
512 Ballistics: Theory and Design of Guns and Ammunition
Usually V, V
N
, and V
A
are within a few percent of one another. This allows us to use them
somewhat interchangeably. Also, for most explosives, V/2D is approximately constant [1].
If we examine a typical HE shell and assume a detonation velocity D from the fuze, and
given that we know the geometry, we can generate a reasonable estimate for the spray
pattern of the fragments. We do this by dividing the shell into segments and solving
for the Gurney velocities and Taylor angles in each segment. We can curve-t the data.
Spreadsheet programs are great for this task. However, there are spec