Day 142, military unpleasantness

Human beings can be a nasty bunch.

And what ingenuity there has been in making sure we can be as unpleasant as possible.

Flechettes are a delightful example of this.  First recorded in the 14th century, and still in use to the present day, they are typically small metal arrows or barbs fired from a weapon and designed to penetrate the body of a person.  Less likely to kill someone outright than cause flesh-trauma.  Rather than pass straight through a body as is usually the case of a high velocity round (even though one of those may tumble, deform, and leave a large cavity) the flechette deforms in shape, either before or on impact, slicing and shredding flesh. They are also likely to break up on impact with the fragments following different paths through the body.  The flechette enters but does not exit the body.

So what's the point of not killing your opponent, this is war after all?

Yeah, well, you'd think that perhaps.  But there is a long known method of warfare (pretty much most warfare) which has the aim of demoralising and consuming time of the opposition.  Demoralisation by the process of showing many others the pain and distress of those taking part in battle rather than the victim being immediately rendered history.  Time consuming in that they are no longer an active combatant but one that requires retrieving from the battle ground by other would-be combatants, and then the victim subsequently needs intensive medical treatment.  Treatment is likely to be much more time consuming for the survivor of a flechette wound than from that of a high velocity bullet round given the more diverse nature of the wounds that can be encountered.

It was suggested during one of the moves to ban such weapons that there were flechettes made from undetectable materials (glass, plastics of similar density to muscle) used during the Vietnam war were less easy to locate by x-ray.  An example of how the time consuming nature of dealing with the wound could be prolonged.

Flechettes are not generally fired from a gun at a single opponent, they are considered to be especially effective in situations where there is a lot of foliage (e.g. jungle, Vietnam), they may be dropped from the air and detonated as an 'air-burst', they may be detonated at ground level, both of the latter firing thousands of the little buggers out all at once.

That these weapons have often been used in locations with civilians is a further unpleasant aspect.

What a charming lot we can be.