Cocaine Cowboys: Reloaded (2014) –

While doing the post-surgery recovery, we have been watching alot of stuff and this documentary was the latest. We did not live there at the time, but they described the most violent murders with the addresses included and we kept going “We been there… we visited there… yes, been there too…. holy fuck that was near our house.”

And you know what? I have the feeling some locations in the US are about to feel the same pain Miami did back in the day.

But the best tidbit of information was about criminals being killed while engaged in a felony and knowing that almost half of the critters were taken down by armed civilians. Pretty much the Marielito crime element was tamed by Good Guys with Guns.

Reading media reports is driving me crazy. We’ve got democrats introducing new gun control everyday. We’ve got bad guys winning 2A cases.

We’ve got inflation going through the roof and our government taking victory laps because it isn’t as bad as it was last month.

Nothing but clowns and jokers everywhere you look in DC.

And as recorded:

In my last post on shaped charges, I was asked in the comments about explosive welding.  Why not?

Explosive welding is also known as explosive cladding.  It is a process by which a cladding material is explosively bonded to a backing material.

Why do it?  Besides that blowing shit up is cool as fuck.

Cladding is a process in which a layer of some material with desirable properties is laid over and bonded to a structural substrate.

People are often familiar with this as hardfacing.  A steel member, like an auger blade, die, teeth on an excavator, etc., is welded over with a hard, wear-resistant surface material.

Cladding is often done for corrosion resistance.  I was first introduced to is with alkalizer units in a refinery, which use almost pure sulfuric or hydrofluoric acid.  The tank is lined with tantalum.  Tantalum is very expensive, so it is clad onto steel which makes up the structural component of the pressure vessel.

Cladding is much thicker than plating, which is put on as an electrochemical process.  Platings are thin and do contain porosity.  For very harsh chemical environments, platings are insufficient to protect the substrate material.  This is where cladding comes in.

Quite often cladding is applied with a welder.  God only knows how many miles of hardface cladding I put on with SMAW when I was learning to weld.  Just facing conveyor rollers for a cement plant building up hours with a torch.

But there are times when that cannot be done.  The metals cannot be welded together for a variety or reasons.  Sometimes the two metals form brittle intermetallics, such as aluminum and steel. With tantalum, the melting temperature of tantalum is higher than the vaporization temperature of steel, so tantalum cannot be welded to the steel with fusion welding.

Explosive welding is a solid-state process that bonds the materials together mechanically.  There is no alloying of the two metals.

The metal to be clad is called the flyer plate.  It is placed over the base plate with small plastic pucks that give it a standoff distance.

The flyer plate is backed with explosives, and a detonator is placed in one corner.  The shockwave drives the flyer plate into the base plate, starting at that corner and radiating outward.

This is very similar to how a shaped charge works.  When the metal plates impact at thousands of meters per second, that same thin shear layer forms, and any surface impurities, oxides, and contaminates squirt out from between the plates as a jet.

The material softened by the impact but not squirted out as a jet ripple against one another and lock mechanically with what looks like ocean waves and hook together like Velcro.

The clad plate can then be assembled into a structure.

This process allows very dissimilar metals to be permanently bonded together without issues associated with the fusion welding of dissimilar metals.

The downside is you can only do large flat sheets.  It’s not a process that is conducive to complex geometries.

Usually, explosives are used for blowing things apart, but every once in a while they can be used to blow things together.

Also, because blowing shit up is cool as fuck.

–

Update:

Yes, the clad plate can be roll formed like other plates.

To make a tank, the plates are aligned and butt-welded together.  The steel backing plate can be welded to other steel backing plates on the back and the cladding is welded to other cladding on the front.

The welding is done a little more shallow to prevent the weldpool from penetrating through one layer into the next.

I should also add, this is where advanced knowledge of explosives it key.

Explosive welding is best done with low velocity explosives like ANFO, where shaped charges are best made with high velocity explosives like RDX and PETN.

The speed of the detonation and shockwave affects the thickness of that shear jetting layer.

A high velocity explosive will create a larger jet, great for armor piercing.

A low velocity explosive will create enough jet to clean the plates but will bond the together.

If you tried to explosive welding two plates with Comp B or Semtex,you won’t get a good plate but a huge shape charge.

