# Depleted Uranium Tipped Weapons
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [August 9, 2004, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058 "2004-08-09T17:55:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/41 "2004-08-10T16:29:23Z")
I found [Warbird](http://members.aol.com/whoclix/warbird.gif), who obviously knows alot about combat and the strength/hardness/properties of various metals.
Looks like we owe **Boy Scout11** an apology.
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### Author:  [@Boy\_Scout11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boy_Scout11)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/42 "2004-08-10T16:33:50Z")
Uranium (III) Bromide, UBr3
Printer friendly version
## Subcategory: Ceramic; Halide
Well well, what have we here.
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### Author:  [@drgnrdr07](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drgnrdr07)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/43 "2004-08-10T16:45:43Z")
Last time I checked Uranium Bromide wasn’t DU
[http://www.webelements.com/webelements/compounds/text/U/Br3U1-13470194.html](http://www.webelements.com/webelements/compounds/text/U/Br3U1-13470194.html)
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### Author:  [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/44 "2004-08-10T16:47:18Z")
> [@Boy Scout11](#):
>
> Uranium (III) Bromide, UBr3
> Printer friendly version
>
> ## Subcategory: Ceramic; Halide
>
> Well well, what have we here.
We have someone typing gibberish instead of using the URL tag? Please direct us to a website that lists uranium bromide as a ceramic.
While you’re at it, tell us–no, **provide for us a link to a website** –how the bromine got in there.
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### Author:  [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/45 "2004-08-10T16:49:16Z")
> [@Jurph](#):
>
> Not “seems to be” – DU _is_ softer than steel.
To be more accurate, DU is softer than _some_ steels. Some of the softer grades of steel (such as 316 stainless steel) are less hard than DU. DU has a hardness comparable to low-carbon steels.
Now, it is true that Uranium can combine with other elements to form a ceramic material. They used to make a ceramic glaze for cookware based on Uranium. It’s not likely the process of creating a Uranium-based ceramic occurs with any sufficient regularity or quanitity when a DU-tipped bomb strikes something. More importantly, there’s no reason to believe that a Uranium-based ceramic powder is going to be any more dangerous than any other kind of ceramic powder, other than the slight radiological hazard. I haven’t been able to find much material properties data for uranium-based ceramics, but if physical harm from tiny sharp ceramic slivers was a significant risk we’d see it with many other kinds of ceramic as well.
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### Author:  [@Boy\_Scout11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boy_Scout11)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/46 "2004-08-10T17:00:29Z")
> [@AndrewL](#):
>
> To be more accurate, DU is softer than _some_ steels. Some of the softer grades of steel (such as 316 stainless steel) are less hard than DU. DU has a hardness comparable to low-carbon steels.
>
> Now, it is true that Uranium can combine with other elements to form a ceramic material. They used to make a ceramic glaze for cookware based on Uranium. It’s not likely the process of creating a Uranium-based ceramic occurs with any sufficient regularity or quanitity when a DU-tipped bomb strikes something. More importantly, there’s no reason to believe that a Uranium-based ceramic powder is going to be any more dangerous than any other kind of ceramic powder, other than the slight radiological hazard. I haven’t been able to find much material properties data for uranium-based ceramics, but if physical harm from tiny sharp ceramic slivers was a significant risk we’d see it with many other kinds of ceramic as well.
When I visited the site you offered, here,–www.matweb.com —I went to the find box in the upper right hand corner and typed in depleated uranium and clicked on the first offer, in that category and that is where I found my above statement, about du being a ceramic like, subcategory of DU.
I would also add, that none of you are considering the fact, that when the explosive power of a bunker buster or tomahawk explodes, that as the DU is being blasted into billions of tiny particles, that the heat is “crystalizing” that ceramic like material, just as it crystalizes in a furnace. Common sense, of which jurph seems to have so little of.
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### Author:  [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/47 "2004-08-10T17:01:48Z")
Hey, knock it off with those fancy “facts” and stuff. We’re trying to have a… excuse me? What? Oh, my mistake: we _are_ trying to have a rational debate here. :dubious:
Carry on.
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### Author:  [@Boy\_Scout11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boy_Scout11)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/48 "2004-08-10T17:04:24Z")
> [@Jurph](#):
>
> Hey, knock it off with those fancy “facts” and stuff. We’re trying to have a… excuse me? What? Oh, my mistake: we _are_ trying to have a rational debate here. :dubious:
> Carry on.
