Re: 50 Caliber Machine Guns

[<SDonell73@aol.com>]

In a message dated 10/13/02 2:49:50 PM Pacific Daylight Time, AMPSOne@aol.com writes:


> Oh -- they did try a .50 explosive projectile in Korea for the F-86 but as 
> they were unstable and tended to explode in the gun bays they were dropped 
> quickly after a short test period.


The 20mm High Explosive Incendiary (HEI) shells used in naval aircraft, would explode upon impact. A later version was developed that was bore safe, i.e. it had to make a certain number of revolutions before the firing chain would allow it to explode.

I had a friend in Iwakuni, who was almost killed by dropping such a round, and spent mucho time in the hospital recovering from the blast.

Sandy