What are trackers? Tracers are balls with a material on the base that ignites and shines while flying. The colors used are green, yellow, white, orange and red. Plotters literally inspired Star Wars lasers. This is a lesser-known fact, but tracers come in different intensities from very low to very bright for different missions. For example, very weak tracers are sometimes used at night because they do not ruin night vision and are more difficult for the enemy to see. Ancient tracers ignited quickly after leaving the estuary, but modern tracers traveled a certain distance before ignition. This is to make it difficult for the enemy to determine where the Tranzer came from. Another use of the tracer is in armored-hulled machine guns, mostly from obsolete tanks, where the machine gun driver cannot see directly along the gun, so he must rely on tracer bullets to direct his target. However, modern battle tanks and armored fighting vehicles use advanced fire control systems that can accurately target secondary weapons with the main armament. although the continued use of tracers gives shooters security against machine gun fire. There are three types of tracers: Bright Tracer, Subdued Tracer and Dim Tracer. Glossy tracers are the standard type that begins to burn very soon after leaving the muzzle.
A disadvantage of light plotters is that they transmit the location of the shooter to the enemy; As a military proverb says, “trackers work both ways.” Light trackers can also overwhelm night vision devices and make them unusable. The cushioned plotters burn at full brightness after a hundred meters or more to avoid betraying the position of the shooter. Dark trackers burn very weakly, but are clearly visible through night vision devices. The M276 is a 7.62 ×51 mm purple-tipped NATO dimming plotter that uses the composition R 440, which is barium peroxide, strontium peroxide, calcium resinate, e.g. calcium flap, and magnesium carbonate. In most places, it`s not illegal, as others point out, but they can do it. Also in our rifles we sometimes load the last cartridges with tracers as an indicator that we must reload immediately. Trackers can also be used to direct fire at a specific target as they are visible to other fighters. The disadvantage is that they reveal the position of the shooter; The path of the tracer returns to its source.
To make it harder for an enemy to do this, most modern trackers have a delay element, which makes the track visible at a certain distance from the muzzle. The M196 Tracer (54-grain bullet) 5.56mm x 45mm NATO cartridge was developed for the original M16 rifle and is compatible with the M16A1 barrel, which also uses a 1:12 lathe. It has a red tip and is designed to be traced up to 500 yards, and the trajectory is equivalent to the M193 ball cartridge (56 grains), which has no tip color. Trajectory matching or ballistic correspondence is achieved between two spheres of slightly different weight and aerodynamic properties by adjusting the weight of the cartridge blowing agent, the type of blowing agent and the muzzle velocity to stay within the safe pressure limits, but providing each projectile with a trajectory to the target that is almost identical in all target atmospheric conditions and application areas. during the same finish line with scope. Trajectory matching is not supposed to be perfect, a technical impossibility among the closest similarities between the two spheres, which, in the case of the plotter, is even more complicated when the plotter loses mass and changes its resistance properties during flight. The intention is for the tracer to match the bullet well enough to engage in machine gun fire. In July 2009, a large fire was ignited by tracer munitions near Marseille, in France, an area where shrub vegetation is very dry and flammable in summer and where normally this type of ammunition should not be used. [12] Historically, aircraft used them to target other aircraft.
This stopped towards the end of World War II, when the Allies realized that their data proved that the use of tracers reduced pilots` chances of survival – probably because they made their location accessible to the enemy, more than offsetting the benefits of accuracy. Even with machine guns, tracers can be used to “enter” projectiles towards the target. Depending on the target, the lethality of the tracer bullet may resemble that of standard ball ammunition. [9] The front part of a tracer projectile contains a considerable thrust of filling lead, almost as much as the non-tracer spherical circumference with which its trajectory coincides. [10] In the case of the M196/M193 bullet set, the differences in lethality are probably negligible for this reason. However, with the M856/M855 ball set, the M855 ball cartridge contains a steel indentation tip that is not present in the M856 tracer bullet. As a result, different lethality effects are to be expected against different objectives. Nevertheless, in some circumstances, a slight deterioration in lethality can often be offset by the psychological and oppressive effects of fire that tracer projectiles can have on an enemy who receives them. On February 24, 2013, a fire at the DFW Gun Club in Dallas, Texas, was started by the use of tracer ammunition in the facility. [13] Tracers also typically require a minimum distance to ignite.
