Flechettes: The Darts of War

Flechettes (French for "small arrows") are fin-stabilized projectiles originally developed in the 1910s to be dropped from aircraft, but which have since been adapted to a variety of weapons systems, from artillery shells and air-launched rockets to shotguns and infantry rifles. In this video, we look at a Vietnam War-era "Lazy Dog" antipersonnel flechette and a pair of tungsten armour-piercing flechettes from a CRV7 unguided rocket and discuss the long and fascinating history of this unusual weapon.

SOURCES:

[MonkeyDespot]

I have been deeply intrigued by flechettes for a long time now. When I was a teen in the eighties they were quite the darling of sci-fi themed weaponry. Along with caseless ammunition and, in a rare case or two, trounds.
I experimented with loading my own flechette shotgun rounds in the early 1990s, ...with predictable results. Oh well.
The SPIW program is fascinating as are the ACR and SALVO projects. I think they all proved that rifles and shotguns are not the proper platform for flechettes. Perhaps someday, but not yet. Their aerial (and large caliber gun) use seems to be a string of grand successes though.
Thanks again and kudos on a fantastic overview!

[ADRIAAN]

I first found out about flechettes when I was looking into the Anti Air guns on battleship Yamato and read that the 18-inch guns had an AA shell filled with thousands of 150mm flechettes. it would explode mid air creating a cone of darts a few hundred feet across and 800 yards long pilots described it as a spectacular sight because the shells also contained incendiary pellets so it was like a giant firework.

[jarniwoop]

This takes me back. I remember as a kid in the 60's during the height of the Vietnam War browsing through all the cool stuff in the local Army Navy store, and finding a box full of these little bomblets, the early forged steel Lazy dogs. I asked the owner what the hell where these things, and he explained that they where shoveled out the door of cargo planes at altitude to kill Charlie. I thought, how retro. They looked cool but I didn't buy any.

[fritzbucher]

Flechette rounds always have had my curiosity. I remember seeing a box of loose flechettes in the early 80’s at a gun show and that’s when my fascination began.

[jackkessler]

I have a few of these and some smaller anti-personnel ones. My neighbor was an officer in the Seabees and later part of experimental weapons programs. He served in Korea. He helped me build pine wood derby cars as a kid. One day while I was over there he explained how they made them and then gave me everything he had. He was a good man.

[OnTheRiver]

Excellent presentation, clear, accurate, and very informative. I had no idea that the terminal velocity of the lazy dog was so great.

[davidbarr]

75 years old, Masters in English, and still love learning. Thanks for the hard work; research, organization and interpretation, analysis and lucid presentation, and most important these days, trustworthy information. Great channel, young man; keep it up!

[abrahampilkington]

The phrase “old fashioned bee hive”, is so awesome I can’t even begin to wrap my head around it. Have I only been seeing modern bee hives my entire life? Are there Amish bees out there making hives like our ancestors did, the “old fashioned way”. So many beehive related questions.

[senatorjosephmccarthy]

12: 28. The first firing of the gunpowder in the case causes a recoil. All shots after, cause individual recoils. Every recoil moves the muzzle off the intended point of impact.
16: 33. In the Cavalry in the Vietnam war, we had two jeeps mounting a 106 recoilless rifle each, and six jeeps mounting one M-60 each. As per the Rat Patrol TV series of the '50s.
Real suicide missions; no protection from enemy fire, but six 60 put out a .lot. of fire. Very lucky we were never ambushed.
Thanks for the flechette history and information.

[KeonsLab]

Ive been studying the YouTube algorithm as if it was a stock market and if my intuition is correct, then your channel is about to see a MASSIVE influx of viewers and subscribers as soon as the algorithm starts recommending your videos to people who watch channels like Forgotten Weapons. I’m predicting this channel to have ~150k to 450k subs by 2025 and several videos which will have gained almost, if not over 2M views. Specifically the videos about the flechettes (that one’s gonna get a LOT of views) and the exploders and fresnel lens. Your video titles are really good too!

[zachd]

Also a few noteworthy weapon systems that you may have missed:
The M67 Recoiless Rifle M590 APERS. Intended range was 20-200 meters. Contained 2, 400 steel flechettes each weighting about 0.5 grams. At a muzzle velocity of 365 m/s.
The XM25. Not too much is known beyond the airburst round, but there where crowd control rubber flechette rounds rumoured.
The Mk.1 Mod.0 Underwater Defense Gun. 2.5mm flechette, projectile mass is 10 grams and surprisingly achieves 265 m/s underwater.

[thatsthewayitgoes]

As a kid, in about 1959 - ‘62, we used to buy Yellow Dog Bombs and collect them. We knew what they were, but not long interest, they didn’t go boom. The ones we had were the forged with bent sheet metal fins.

[I_Automate]

Speaking of rocket powered kinetic energy chance for a video on the LOSAT program? It never made it into service, but the idea of using what was basically a laser guided, tungsten tipped rocket spear to blast through any known armor has always been fascinating.

The available test footage is certainly impressive as heck.

[skookapalooza]

Gilles Messier is giving The Most Interesting Man in the World stiff competition. Another fantastic video!

[bunnykiller]

My brother in law gave me one of the 50 cal versions when he got back from VN many yrs ago, the fins are rather sharp, capable of cutting finger tips if handled carelessly.

[KendlickLama]

"Flachettes are not gentlemanly and not honourable, sooo, where did we store the phosgene gas"

[XSpamDragonX]

Wait, Youtube just recommended me a video from someone who might literally live a few blocks from where I'm watching it? That's kinda cool. Would you ever consider meeting your fans one day?

[WgCdrLuddite]

It is so nice to hear sabot pronounced correctly.

[johncoaleii]

Great video!!! My career was in VLS or Vertical Launch Systems for Lockheed, Northrop, Raytheon and NASA. I've been toying with several Flechette designs and a few delivery systems. This video has a ton of useful information and images.

[jimsvideos]

There was also a "hardened rod practice" warhead for the CRV7. I saw one that had been recovered after hitting a tank target; it was bent over into a U shape.

Aside, RHA is rolled homogeneous armour rather than hardened.