Why on Earth is Depleted Uranium Used for Military Ammunition? 

This video brought to you in part by our Patrons over on Patreon. If you’d like to support our efforts here directly, and our continued efforts to improve our videos, as well as do more ultra in-depth long form videos that built in ads and even sponsors don’t always cover fully, check out our Patreon page and perks here: www.patreon.com/TodayIFoundOut And as ever, thanks for watching!

The fact that DU is a heavy metal far outweighs the residual radiation it emits. Heavy metal poisoning is the true danger. Unless of course you happen to be in the vehicle it impacts.

I was exposed to depleted uranium during the First Gulf War. My battalion's tent city was about 200 meters downwind from the ammunition dump for the airbase where we were stationed. I have many of the symptoms associated with DU: weakened soft tissue, weakened bone density, and other symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome. I have been wearing dentures since I was 32, and tooth loss is common among Gulf War veterans. I am part of a long-term study by the Veterans Administration. These symptoms may be complicated by the injuries I had during my service in many areas of the world, especially when I was with XVIII Airborne Corps. I am also part of a study by the VA into long-term effects of concussion, for example. There are other potential causes of Gulf War Syndrome including the PB pills we were required to take, and the "pudding shots" that we received before deployment. In both cases, some received the real deal while others received a placebo. The soldiers of the Gulf War were not only fighting a war, we were test subjects without knowing it. There are still no definitive results from any of the studies into the reason why so many Gulf War veterans are sick, but the studies continue, and the answers may not come until after my death. My father died of a disease caused by Agent Orange, but that was not acknowledged until ten years after his death at the age of 49. I always wonder what my kids will learn ten years after my demise.

"Your heavy metal poisoning and radiation sickness is not service related" The VA

FYI, the image thrown up at 2:19 is a belt of inert training rounds, not DU tipped projectiles. Any time you see that bright blue color, it's inert training ammo.

"Depleted" in the context of uranium refers to its radioactivity, which is minimal. The real hazard from use of depleted uranium munitions is the resultant toxicity due to heavy metal contamination.

Just to point out, Gulf War Syndrome was not solely blamed on DU, it was naps tablets and the cocktail of drugs given to the soldiers, a short term affect to keep the soldiers fighting, which then led to some of the soldiers having long term effects, to I will add a Army Medical Advisor said "Don't plan on having any more kids" That and the fact that two babies within out Regiment were born disabled in the year that followed.

Uranium exhibits higher performance as a kinetic energy penetrator than tungsten alloys because it exhibits greater strain hardening, and so the adiabatic shear bands form closer to penetrator/target interface, causing a uranium penetrator to "self-sharpen" to a greater degree than tungsten, mushrooming less, and preserving a lower frontal cross section during penetration.

I was an infantry soldier in Somalia in 93. We stayed at places that had lots of depleted and expired ammunition. Old Soviet supply dumps, etc. Overtime EOD gathered up over 40 tons of it and blew it up (what a sight). But now, 30 years later at least 10 of us are already gone (before the age of 50) and most of us have respiratory issues. This is a company I’m talking about. It does seem quite high and we were given enormous amounts of inoculations prior to every deployment and we had to take mefloquine tablets which give you the worst headache and I think were eventually banned. So, don’t become a soldier if you wanna live long.

From what I learned in my ballistics class for my gunsmithing program. With bullets, there's something called Sectional Density. It's essentially how dense the bullet is in relation to its diameter. It's the one factor that absolutely dictates how good a bullet is at penetration or perforation. Depleted Uranium is the heaviest natural element. This makes it perfect for rounds that need to punch through armor. Form factor is big part of Ballistics Coefficients: Sectional Density/ form factor = BC. The higher the BC, the better the bullet is at overcoming air resistance. Not only that, but higher BC bullets perform better at long distance, they tend to maintain momentum at longer ranges, too.

