Energised Fragments, Bullets and Fragment Simulating Projectiles

Abstract

The pattern of injuries sustained by soldiers is determined by the types of wounding agent, the tissues they penetrate and any methods of preventing that initial injury. In current conflicts the burden of injuries directly sustained from conflict far outweighs that sustained outside of battle or secondary to disease, in direct contrast to almost every conflict ever experienced in history prior to the twenty-first century. Throughout the history of warfare, penetrating injury has been the most common cause of death on the battlefield, with only a small proportion (4 %) of battle injuries from blunt trauma. Blunt trauma is commonly caused from the force of the explosive blast wave throwing the soldier against an object (the tertiary blast effect) [1]. Blunt injury due to interpersonal assault or road traffic accidents is responsible for most non battle injuries, with patterns reflective of that seen in civilian wounds. The term ‘ballistic wounds’ is loosely used in both popular culture as well as medicine to describe any injury due to firearm. In terms of potential wounding mechanisms produced in a military environment, ballistic injuries can be broadly divided into those from bullets and those from energised fragment producing munitions and devices [2–11] (Table 18.1). These injuries can be termed “secondary blast injuries”, following on the definitions in Chap. 6.