B.L.A.B. Bottom Line At Bottom

In 1967 a bad dude was arrested in connection to a rape and kidnapping. He was also charged with robbery where he matched the description.

Appellant was convicted of the crime of kidnapping, Count I; and Rape, Count II; and sentenced to serve from twenty to thirty years on each count, to run concurrently. From the judgment and sentence of the court he appeals. Appellant, hereinafter called defendant, was in another information charged with the crime of robbery. After arraignment in the instant case, on motion of the county attorney, the trial on the robbery case was consolidated with the instant case, but thereafter one day prior to the trial of this case separate trials were granted. Defendant was tried and convicted on the robbery charge, from which he is also appealing in the companion case…

Here is the court’s description of the case:

The facts, as they relate to the defense as charged under Counts I and II in the instant case are as follows: On March 3, 1963, the complaining witness a girl eighteen years of age had been working in the concession stand at the Paramount Theatre in downtown Phoenix, and had taken the bus to 7th Street and Marlette. After getting off the bus, she had started to walk toward her home. She observed a car, which afterwards proved to be defendant’s, which had been parked behind the ballet school on Marlette. The car pulled out of the lot, and came so close to her that she had to jump back to prevent being hit. It then parked across from some apartments in the same block. Defendant then left his car, walked toward her, and grabbed her. He told her not to scream, that he would not hurt her. He held her hands behind her back, put a hand over her mouth, and pulled her toward the car. He put her in the back seat, tied her hands and feet, and put a sharp thing to her neck and said to her “Feel this.” She stated it all happened so suddenly that she did not have time to do anything. Defendant was unknown to the complaining witness. She had not seen him before, and he was not related to her in any way.

He then drove the car for about twenty minutes, during which time complaining witness was lying in the back seat crying. When defendant stopped the car, he came to the back seat, and untied her hands and feet. He told her to pull off her clothes. She said “no,” whereupon he started to remove them. She tried to push away from him, but he proceeded to remove her clothing. And, then, after one unsuccessful attempt, made a successful sexual penetration, while she pushed with her hands and was screaming. She testified:
*22 “I was pushing against him with my hands. I kept screaming, I was trying to get away but he was a lot stronger than I was, and I couldn’t do anything.”

He then drove her to 12th Street and Rose Lane, during which time she dressed. She ran home, and told her family, who called the police. Her sister testified that the complaining witness came home that morning crying and looking as if she had been in a fight. On March 13, 1963, defendant was apprehended by the police. The officers who picked him up both testified that he was put into the “line-up” and was identified by complaining witness. Thereafter he confessed that he had forced complaining witness into his car, drove away with her, and raped her. After these statements he signed a statement, partly typed and partly in his own handwriting, which was substantially to the same effect as the testimony of the officers. Defendant offered no evidence in his defense at the trial of his case.

So there you have it. Open and shut case. Dude stalked this girl, grabbed her off the street, forced her into his car, threatened her with a knife, then raped her. He then drove off with her and later released her.

When the cops arrested him, he confessed. At his trial he offered no evidence in his defense.

He was guilt, the judge knew it, the jury knew it. He was found guilty and sentenced to 20 to 30 years.

At the same time he confessed to the robbery but didn’t sign a written confession. He was found guilty of the robbery as well and sentenced to 20 to 30 years.

The law at work.

This court appointed lawyer, at trial claimed that his client was to ignorant to knew he had rights under the constitution. That he just talked to the cops and then signed his confession. Because he didn’t have his lawyer present, his confession should not be admitted.

The court disagreed and the confession was entered into evidence.

After he was found guilty, he appealed to the Arizona Supreme court.

Defendant contends that admission into evidence of his written confession was error for the reason that he did not have an attorney at the time the statement was made and signed. The police officers Young and Cooley testified to oral statements made to them before the signing of the written confession. Their testimony was substantially the same. They first saw defendant at his home at 2525 West Maricopa on March 13, 1963, when they went there for the purpose of investigating a rape. They took defendant to the police station and placed him in a “line-up” with “four other Mexican males, all approximately the same age and height, build,” and brought in the complaining witness who identified him as the one who had perpetrated the acts against her. Then they immediately interrogated him. They advised him of his rights. They testified that he made the statement of his own free will; and that there were no threats, or use of force and coercion, or promises of immunity; that they had informed him of his legal rights and that any statement he made might be used against him.