My friend Chris Williams was a tank commander during Gulf 1. He never smoked, drank, and his job was not around any cancer causing materials . He developed lung cancer a few years after he came home. He had surgery and other treatments and was cancer free for several years. It returned a second time and took away one of the finest men I ever knew. He told me on several occasions how they drove through smoke from burning vehicles and how common this was for armor as well as infantry. He was certain the DU is what caused his cancer.

A note on pyrophoria - it isn't just in powder form that it burns, high amounts of friction will also cause uranium to start burning. Going through hardened armor means you're going to be facing a lot of friction.

More than 300 Italian veterans who developed cancer after being exposed to depleted uranium ammunition have won court cases against Italy’s military. Some of the cases were brought by their bereaved relatives. The judgments have mounted in recent years, with Italian courts repeatedly finding a link between cancer and service in the Balkans where such weapons were fired. Although Italy does not have depleted uranium weapons in its own arsenal, Italian police and soldiers were deployed to Bosnia and Kosovo where NATO allies fired the controversial ammunition in the 1990s.

As to your closing statement, I can't think of a single round I would want to be on the receiving end of.

Fun fact, early Boeing 747s had DU counterweights and you can still own an unlimited amount of DU in Canada without a licence as long as it is used as aircraft counterweights.

Back in the early 80s, I worked for a Swiss machine tool company. I had to go to Honeywell in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to train people on a machine. This is the plant where they make depleted uranium bullets. When I got there the first day they said don't step in the water, there were puddles everywhere. Apparently, they had a DU fire. It burns like magnesium hard to put out. It was the grinding operation that caught fire. Left me a little unsettled.

My stepdad recieved a givernment letter stating that while they could neither confirm nor deny the presence of depleted uranium on the ship he was posted on, the Canadian government strongly suggested that everyone that served on his class of ship should get checked for cancers (something hes had and dealt with previously)

If I put a ton of depleted uranium in my basement, it wouldn't increase the radioactivity. The radon leeching out of the ground and settling down there is far more radioactive. I certainly wouldn't recommend snorting a line of depleted uranium dust though. I wouldn't recommend inhaling dust of any heavy metal, they're all toxic.

I was a crewmember on a Bradley. We never used them. If we ever needed to deal with an armored vehicle, we had the TOW missile. It was expensive, not as effective as the TOW, no one wanted to handle them, no one wanted to deal with the paperwork and transporting it, no one wanted to deal with clean up of the fired rounds (at a range, a battlefield, or a destroyed vehicle), and no one wanted to deal with any rounds not used (we would just shoot off unused regular rounds because turning it in was a headache, a DU round would be over 10 times more annoying).

My friend did 2 tours in Iraq. He said they were all prohibited from approaching wreckage destroyed by DU ammo. The worst risk cited was its toxicity after fragmentation to dust level. What sandstorms taken from outside was one thing, but a lot of it remained in destroyed interiors, often baked in by fire. The biggest problem were locals, who were swarming battlefields to harvest metals from wreckage. It was impossible to change their minds by explaining what they are facing, so they resorted to telling locals the battle sites are haunted. Iraq has zero healthcare infrastructure in many of its regions, and in the end, even if half of the local population died of cancer suddenly... no one would notice. Or, in many cases, no one would want to notice.

I wondered this same thing, so I called a PhD Chem friend of mine that had written a number of papers on his specialty, metallurgy. Depleted Uranium is ~70% heavier than lead, and as hard as steel. So it is a perfect armor piercing material.

Minor quibble for your Editor: any ammo with blue-tips are inert training rounds. No DU, no explosives, they are used mostly due to lower costs. Some practice ranges are smaller than the maximum range of live ammo...training ammo is often loaded for shorter ranges.

Watched a video on this last night. They're called DUDs. In the 1970's they manufactured 7.62 rifle rounds as a experimental trial. They are extremely effective for going through body armour. Tungsten rifle rounds are 2nd best. They are extremely hard to source due to the limited amount made. Fun fact in the 1970's some were accidentally sent to police stations mixed in with their standard ammunition deliveries

I was in the US Navy for 11 years and one day I was on the 0-4 level on the ship and the GMs were doing maintenance on the CIWS (close in weapons system). They offered to let me hold just one shell and I was absolutely unprepared for just how heavy uranium is. It feels at least 3 times heavier than iron. Given that CIWS can fire 6000 rounds a minute, any missile successfully hit by CIWS literally gets shredded within a mile of the ship.

