Jim choate says:

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There is some confusion in terminology here. The brass case is indeed discarded when the round is fired. Byt 'casing' he means the exterior of the warhead. The word 'round' is used for both the warhead+gunpowder+brass and then for the warhead itself. Larger artillery pieces do not use a brass shell case at all. The round is loaded, and then the powder is rammed in after it.

That is called the 'jacket' in all the years I have handled weapons that is the only correct term for it. The casing is where the powder goes.

Correct -- the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Ammunition fully agrees with you on this point.

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I can find no reference any U-core round being HE or otherwise carrying a charge. In all cases that I am aware of and can find reference to it is simply a KE attack on the target where the by products of the impact bounce around inside the target grinding up whatever is in there.

I believe that this is true, except that the 'products of the impact' are drops of metal and what they do is worse than grinding something up.

The pieces in most cases are simply slivers of metal that breaks off the inside of the tank because of hyper-sonic shockwaves. They are not molten and do not in general cause a fire. Other than a lucky hit on a live round with the ammo door open there is little chance of starting a fire.

Correct, in the case of kinetic energy weapons -- shaped charge weapons end up squirting a jet of molten metal through the armor. There may be a misunderstanding about what is being discussed here. However, might I suggest that this has gotten VERY far afield of cryptography? .pm

Jim choate says:

The pieces in most cases are simply slivers of metal that breaks off the inside of the tank because of hyper-sonic shockwaves. They are not molten and do not in general cause a fire. Other than a lucky hit on a live round with the ammo door open there is little chance of starting a fire.

Actually, my last comment was premature -- I hadn't read what you said carefully. If you meant to say that such things as discarding sabot shots don't penetrate the armor directly, according to the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Ammunition, non-shaped charge armor piercing projectiles do indeed pierce the armor. Incidently, I was wrong on one point -- there is a kind of shell called a "piercing shell" designed to explode after penetration -- but these are apparently not very successful with modern armor and are rarely used. Perry PS again, this really should be terminated -- it doesn't belong in cypherpunks.