page_title: Flechette
section_title: Small-arms ammunition
hierarchical_section_title: Flechette / Small-arms ammunition
caption_attribution_description: English: Soviet APS underwater riflePolski: Sowiecki karabinek automatyczny APS przeznaczony do strzelań podwodnych.Русский: АПС (Автомат Подводный Специальный) — российский специальный подводный автоматDeutsch: APS Unterwasser Sturmgewehr
context_page_description: A flechette fleh-SHET 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. They have been used as ballistic weapons since World War I. Delivery systems and methods of launching flechettes vary, from a single shot, to thousands in a single explosive round. The use of flechettes as antipersonnel weapons has been controversial, and is considered by some pacifist groups to be a human rights violation.
context_section_description: The exterior ballistic performance and armor-piercing potential of flechettes have made the development and integration of this class of munition attractive to small-arms manufacturers.  A number of attempts have been made to field flechette-firing small arms.
  Work at Johns Hopkins University in the 1950s led to the development of the direct injection antipersonnel chemical biological agent (DIACBA), where flechettes were grooved, hollow pointed, or otherwise milled to retain a quantity of chemical or biological warfare agent to be delivered through a ballistic wound. The initial work was with the nerve agent VX, which had to be thickened to deliver a reliable dose. Eventually this was replaced by a particulate carbamate. 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. The USSR had the AO-27 rifle as well as the APS amphibious rifle, and other countries have their own flechette rounds.
  A number of prototype flechette-firing weapons were developed as part of the long-running Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) project. The Steyr-Mannlicher ACR Rifle was a prototype flechette-firing assault rifle built for the US Army's Advanced Combat Rifle program of 1989–90.
  A variation of the flechette addressing its difficulties is the SCMITR, developed as part of the Close Assault Weapon System, or CAWS, project. Selective-fire shotguns were used to fire flechettes designed to retain the exterior ballistics and penetration of the standard flechette, but increase wounding capacity through a wider wound path.
caption: APS amphibious rifle
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