I'd argue that if you can see the Warthog coming, it's probably already too late

The far superior penetrating power of depleted uranium compared to tungsten is well documented. US and British tankers carry DU 120mm penetrators. We also have 25mm and .50 caliber DU, but those were less used after the initial combat in the Second Gulf War. The Warthog used 30mm DU. We use it for a reason (better than tungsten), despite the risk. Depleted doesn't mean "not radioactive" or "safe," it just means not hot enough to be fissile or weapons grade.

Depleted Uranium was also used used as counterweights on aircraft control surfaces. I've handled it a few times and was amazed by the weight of it. We swapped out the counterweights back in the mid-nineties to tungsten weights.

Safe and effective they'll say 😂

As a nurse who used to care for nuclear workers and uranium minders/ millers/ haulers, and treating their cancers, i don't believe a word of that CDC report. I've seen too much

Don’t know about those other countries but I would guess a lot of the health effects in Iraq and Kuwait could be caused by the deliberate igniting of the oil fields by the Iraq regime. Burning millions of gallons of raw crude oil is going to cause some serious health effects.

i have not once ever seen him whistle

It's not wearing out the gun that A-10 pilots are actually worried about. Its the fact that continuously firing the gun stalls the aircraft.

I'm exhausted. Talking fast for 14:45 minutes is auditory torture. Breathe.

I will not engage in a debate on the effects some people have attributed to DU. I will simply state the facts. 1. DU is less radioactive than naturally occurring uranium ore. 2. The DU penetrator is encased in a steel body which reduces both radioactivity and heavy metal toxicity. In the case of the ammo for the GAU-8, it is an aluminum windscreen. Unless the outer shell is cracked, the DU is not exposed. The APDSFS long rod penetrator is buried in the aluminum or steel cartridge casing, with less than 20% of the steel encased point exposed, further insulating the DU. You cannot get heavy metal toxicity or radioactive damage from a properly handled round. 3. M829A1 APDSFS rounds are packed in shipping cases which further insulated the DU from the environment. There was no possible way for DU rounds in shipping containers to contaminate air, water or earth. Being downwind, upwind, where ever meant nothing as far as any contamination. 4. The possible contamination of Coalition personnel would have been from exploring Iraqi AFVs or friendly AFVs with heavy armor after they were penetrated by DU ammo. The DU penetrators shed incandescent shards as it passes through armor. Note the armor has to be thick enough to resist penetration and the penetration has to be into the crew compartment. In almost all cases, M829A1 rounds passing through light armor were not subjected to sufficient resistance to shed shards. Ammo from the GAU-8 that penetrated hull or turret roof armor or the light armor of APCs and such, did leave some residue. 5. This residue inside damaged or destroyed AFVs that did not blow up was DU heavy metal and toxic. Recovery personnel were to wear breathing protection and wear gloves when recovering such AFVs, This was the point of highest risk for Coalition personnel. Destroyed Iraqi, Kuwaiti and Coalition AFVs were towed to an area across the road from Ali al Salim AFB and the area placed off limits. 6. Blue painted target practice rounds do not have DU. US DU AP rounds are silver in color from the surrounding steel encasing the DU. (Thus the "Silver Bullet" for the M829A1). At the very least, the British, Russian, US and other armies continue to use DU cored AP rounds.

