Radioactive Gun GAU 8

A close look at the A 10 THUNDERBOLT with the Infamous GAU 8 Gatling gun which can fire the depleted uranium rounds as well as conventional ammunitions. The DU rounds have awesome penetrating power; however studies show that exposure to depleted uranium poses significant health risks as all radioactive materials do. In particular the aerosol produced during impact and combustion of depleted uranium munitions can potentially contaminate wide areas around the impact sites or can be inhaled by civilians and military personnel. To my surprise I was not able to detect even a trace amount of increased radiation on the GAU 8 when using the GAMMA SCOUT. I was later told by one of the pilots who were in Afghanistan that DU rounds were only used in combat due to their cost and environmental concerns.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• A-10 Warthog
• GAU 8
• Radiation
• Geiger counter
• Depleted Uranium
• A 10 Thunderbolt
• Gamma Scout
• radioactive gun
• radiation level
• weapons
• USAF
• military aircraft

[Snipes432]

DU rounds are not radioactive. DU is a waste from the uranium enrichment process and contains more then 99% of non-radioactive U-238.

The health risks is the result of uranium beeing a toxic metal, the same way lead is toxic, and tungsten alloys are toxic aswell.

If you are in the area where you can inhale DU aeorols, then you should worry more about your short-term health..not the long term one.

[J0Boa]

@Snipes432 You need to go back to school

[minirockettube]

I wanna lick it.

[1step1up]

A lot of people here need to see "Invisible War The Politics of Radiation"

And they used waste that passed through atomic reactors too, not just DU. On what scale? No one knows for sure....

watch?v=fhRRNer_PYg

[nexus6767]

@J0Boa "Depleted uranium (DU; also referred to in the past as Q-metal, depletalloy, or D-38) is uranium with a lower content of the fissile isotope U-235 than natural uranium (natural uranium is about 99.27% uranium-238 (U-238), 0.72% U-235, and 0.0055% U-234)" Just incase you want to have an argument about it..

[nexus6767]

@J0Boa No he doesn't. You do. Everything Snipes432 said was correct. DU is less radioactive that naturally occuring Uranium..

[Psychotol]

@Snipes432 I once tried to formulate rules that would explain what made isotopes decay or not decay, and one thing I picked up on that is that anything heavier than Bismuth has no stable isotope.

Depleted Uranium is radioactive, it's simply not fissionable.

[MajorArtillary]

@Psychotol That said container is known as a sabot.

[winklerchr]

@Snipes432 Totally.

From Wikipedia: "The use of DU in munitions is controversial because of questions about potential long-term health effects.[5][6] Normal functioning of the kidney, brain, liver, heart, and numerous other systems can be affected by uranium exposure, because uranium is a toxic metal.[7] It is weakly radioactive....."

[SkullKing11841]

@J0Boa

Snipes is right, it isn't the radioactivity that causes health effects, it is the toxicity that causes cancer. Like Benzene causes cancer.

Even if that GUA-8 had fired DU it wouldn't come up on the scanner. The DU is encased and non of it could be scratched off in the barrel. Plus the barrels are cleaned. :)

[J0Boa]

@gorgormany14s You should get the one with the with the separate probe so you can stick it up your *ss!