[Urbane Guerrilla]

Well, first it gets blasted into white heat by the hollow-charge explosive -- it's all an improvement on the antitank hollow charge missile of Panzerfaust and bazooka fame, and PIAT too. WW2 tech. In that time, they found a thin copper cone lining the business end of the hollow charge increased its piercing ability; this just seems an advance upon that.

Once formed, it torches its way in. Once it gets in, it sets absolutely everything on fire inside as well as busting everything to fragments, and also burns up all the oxygen. So I suppose the first stage of the fire is brief, but the crew by then is toast.

A DU projectile does a lot the same as far as fire and smashing goes, just by a different launch mechanism: not only is the entire interior hosed, not just showered, with white-hot bits of metal, you've got this nice heavy penetrator ricocheting around inside slowly dispersing its MV, striking more sparks and pretty much cutting up crew, munitions, and machinery into mixed junk, while either burning or exploding the high explosive from the main gun's shells. No wonder burning tanks throw glowing lumps out the hatches, or blow their turrets off.

Returning, somewhat, to thread: Fobble, that's what I should do, thanks. The quote-boxes tend to swallow the contrasts otherwise, and I've got otherwise... hmm, that's for IE, and I'm on Firefox...