Radiation tends to be understood backwards by most people. Uranium isn't in fact particularly radioactive as far as such things go. It breaks down naturally extremely slowly which is where the radiation comes from for the most part. Its still hot, don't get me wrong, but that's a function of scale and mass more than anything. By and large the *shorter* the half life the more radioactive a material is, as it breaks down more often and consequently produces radiation at a higher rate. This is why uranium miners get radiation damage not from uranium with a 4 billion year half life but from one of its decay products, radium at 1600 years and one of its decay products radon at 4 days This is also why a cobalt salted bomb concept would work. Even though the direct explosive yield would be relatively small, the mini nuke would convert the cobalt[59] in to cobalt[60] that puts out enough radiation to kill *any* living thing ...but 20 years after the explosion the region would be about as radioactive as the down wind side of a coal plant

I found your narrative much more understandable at a 75% playback audio setting. You are a VERY FAST speaker! This was a very interesting video.

People tend to fear the things they don't understand. Depleted uranium is relatively harmless but most folks will never understand or believe it (for example, the slight bit of alpha radiation emitted by DU can't even pass through a single sheet of paper). There are hundreds of things on a battlefield more worrying than the kind of rounds the enemy is using.

DU has the nice effect of setting things on fire when it hits them - not only from the kinetic energy it releases, but also the chemical reaction when it impacts something solid.

Reminds me a story of a tank crew getting heavy metal poisoning after drink beer that was poured down a tank barrel...

I was an environmental engineer, and at 3:10 I heard a common logic process among humans. The government has to stockpile the uranium (? because it's bad ?) so one way to reduce this stockpile is to spread it all over the place... such as use the military to scatter it over the Earth (???) -- I want to believe Simon didn't quite mean that the way it sounded. (I certainly listened to that part over & over enough.)

Seems that I've been misled over the years, so a big Thank You for correcting me. I spent some time in the Royal Artillery, but my primary weapon wasn't a gun that fired shells, it was a surface to air missile. I was always under the impression that when Uranium 238 decays, it becomes Lead 206 (It does.....This is correct). What I was wrong about, is that I'd assumed that depleted Uranium was uranium which had decayed / been used as a radiation source to the point where it had become Lead 206, therefore essentially DU artillery / cannon shells were essentially mainly just lead with a small portion of U 238. NOW I understand what all the fuss is about!

U238 is used a radiation shielding, normally as an alloy. Despite having slight radioactive it’s self the high density, and heavy mass of the isotopes vastly out weigh its ability to stop much stronger radiation then the little it give off its self.

The great thing about DU is that it doesn't mushroom when it hits a target. It sharpens as it penetrates. It's a penetration round, not explosive due to its radioactivity (which is minimal).

Great way to get rid of radioactive waste on enemy land

Very interesting and informative.

It is important to note that the M242 Bushmaster 25mm is in the same velocity class as the M1A3 Tank's main gun and none of the other 20 and 30mm weapons can match its 1400m/s muzzle with sabot darts. There is a legit copy of it that fires the same ammunition with slightly higher feed reliability but nothing else can keep up with it short of the old 20mm recoilless rifle from some guy named Carl. The resultant conversion into dust by DU from it is marginally higher.

Because its extremely dense so combined with the weight, size of the projectile and its velocity it will pierce any current armor.

OMG, this is so stupid of an argument, I served in Germany for 3 years on M60A1's. The only reason we have these discussions is because most civilians have no basic knowledge of the military. There is a negligible amount of radioactivity from these rounds and that is after they have been fired. The depleted rounds are what are called war shots, the blue rounds are training rounds, and are made from steel. There is no danger from these rounds.

The, in theory, highly effective DU ammunition of the GAU-8 is pretty much the main reason why it's gun was and partially still is falsely held to such a high degree as ANY vehicle hit by such a bullet will, for the pilot, appear to be out of commission due to the high likelyhood of the splintering fragments catching fire and therefor giving off a lot of smoke, even if the vehicle is still fully functioning. The effectiveness of the GAU-8 is hyped to a degrees of other military myth like Tiger tanks being indistructable or T34 being most reliable ^^

Regardless on how much DU actually contributed to the health problems talked about in the video, this is a solid example of why correlation doesn't automatically equate to causation. Always good to fully investigate something scientifically and explore all possible causes.