When I visited the site you offered, here,–www.matweb.com —I went to the find box in the upper right hand corner and typed in depleated uranium and clicked on the first offer, in that category and that is where I found my above statement, about du being a ceramic like, subcategory of DU.
I would also add, that none of you are considering the fact, that when the explosive power of a bunker buster or tomahawk explodes, that as the DU is being blasted into billions of tiny particles, that the heat is “crystalizing” that ceramic like material, just as it crystalizes in a furnace. Common sense, of which jurph seems to have so little of.
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### Author:  [@1010011010](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1010011010)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/49 "2004-08-10T17:06:25Z")
This has been one of the more entertaining threads I’ve read here.
**Jurph** , you might want to try [Googling “ceramic Uranium”](http://www.google.com/search?&q=%22ceramic+Uranium%22) yourself. While it’s amusing to imagine **Boy Scount11** losing sleep over missles tipped with shards of Fiestaware, ceramic Uranium is a real substance that results from the vaporization and oxidation of the metal on impact.
Anyway, I don’t know where the whole “cutting up our troops from the inside” things is coming from- ceramic uranium mainly comes in the micron-range spherical variety. No sharp pointy bits. Anyway, as a fine dust, it easily becomes airborne. It also has a significantly longer biological half-life than other forms of uranium. It’s nasty crap, **BS11** ’s other claims not withstanding.
On a totally different note, powder alloys are also sometimes refered to as “ceramic”… but as far as I know, DU munitions are not powder alloy.
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### Author:  [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/50 "2004-08-10T17:13:56Z")
> [@Boy Scout11](#):
>
> When I visited the site you offered, here,–www.matweb.com —I went to the find box in the upper right hand corner and typed in depleated uranium and clicked on the first offer, in that category and that is where I found my above statement, about du being a ceramic like, subcategory of DU.
When you type “depleated uranium” on the Matweb search engine, it gives you all materials containing the words depleated OR uranium. Since no materials in its archive contain the word “depleated”, it returned all the materials it had containing uranium. Including a large number of uranium-based ceramics. The material in DU weapons is not in the form of a ceramic, but in the form of a pure metal. To see the properties of pure metal you need to scroll down to the bottom of the search results, past the irrelevent ceramics.
You see, Matweb assumes you know what material you’re looking for.
> [@Boy Scout11](#):
>
> I would also add, that none of you are considering the fact, that when the explosive power of a bunker buster or tomahawk explodes, that as the DU is being blasted into billions of tiny particles, that the heat is “crystalizing” that ceramic like material, just as it crystalizes in a furnace. Common sense, of which jurph seems to have so little of.
Common sense tells me that crystals form slowly, under conditions where the atoms can come together in a regular, ordered manner. Not what you’d expect in an explosion. Any uranium oxides resulting from a DU bomb would be in a glass-like (noncrystalline) form due to rapid cooling. They’d also be expected to be in the form of small spheres, which is what you get when a material is vaporized, then cooled rapidly. And you still haven’t shown why you would expect uranium-based ceramics to be more likely to form dangerously sharp shards than any other kind of ceramic.
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### Author:  [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/51 "2004-08-10T17:16:52Z")
> [@Boy Scout11](#):
>
> When I visited the site you offered, here,–www.matweb.com —I went to the find box in the upper right hand corner and typed in depleated uranium and clicked on the first offer, in that category and that is where I found my above statement, about du being a ceramic like, subcategory of DU.
Okay, I see the confusion. I duplicated your experiment. The first item that came up was actually a uranium compound, related to depleted uranium in the same way that water is related to pure hydrogen gas. Just because the search engine made it the first hit does not necessarily mean that the UBr3 is the same as Depleted Uranium.
You see, just as hydrogen gas is flammable, while a compound made from it (water) is not, uranium bromide is a ceramic, while plain old depleted uranium is not. It’s an elemental metal.
> [@](#):
>
> I would also add, that none of you are considering the fact,
Slow down there, dude. You have not convinced me that it _is_ a fact yet. So far it remains one (among many) of your baseless assertions. Once it’s proven to be a fact, I’ll consider it.
> [@](#):
>
> that when the explosive power of a bunker buster or tomahawk explodes, that as the DU is being blasted into billions of tiny particles, that the heat is “crystalizing” that ceramic like material, just as it crystalizes in a furnace.
