Tungsten alloy cluster bomb, which is also known as tungsten alloy cluster munition, is a container filled with small explosive bombs called “sub-munitions.” This container may be a shell, rocket, missile, or other device. Dropped from an aircraft or fired from the ground, it opens in the air and releases the tungsten alloy sub-munitions. This scatters a carpet of bombs over a large area without any degree of accuracy, to attack cluster targets such as cluster tanks, armored combat vehicles, military assembly sites, or large area targets such as airport runways.

Tungsten alloy applied for gyroscope of antiship missile is an alloy composed of tungsten (W) as a matrix and Ni, Fe, Cu, Co, Mn and other alloying elements to form a composite structure of tungsten particles and bonding phase. The navigation gyroscope is the heart of navigation and control systems of antiship missiles and even submarines, torpedoes, satellites, rockets, and aircraft. At present, there are various advanced navigation technologies in the world, but the inertial guidance gyroscope is still the most widely used navigation instrument in the world.

Tungsten alloy applied for military defense is tungsten heavy alloy that is 90% to 97% pure tungsten in a matrix of nickel and copper, or nickel and iron. Why these alloying elements are necessary? That is because pure tungsten is very difficult to machine or fabricate, addition of these elements improves both the ductility and machinability of the alloys while retaining its high density. These tungsten heavy alloys are ideal for high density applications where machining is required. For example, tungsten alloy is widely used as the cores of armor-piercing projectiles, the shaped charge liners of shaped charges, the warheads of rockets and artillery shells, the rotors of missile gyroscopes, the projectiles of clusters, etc.

It has been reported that tungsten alloy is widely used in the weapon industry because of its advantages such as high density, high strength, high toughness, and high impact toughness. And the weapon industry has become a major consumer of tungsten alloys. Well, do you know the specific applications of tungsten alloy in the weapon industry?