During the first Gulf War CO's kept telling the soldiers NOT to mess with destroyed Iraqi equip. due to the use of DU ammo. Of course a good number of these soldiers were 18-20 year old chowderheads and played around anyway. Between exposure to the expended DU (willingly) and burn pits (not willingly), many vets developed Gulf War Syndrome as a result.

I always wondered why depleted uranium was used. Thanks for the video!

TLDR: The conspiracy theorists were wrong. Again.

It's dense, and thus heavy. Also you get to poison the land with radioactivity and heavy metals, and make any sort of local recovery following conflict near impossible, AND you can claim it wasn't your intention. It's a win win since you can't simply poison the wells and salt the land anymore.

DU only emits alpha particles, i.e. helium. This isn't the ionizing radiation that people are concerned about, radiation wise. Aside from getting hit by it as a soft target, it's main health risk is the same as other heavy metals: ingestion.

Another benefit of the DU crystals is that they're self-sharpening, when they impact armor the outside will sheer off allowing the rest to penetrate farther than tungsten rounds would.

I thought the CIWS depleted Uranium rounds were 20mm, not the 25mm you mentioned at the 3:47 mark. In the Navy we called it a Sea Whiz!!

I remember hearing about soldiers who transported tanks destroyed by DU to a port in Iraq. They were met by people in full hazmat suits and wondered why they had not been similarly protected. DU is a wonderful way of not having to bury it in someone's backyard, and instead spread it around on battlefields. It's a wonderful idea.

DU rounds are chambered for 338 LM with a hollow core of incendiary material. Works wonderfully for engagements on targets taking cover behind reenforced concrete.

Density. The radiation isn’t really a problem compared to the kinetic force

Simon really hates the Warthog lol. He makes 1 video about how bad it is, and now in this video, he talks about the jet all over again lol

As a vet from the 1st Gulf War era I firmly believe that chemical weapons employed by Iraq and the cocktails of shots ALL military personnel got prior to and after deployment. Those shots had never been studied when administered all together / lots each day.

So glad the government proved its heavy metal bullets aren't poisonous to soldiers.

I had chronic coughing for years after coming back from the middle east. I eventually recovered. I attributed the coughing to the ultra fine desert dust and dust residue from Saddam's oil fires stirred up by dust storms. Storms there are unlike dust storms anywhere else I've experienced.

Things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out.

I had headphones in and i thought my neighbor was playing piano.

I'd like to point out that the A-10 was never specifically designed to kill tanks, it was designed as a Close Air Support platform to replace the A2 Sky Raider, so while killing tanks was a design consideration, it wasn't it's primary purpose

I recall recently they'd narrowed down Gulf War syndrome to low doses of Sarin. While Iraq didn't use chemical weapons in the war they had stockpiles that took direct fire. It's on the wiki page for GWS

Standing on one's head at job interviews forms a lasting impression.

Although controversial, recent ecological studies have found out that tungsten cores in tank ammunition (which have been used since at least WW2) are probably worse for the environment than using depleted uranium amo. At least according to Chieftain

Holy shit actual facts?!?!?!?! I truly believed it was impossible to find facts anymore save the 3 other channels I watch. you have a new sub friend. thank you for telling objectional truths!

Apparently people have forgotten that lead is also a heavy metal and is present in every non specialized round in common use among not only military forces but also civilian use

I’m just learning about these rounds now they sound really fun🤑🥳😁🦾

What a well spoken smart gentleman right here. Pleasure watching your vid, very interesting!

Also remember, when talking about the rounds expended in these sites tonnage is for an unfired round. Say a 30mm round weighs 3 pounds (just an example, no idea what a complete cartridge weighs), 2.5 pounds is powder and casing.

The term "genocide" really has lost its sting

Do you take cover from a warthog? It'll probably just miss if you're standing out in the open, but if you get behind shelter, you might be hit by shrapnel.