Just exactly as it happens in a furnace, huh? Which furnace? Would that be a furnace with an oxygen atmosphere, where the uranium becomes Uranium Oxide? Or one that’s got some bromine gas, creating Uranium Bromide? How exactly are a slow-burning furnace and an uncontrolled nearly instantaneous weapons detonation similar?
> [@](#):
>
> Common sense, of which jurph seems to have so little of.
An idea which seems to be “common sense” may turn out to be wrong under scrutiny. But in this ever changing world in which we live in, it’s tough to know which ideas have and haven’t been disproved. So instead of name-calling, how about you just go ahead and show me a website that talks about uranium turning into a ceramic.
Seriously, if you’re going to get all huffy and start insulting people, head over to The Pit.
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### Author:  [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/52 "2004-08-10T17:24:26Z")
> [@1010011010](#):
>
> **Jurph** , you might want to try [Googling “ceramic Uranium”](http://www.google.com/search?&q=%22ceramic+Uranium%22) yourself. While it’s amusing to imagine **Boy Scount11** losing sleep over missles tipped with shards of Fiestaware, ceramic Uranium is a real substance that results from the vaporization and oxidation of the metal on impact.
Dude, I did that as soon as he made the claim. I’ve been waiting for him to provide a link, especially to something as damning as [the second link that Google provides from that search](http://www.iicph.org/docs/DU_Human_Rights_Tribunal.htm). That would totally cut my legs out from under me.
But I doubt that he’ll be using the URL tag to link to anything, so until then, I’m going to stay over on this side of the argument where I can throw fruit and make Illuminati jokes. However, **as soon as BoyScout11 links to an article about ceramic uranium within his post** , I will apologize for ridiculing him, welcome him to the boards, and stop harrassing him.
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### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/53 "2004-08-10T17:27:46Z")
> [@Boy Scout11](#):
>
> Common sense, of which jurph seems to have so little of.
Oopsie.
Wave bye-bye to the nice people!
Regards,
Shodan
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### Author:  [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/54 "2004-08-10T17:48:41Z")
> [@1010011010](#):
>
> Anyway, I don’t know where the whole “cutting up our troops from the inside” things is coming from- ceramic uranium mainly comes in the micron-range spherical variety. No sharp pointy bits. Anyway, as a fine dust, it easily becomes airborne. It also has a significantly longer biological half-life than other forms of uranium. It’s nasty crap, **BS11** ’s other claims not withstanding.
C’mon a Technetium Radium Osium Lithium Lutetium (TcRaOsLiLu) compound is FAR more irritating than DU.
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### Author:  [@Boy\_Scout11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boy_Scout11)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/55 "2004-08-10T19:58:51Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Originally Posted by 1010011010
> Jurph, you might want to try Googling “ceramic Uranium” yourself. While it’s amusing to imagine Boy Scount11 losing sleep over missles tipped with shards of Fiestaware, ceramic Uranium is a real substance that results from the vaporization and oxidation of the metal on impact.
To the above statement, I would ask any reader to notice the word “metal” used in the last line and ask the reader to think about bits of metal, that get blasted into very tiny pieces and then superheated in a blast, even though it is a softer metal. I would also point out, that no matter how small those pieces are, metal produces jagged corners, not smooth rounded corners. When I spoke of ceramic like material, that was in respect to the hardness attained in the blast and heat, along with being so small, that it enters the blood stream, thru the lungs, circulating thruout the entire body. These are now verified by another on this board.
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### Author:  [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/56 "2004-08-10T20:26:21Z")
So, shouldn’tother materials used for bombs and bullets be equally dangerous? Lead, for example, can also form caramic oxides in the heat of an explosion. And it’s lighter than uranium, and therefore will stay in the air longer and be more likely to be inhaled. What’s so special about Uranium?
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### Author:  [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/57 "2004-08-10T20:38:29Z")
> [@AndrewL](#):
>
> So, shouldn’tother materials used for bombs and bullets be equally dangerous? Lead, for example, can also form caramic oxides in the heat of an explosion. And it’s lighter than uranium, and therefore will stay in the air longer and be more likely to be inhaled. What’s so special about Uranium?
Haven’t you firgured out that this guy has a thing about DU & DU oxides.
Lots of smoke, no fire.
