A flechette (English pronunciation: /flɛˈʃɛt/) is a pointed steel projectile, with a vaned tail for stable flight. The name comes from French fléchette, "little arrow" or "dart", and sometimes retains the acute accent in English: fléchette.
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Smaller flechettes were used in special artillery shells called "beehive" rounds (so named for the very distinctive whistling buzz made by thousands of flechettes flying downrange at supersonic speeds) and intended for use against troops in the open – a ballistic shell packed with flechettes was fired and set off by a mechanical time fuse, scattering flechettes in an expanding cone. They were used in the Vietnam War by 105mm howitzer batteries and tanks (90mm guns) to defend themselves against massed infantry attacks. There was also a flechette round for the 106mm recoilless rifle, which was sometimes employed by American infantry. Heavier artillery, namely 155mm howitzers, 8-inch howitzers, and 175mm guns, did not have a flechette round and instead used either a standard HE round with a time fuze set to 0.0 seconds (resulting in detonation as soon as the round cleared the muzzle) or a double powder charge with no projectile, which inflicted casualties by the muzzle blast alone.
After work by Johns Hopkins University in the 1950s there was a concept for Direct Injection Antipersonnel Chemical Biological Agent (DIACBA) where flechettes were grooved, hollow pointed, or otherwise milled to retain a quantity of chemical biological warfare agent to deliver through a ballistic wound.[1] The initial work was with VX, but found that it had to be thickened for the flechette to deliver a reliable dose. Eventually this was replaced by a particulate carbamate.
The 70mm Hydra 70 rocket currently in service with the US Armed forces can be fitted with an anti-personnel (APERS) warhead containing 96 flechettes. They are carried by attack helicopters such as the AH-64 Apache and the AH-1 Cobra.
Small arms makers are also attracted by the exterior ballistic performance and armor-piercing potential of flechettes, and a number of attempts have been made to field flechette-firing small arms.
During the Vietnam War the United states employed 12 gauge combat shotguns that were used with flechette loads that consisted of around 20 flechettes per shell.[2][3] The USSR/Russian federation had/has the AO-27 rifle, and other countries have their own flechette rounds.
The US Biological Program also had a microflechette to deliver either botulinum toxin A or saxitoxin, the M1 Biodart, which resembled a 7.62 mm rifle cartridge.
A number of prototype flechette-firing weapons were developed as part of the long-running Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) project. Some of these showed up as entries in the Advanced Combat Rifle project as well.
An interesting variation of the flechette that addresses its difficulties is the SCMITR, developed as part of the Close Assault Weapon System, or CAWS, project. This project involved selective-fire, flechette-firing shotguns. The SCMITR was designed to retain the exterior ballistics and penetration of the standard flechette, but increase wounding ability by providing a wider wound path.