ONE DOESNT HAVE TO BOTHER ABOUT THE URANIUM AFFECTING ONES OWN TANKS AND PEOPLE AS THE DEPLEATED URANIUM STAYS IN ENEMY TANKS. BUT THE URANIUM SHOULD BE VOID OF ALL THE VALUEABLE PLUTONIUM IN IT.

I went down a rabbit hole of terminologies and units of measurement when I tried to look into rates of decay and how radioactive materials are in concrete numbers. For instance, the radioactivity of DU is around 15000 bq/gram. For comparison the radioactivity in bananas in is a mere 15 bq/gram. However what really caught my eye was, of all things, potato chips. For context, a bag of potato chips is around 400 bq/gram. That is to say chips (or crisps if your from the UK) are 1/37th as radioactive as DU. How many bags of chips have you eaten throughout your life? Because if you eat them in large enough quantities you may have ingested the amount of radioactive material equivalent to eating the DU content of a Gau-8 30mm round.

Back in the day, and after the LA bank robbery, my department issued DU pistol rounds to defeat body armor. We kept them in a separate magazine on our duty belts. They were 9mm and had sharp hollow points. Shortly after, we were issued M16’s surplus military.

its used in ammunition because when they tried to dispose of it in bicycle frames people got angry.

The military has been using DU since the 1960's, Used in grenade launchers to go through stone walls. The official story is 1977, and first used in the First Gulf war.

I was in the invasion of Iraq and was never aware we had depleted uranium ammunition. Then before the invasion, we were issued .50 caliber DU ammunition.

My close friend died from heavy metal poisoning after working one week on the Yakima firing range. Govt denied it. Zero payout. Father of four.

Because when your enemy glows in the dark it makes it easier to track an escaping enemy

Depleted uranium still had over 90% of its radioactive energy remaining... It's just that it's neutron production rate isn't high for efficient fission...

Im so fried that I clicked this video thinking this was VSauce🤣 Good video tho bro, keep it up!

If you ever see the menacing shape of an A10 Warthog swooping down towards you, you really need to consider your life choices that led up to that moment. Thank you, that was very interesting.

Everyone loves to rag on the warthog... Untill they hear "brrrrrt". Then they stop talking. Forever.

I'll make it super simple. Heavy shit goes through more stuff 😂

The RU-vidr “Oxide” somehow managed to get his hands on a couple Cold War era 7.62 (.308) D.U.D.S. rounds (depleted uranium discarding sabot) and fired them into modern ceramic plate body armor. So, while the US wasn’t exactly making DU pistol rounds, they definitely were flirting with the concept of DU rifle rounds. Can’t imagine how much they cost him to acquire.

I do not always engage the enemy with armor piercing rounds but when I do, I DU. DU HAST. DU HAST MICH!

The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.

8:25 the video is about depleted uranium bullets, but then it goes to a quote about total bullets fired. While I have no doubt that 6,000,000,000 bullets were fired in and around Fallujah, I'm pretty sure that is referring to small arms lead bullets. If that number was for DU rounds that would be several million A-10 sorties where they emptied their magazines.

Back in my teenage years I thought uranium in ammo was overkill, doubly so today.

I know many children ask for a pony, but I wanted a bicycle with rockets strapped to it.

The natural nuclear reactor was super interesting. No clue if its common knowledge that just passed me, but I had no idea. Very interesting, thanks!

U238 is very heavy and dense but not radioactive. The sense bullet at speed will pierce anything.

One little thing about the sign off. If you see the A10 you’re safe, it wasnt coming for you.

The U.S. military uses tank armor and some bullets made with depleted uranium (DU) to penetrate enemy armored vehicles, and began using DU on a large scale during the Gulf War. The process of manufacturing enriched uranium from natural uranium used in nuclear reactors or weapons leaves "depleted" uranium. DU has 40 percent less radioactivity, but the same chemical toxicity as natural uranium. If you think you were exposed to depleted uranium during your service, talk to your local VA Environmental Health Coordinator. Ask to be screened for depleted uranium exposure, and ask about the Depleted Uranium Follow-up Program.