in their teeth.)

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  23. JohninMd.(oo late?!?)12:53 PM, April 16, 2013

    Soooo, teh main point for me, Capt. Obvious, is that teh boombs were not--INHANCED--with extra bits and crap that wern't in the enviroment. My local newsies keep bleeting "low grade explosives", as well as 'ball bearings', but haven't heard any word on the mix de jure. any clues out there? Color me curious....

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  24. We need the cast of "Bones" to show up,and analize the alleged ball bearings.They will tell us the only factory in the world that uses that particular grade of steel,and find fingerprints and DNA from an unemployed,racist,white supremecist
    who hated joggers and had access to pressure cookers from a warehouse in Boston,etc,etc.
    Billf

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  25. You are, as always, technically correct, Tam. But when I tell people that the hole in my leg is from spalling and secondary fragmentation of the vehicle armor, I get blank looks. But if I say shrapnel, they (sort of) get it.

    I almost always say the little bits left in my leg that prevent me from ever going through an MRI are shrapnel, even though they aren't. It saves time.

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  26. Knowing the difference between a clip and a magazine is one of the "secret handshakes" of the gunnie fraternity and is about as important as any of those handshakes.

    That makes me want to invent a gun loaded by a magazine full of clips.

    (Terrifyingly, that has almost really been done.)

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  27. No, it's actually really been done:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_11_light_machine_gun

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  28. Somehow I don't think that ol' Run-Run-Rudolf was smart enough to invent the delayed second bomb, either. Maybe his delusional one-handed brother . . .

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  29. I always understood that shrapnel was a type of canister round, and splinter was what resulted from specially designed shell casings, and fragments was everything else.

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  30. No, splinter is the chunks and pointy bits of oak produced when round shot strike your wooden ship anywhere above waterline.....;-)

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