bomb disposal terms

[Dave Wilton]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of James A. Landau
> Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2005 3:08 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: bomb disposal terms

> >
> >
> >p. 18
> >Shaped Charge (OED has 1948)
> >"You needn't be  quite so meticulous with those shaped charges, Hubert."
>
>
> 1948 is dubious.  The principle of the shaped charge ("Munro effect")  was
> discovered by Munro in I think the 1880's.  Shaped charges were
> used in  the
> warheads of the US Army's bazooka during World War II----I don't
> know if the
> contemporary British PIAT and German Panzerfaust also used shaped charges.

I've found a 1943 use in the NY Times: "A new 'shaped charge' has been
developed, a training officer said, which will make a hole in three-foot
concrete or tear through three-inch armor." 16 Jun 1943, p. 10. There are
four other NY Times citations of "shaped charge" in 1946-47.

The principle behind the shaped charge may be considerably older than the
particular term itself.

And it was a British member of the team at Los Alamos who, in 1944,
suggested using shaped charges to implode the plutonium in the "Fat Man"
bomb. (Perhaps this was Wilson's reference.) So, the term could have arisen
in the UK, although the early uses all seem to be US ones.

--Dave Wilton
  dave at wilton.net
  http://www.wilton.net