Depleted Uranium Weapons

MrIndigo

I was always of the understanding that the radioactivity of depleted uranium was so low that it won't ever really be an issue unless you pile loads of spent ammunition across a small area. They're not used to cause radiation, they're used because they're heavy.
 

Chubbs

Depleted Uranium is useful for shells and such because you can penetrate thick walls or underground bunkers with them or just destroy stuff with the sheer inertia of them. The fallout is, as stated before, fairly small.
 
cookie

cookie

my wish like everyone else is to be seen
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it should be known that the hazard posed by depleted uranium is to do with its chemical toxicity and not its radioactivity, because uranium is actually not very radioactive at all (half life of ~4.5 billion years)
 

Morm

Depends on the isotope used, Cookie. Some uranium decays so quickly that it can bake and metamorphose a geologic structure around it!
 
cookie

cookie

my wish like everyone else is to be seen
is a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
depleted uranium has most of its u-235 removed, which still has a half-life of 700 million years

so my point is that the depiction of it being a "radioactive" wasteland is erroneous
 
az

az

toddmoding
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ps less fallout is more scary in a weapon; we're no longer protected by the principle of mutually-assured destruction so people can launch shit willy-nilly
 
Staraptor Call

Staraptor Call

U-238, in other words depleted uranium, only emits alpha particles. Because alpha particles are so heavy and have +2 charges, their ranges are very short and they're very easy to stop. They can only go a couple inches at the most in air, and the dead outer layer of the skin stops them completely. Alpha emitters are only dangerous if they are inside the body, in which case they are heavily damaging because alpha particles are so strongly charged. U-238 also has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, as cookie mentioned, so not much of it is going to be decaying. The real dangers of depleted uranium are its decay products and uranium's biological toxicity. If uranium dust(which depleted uranium weapons would produce) settles in the lungs, if can decay into more highly radioactive isotopes and cause lung cancer. Also, uranium is toxic to the kidneys.
 
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