I say this because someone mentions the whole thing, put it at the end of your magazine to know when you are outside when trackers are applied. If it`s an HD or CQB situation, they really don`t work. When used, trackers are usually loaded every five shots into machine gun belts called four-on-one trackers. Platoon and squad leaders load light-caliber projectiles into their magazines, or even use only light tracks to mark targets their soldiers can shoot at. The trackers are also sometimes placed two or three cartridges from the bottom of the magazines to alert shooters that their weapons are almost empty. During World War II, aircraft equipped with fixed machine guns or mounted guns sometimes had a series of tracer projectiles added near the end of ammunition belts to alert the pilot that he had almost no ammunition left. However, this practice also warned clever enemies that their enemies had almost no ammunition left. Most often, however, the entire magazine was loaded from four to one, with fixed offensive guns and flexible defensive guns, to alleviate the difficulties of the air rifle posture.
Tracers were very common in most World War II aircraft, with the exception of night fighters, which had to be able to attack and shoot down the enemy before realizing they were under attack, and without revealing their own location to enemy defenders. The United States relied heavily on tracer ammunition for Browning M2.50 caliber defensive machine guns on its heavy bombers such as the B-24 Liberator. This gives you a visual education about plotters: the UK was the first to develop and introduce a plotter cartridge in 1915, a version of the .303 cartridge. [2] The United States introduced a .30-06 tracer in 1917. [3] Before the introduction of red bullet tips (and later of different colors) for plotters, American tracers were identified by blackened cartridge cases. Set goals (e.g., Whoever is in charge shoots at tracers where he wants the squad to shoot). A friend was on the shooting range and someone only fired tracers. The safety net consisted of wooden pallets and old tires against an earth embankment.
I`ve read articles about tracing ammunition on Wikipedia and I`m still not quite sure what it is, what it`s used for, and why it`s illegal? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Tracer ammunition is bullets or cannon-caliber projectiles that are built with a small pyrotechnic charge in their base. When firing, the pyrotechnic composition is ignited by the burning powder and burns very brightly, which makes the trajectory of the projectile very bright in daylight with the naked eye and in night shots. This allows the shooter to visually follow the trajectory of the projectile, making the necessary ballistic corrections without having to confirm projectile impacts and without even using the weapon`s visor. Tracer shooting can also be used as a marking tool to signal other shooters to focus their shot on a specific target during combat. Many indoor areas do not allow the use of tracers, as a good amount of combustible materials can remain around the backstop and trap area (or other parts of the range) to cause a serious fire that would burn the area (this obviously also applies outdoors with brushes and other combustible materials outside that could lead to forest fires, for example). During World War II, the crew of the U.S. Navy and Navy received tracing cartridges with their handguns for the use of distress signals as well as for defense. [4] Tracer bullets can also have a slight fire effect and ignite flammable substances on contact, provided that the tracer compound has begun to burn and still burns on impact.
A tracer projectile consists of a hollow base filled with pyrotechnic material and consists of a mixture of a very finely ground metal fuel, an oxidizing agent and a small amount of organic fuel. [5] Metallic fuels include magnesium, aluminum and sometimes zirconium. The oxidizing agent is a salt molecule that contains oxygen in combination with a specific atom responsible for the desired color output. During ignition, the heated salt releases its oxygen to maintain the combustion of the fuel in the mixture. The color-emitting atom in the salt is also released and reacts chemically with the excess oxygen, which is the source of the colored flame. In NATO STANDARD munitions (including the United States), the oxidation salt is usually a mixture of strontium compounds (nitrate, peroxide, etc.) and the metal fuel is magnesium. Burning strontium gives a bright red light.
