What do you think of the depleted uranium used in munitions by the US and UK military?
They were a necessary evil in a world where tank armor was becoming harder and harder to penetrate reliably using shaped charge warheads on tank main gun rounds. HEAT (High Explosive, Anti-Tank) rounds use shaped charge technology to focus most of the explosive force in the warhead into a very, very small area, sometimes as small as a cigar in diameter. However, as armor improved, the thin jet of superheated gas became less able to penetrate and guarantee a first-shot kill. In the dynamic battlefield of the US Cold War-era Air-Land Battle Doctrine, mobility was the key to winning battles. You could not afford to keep engaging the same tank with HEAT rounds to ensure a kill, especially since a kill was not always obvious. HESH (High Explosive-Squash Head) rounds were offered as an alternative. The HESH round had a nose of soft lead, which would deform against the armor of the target tank before exploding. The wider area of shock transmission would make pieces of the interior armor flake