Having weighed all of the arguments and evidence, the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the conviction in the rape case.

Justice is served, a bad dude is in prison for 20-30 years. A raped woman gets to face the animal and help send him to prison.

Unfortunately, this scumbag wasn’t done abusing the court system. He appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. His claim was that since he didn’t have his lawyer present when he gave his confession that it shouldn’t have been admitted into evidence at trial.

The Supreme Court combined his case with others and in 1966 issued their opinion.

Our holding will be spelled out with some specificity in the pages which follow but briefly stated it is this: the prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination. By custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way. As for the procedural safeguards to be employed, unless other fully effective means are devised to inform accused persons of their right of silence and to assure a continuous opportunity to exercise it, the following measures are required. Prior to any questioning, the person must be warned that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used as evidence against him, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed. The defendant may waive effectuation of these rights, provided the waiver is made voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently. If, however, he indicates in any manner and at any stage of the process that he wishes to consult with an attorney before speaking there can be no questioning. Likewise, if the individual is alone and indicates in any manner that he does not wish to be interrogated, the police may not question him. The mere fact that he may have answered some questions or volunteered some statements on his own does not deprive him of the right to refrain from answering any further inquiries until he has consulted with an attorney and thereafter consents to be questioned.

Bottom Line At Bottom

This is the famous Miranda v. Arizona case. The Supreme court case that lead to “Miranda Warnings”. This is good case law. Unfortunately it meant that Miranda’s conviction was overturned. He was retried with his confession not being admitted into evidence. He as found guilty again and sentenced to 20-30 years. His robbery conviction was not overturned.

A good outcome in the end, both for Case Law and for society by putting this animal away for decades.

State of Arizona v. Ernest Arthur Miranda, 98 Ariz 18(1965) No. 1394

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 US 436 – Supreme Court 1966

He wasn’t just “walking home.” Stand Your ground was never an issue but for Gun Control and the Media.

But they need to lie and lie because they cannot raise funding with the truth.

And that is pretty much what the Gun Control movement is good for now: White Liberals’ version of BLM seeking cash to buy their own mansions paid by the fools that follow them.

-“Mr. Gonzalez, I am prescribing you Hydrocodone for the post-surgery pain. Take one pill every six hours.”
-“Good, I don’t like pain.”
-“Opioids will make you constipated. You may need a stool softener or laxative.”
-“Whut?!?”

I only took 3 pills, and I am now officially off opioid painkillers. Still, it took me 2 days to be back to the wife bitching about me not using enough Fabreeze in the bathroom.

Because relief comes spelled in more than one way. Plus being bloated after having abdominal surgery is not a very smart combination.

And no, I won’t post pictures.

I’ve been working on a project for several months, that is going to turn into a post, hopefully in about a week or so.  I’m looking forward to publishing the final results.

As I gear up for it, I was thinking about other work I have done in this area and wanted to share some of that with you.

I don’t have much in the way of impressive skills.  I’m not an artist or a musician.  I can’t dance.  My writing sucks.

What I am, though, is an extremely good metallurgist.  And a bit of a sick evil fuck.  That makes for an interesting combination.

What I am exceptionally good at is using metallurgy to kill things better.

Once upon a time, I was classified by the DOD as an “enhanced lethality engineer.”  I really wish I had gotten business cards with that printed on them.

Here was the nature of that job.

Let’s say you have a missile system, like the TOW or Javlin.

It exists and has existed for a while.  There are (or were) many in inventory.  Soldiers have been trained on them.  There is an entire production infrastructure that exists to make them.

But they are not as effective as they once were on the newest generation of armored vehicles.

Rather than scrap them, my job was to improve the warhead, so that existing systems could be upgraded to be more effective.

I enhanced the lethality of an existing system, hence, I was an enhanced lethality engineer.

This type of system upgrade happens all the time.  Guidance improvements for accuracy, rocket improvements for range and speed, etc.

I did warheads.

The explosive physics of a shaped charge is not terribly complicated.

