m1 tanks and the crew?

Question

does the depleted uranium on the tank and shells cause cancer to the crew or are they safe on the inside of the tank?

Answer 1

No, Depleted means they are not very radioactive.

But Uranium is super strong and heavy. It's got one hell of a punch.

The Army also has DU Rounds for the .50cal which are mounted on HMMWVs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium

There's the wiki.

Here's an excerpt:
Depleted uranium is very dense; at 19050 kg/m³, it is almost 70% denser than lead. Thus a given weight of it has a smaller diameter than an equivalent lead projectile, with less aerodynamic drag and deeper penetration due to a higher pressure at point of impact. DU projectile ordnance is often incendiary because of its pyrophoric property.

Answer 2

I served in Iraq and my Bradley was full of that crap. They claim that it does not cause any harm but I don't believe it. You can feel a breaze come out of the tips of those things, and that made us worry. There is some people that say that that is what Desert Storm syndrome is, radiation poinoning. Plus if you look up the affects that it had on the Iraqi people after we pumped their country full of it the first time around it will make you wonder, birth defects galore.

On the other side do you expect the gov't to be honest with us, us that served in the military have always been their guinea pigs and always will be. Even if those rounds did do damage to the troops and they knew it, they wouldn't tell us.

Answer 3

Depleted uranium is U238 without its natural abundance of U235. It makes a great shielding and shell because it is extremely dense.

It also remains radioactive. While U238 has a very long half life, you still need to be shielded from the radiation given off by it. The tank shielding should block most of the radiation.

Answer 4

*sigh* Guess that's why we're here, to answer these questions.

What is uranium? Uranium is a natural radioactive element that occurs in nature. It comes in two isotopes... U235, and U238. U238 is far more abundant (99.3% of all uranium) vs. the useful isotope, U235 (0.7%), which is used in nuclear reactors and such. (There is U-234, but it's trace amount only).

What is depleted and enriched uranium? U-235 is useful in weapons and reactors, but U-238 are not. So through chemical diffusion process, U-235 concentration is increased in one group and decreased in the other. The one where U-235 is now richer than normal (anywhere from 3% to 90%, instead of natural 0.7%) is enriched uranium, and the other sample, which now has even LESS U-235 than natural, is now known as depleted uranium.

Military definition of DU is uranium w/ less than 0.2% U-235. This means it has 40% LESS radiation than natural uranium.

As you are talking about cancer, presumably you're talking about radiation risk. While Uranium does generate ionizing radiation, keep in mind there are three types of ionizing radiation, alpha, beta, and gamma. Alpha radiation (i.e. alpha particles) the primary cancer cause, is easily stopped by the skin. And DU generates negligible alpha radiation.

DU's harm to environment and body is from its other characteristics: 1) it forms oxides when exposed to oxygen. And being a pyrorohric metal, it can spontaneously combust in room temperature air if made into powder/dust form due to vast increase of surface area. 2) uranium itself is toxic in pure metal form, but must be "ingested", and most ingestions are expelled by natural bowel movements. Only those that collected in the body can do noticeable harm, and that would be a TINY risk compared to the danger of actual combat.

(EDIT to clean up the corrupted ending of my post)

Answer 5

The reason it is called depleted is because of the most radioactive isotope is removed. Any amount of neutrons could cause cancer. It is just not a very significant danger according to the Pentagon studies (probably no surprise). The danger from not killing another tank greatly outweighs the risks.

Answer 6

Ask the guy on yahoo, I think his screen name is M1A1MG, which means he is a Master Gunner I am assuming he would know this.