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### Author:  [@Boy\_Scout11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boy_Scout11)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/58 "2004-08-10T20:47:15Z")
> [@AndrewL](#):
>
> When you type “depleated uranium” on the Matweb search engine, it gives you all materials containing the words depleated OR uranium. Since no materials in its archive contain the word “depleated”, it returned all the materials it had containing uranium. Including a large number of uranium-based ceramics. The material in DU weapons is not in the form of a ceramic, but in the form of a pure metal. To see the properties of pure metal you need to scroll down to the bottom of the search results, past the irrelevent ceramics.
>
> You see, Matweb assumes you know what material you’re looking for.
>
> Common sense tells me that crystals form slowly, under conditions where the atoms can come together in a regular, ordered manner. Not what you’d expect in an explosion. Any uranium oxides resulting from a DU bomb would be in a glass-like (noncrystalline) form due to rapid cooling. They’d also be expected to be in the form of small spheres, which is what you get when a material is vaporized, then cooled rapidly. And you still haven’t shown why you would expect uranium-based ceramics to be more likely to form dangerously sharp shards than any other kind of ceramic.
Ahh, that’s cool. I would ask, has this been verified by anyone doing this research, (as to the shapes) reguarding this specific material and wheather or not, the surface of those shapes is smooth or coarse?
I would also ask,
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### Author:  [@Boy\_Scout11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boy_Scout11)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/59 "2004-08-10T22:26:50Z")
> [@AndrewL](#):
>
> When you type “depleated uranium” on the Matweb search engine, it gives you all materials containing the words depleated OR uranium. Since no materials in its archive contain the word “depleated”, it returned all the materials it had containing uranium. Including a large number of uranium-based ceramics. The material in DU weapons is not in the form of a ceramic, but in the form of a pure metal. To see the properties of pure metal you need to scroll down to the bottom of the search results, past the irrelevent ceramics.
>
> You see, Matweb assumes you know what material you’re looking for.
>
> Common sense tells me that crystals form slowly, under conditions where the atoms can come together in a regular, ordered manner. Not what you’d expect in an explosion. Any uranium oxides resulting from a DU bomb would be in a glass-like (noncrystalline) form due to rapid cooling. They’d also be expected to be in the form of small spheres, which is what you get when a material is vaporized, then cooled rapidly. And you still haven’t shown why you would expect uranium-based ceramics to be more likely to form dangerously sharp shards than any other kind of ceramic.
* * *
I would ask Andrew, if this specific material has been tested and placed under a microscope to in fact, see the shape and texture of this material and I further offer this next part, but since you show you look for the truth and do not take a side, I do not aim this next part at you.
Here is an example. We have been discussing DU, its properties, as well as its causes and effects. I will now show you something else I have learned since this thread began and that is, IF, all those tiny hard particles were to say, enter the brain and come to a blood vessel in the brain, that is very small, could those tiny particles create a blockage in the brain, causing not only a possible death, but many more things?
I would also submit, that any soldier could already have some sort of blockage and these tiny hard particles could exacerbate the problem, even to the point of death. Since the brain is not the only organ in the body, or places where these tiny particles can build up, who’s to say it could not create many differing kinds of problems or even death?
And you thought debate was all about web sites you could go to. LOL Get a mind boys and girls, learn to think and debate for yourselves.
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### Author:  [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depleted-uranium-tipped-weapons/259058/60 "2004-08-10T22:42:52Z")
Uranium is a pyrophoric material. When powdered it will ignite very easily, and may even spontaneously ignite. This is one of the reasons they use it for anti-tank weapons - the uranium penetrator shatters going through the tank’s armor, and ignites to incinerate anyone inside the tank.
In the aftermath of a DU weapon hit, any uranium shattered into dust will burn, leaving uranium oxide vapor. The only fragments of pure uranium left will be those too large to easily burn. The uranium oxide vapor may condense into microscopic perticles of solid uranium oxide, but material condensed from hot vapor in this manner forms roughly spherical (not sharp and jagged) pieces.
It is true that small particles injected in the bloodstream can block blood vessles and cause all sorts of bad things. It’s still very hard to for them to get there, since they have to not only make it deep into the lungs but somehow cross over into the bloodstream. Uranium particles are not significantly more likely to do this than any other particlate matter of about the same size and shape.
You still haven’t pointed out why uranium is any more of a danger in this regard than lead - or, for that matter, naturally occurring dust and sand.
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