There is a cone of metal backed by a charge of explosives.  The explosive detonates.  That sends a shockwave into the back of the cone at a speed of 8,000+ meters per second.  The cone collapses.  As the walls of the cone impact each other, the material at the inner surface of that cone experiences forces in the range of tens and hundreds of gigapascals.  That much pressure causes the metal to undergo shear and act like a liquid.  It literally squirts out of the cone, sort of like how you can shoot a watermelon seed from between your fingertips by squeezing it.

The front of that jet is moving at about 12 kilometers per second.  The back of the jet at about 6 kilometers per second.

The jet takes a short distance to form, which is your optimal standoff distance for the warhead.

Only the inner layer of the cone forms the jet, the rest of the cone becomes a slug and travels behind the jet at about 3 to 4 kilometers per second.

When the fully formed jet hits the target, it erodes it, like a water jet cutter.  When you were a kid, did you ever squirt a hole into the dirt with the jet nozzle on a garden hose?  Same thing.

The penetration of the jet is a function of the length of the jet and the relative densities of the jet and the armor.  If you wondered why some tanks use depleted uranium armor, this is why.  No metal is strong enough to resist impact at velocities of 12 kilometers per second and tens of gigapascals of force, so you just use the densest material you can to limit the depth of jet penetration.

The length of the jet is determined by the diameter and angle of the cone.  The optimal angle for a deep penetrating jet is 42°.  The diameter is limited by the size of the missile.

All you can do is play with the density of the metallic liner.

Typically, the liner is copper.  Copper has a higher density than steel and is very ductile.  The liner material has to be ductile, or the liner will shatter and not form a good jet.

The amount of precision that goes into making shaped charge liners is very high.  Tolerances in the tenths of thousands of an inch.  Little imperfections alter how the jet forms and reduce its penetrating capacity.  Military shaped charge liners are very expensive.

As an aside, the shaped charge liner design for perforating charges in oil and gas is different.  In a military setting, you only get one shot to kill a tank.  If you don’t it will shoot back.  In oil and gas, rocks don’t shoot back.  You use lots of charges to perf a rock so shaped charge liners have to be cheaper to be cost-effective.  Oil and gas love powder metal liners because they are less ductile and the slug breaks up and doesn’t plug the perf hole.

One of the metals that makes better liners is molybdenum.  It’s more dense than copper and forms a jet very well.  The problem is, it doesn’t deep draw easily like copper does, so making liners is harder.

I started out on an additive manufacturing process that created full-density moly liners that had the metallurgical properties to make good jets.  There is a lot of metallurgy, grain size, orientation, etc, that affects jet formation and we wanted to optimize for that.

But then I got to thinking.

We know that only the inner layer of the cone forms a jet and the rest forms a slug.

You need the cone to have a certain thickness, if you try to make it thinner so that only that jet-forming layer is there, it won’t form a jet.  The backing layer of the cone is what drives the jet formation.

The good news is that we know just how thick that jet-forming layer is.

So, what can we do?

I made a bi-metallic liner.

The inner layer was jet-forming molybdenum.

What to make the driving layer from?

How about zirconium?  It bonds well to molybdenum so you don’t get delamination during jet formation.  It can be applied with the same additive manufacturing process as the moly.

Oh yeah, and it’s pyrophoric and burns at a few thousand degrees in air.

When the charge goes off, the bi-metallic cone collapses.  The molybdenum inner layer shears and turns into a jet at 12 kilometers per second and erodes a hole through the armor.  The zirconium slug traveling behind hits the hole made by the moly jet.  The zirconium slug sheers through the hole and comes out the other side having been adiabatically heated to a few hundred degrees.

The hot zirconium exits the hole into the crew compartment of the armored target and ignites, spraying everywhere.

I just punched a hole through the side of your armored vehicle with a hypersonic jet of molten metal and then sprayed your crew, your ammo, and your fuel with 3,000° burning metal with three times the muzzle velocity of a 5.56.

Why?

Because it was fucking fun to design this shit and set it off.

The word engineer means “one who builds engines.”

The word engine, in its origin, meant a siege engine, a machine for breaching fortifications.

Metallurgy is the oldest form of science.  It is what made us take that first step from using the materials we found around us in the Stone Age to making the materials we needed with smelting in the Bronze Age.  All of civilization became possible when we started making metal tools.

I embrace the roots of my field.

I am a metallurgical engineer.

I use my knowledge of metal to build more effective machines for breaching fortifications.

Better killing through metallurgy.