Computing the lethality of a ballistic projectile

Abstract

One of the observations made over and over in the operation Desert Storm was the need to know the lethality of ballistic projectiles in the sky. One such measure is of the ballistic coefficient of the object. With this number one can distinguish a man in a parachute, debris, "lethal debris", a bomb, a missile, a plane, ... etc. This article addresses a mathematical approach that can be used to compute the ballistic coefficient.<>