  The only military application in which depleted-uranium (DU) alloys
out-perform present-day tungsten alloys is long-rod penetration into a main
battle-tank's armor. However, this advantage is only on the order of 10%, and
it disappears when the comparison is made in terms of actual lethality of
complete anti-tank systems instead of laboratory-type steel penetration
capability. Therefore, new micro- and nano-engineered tungsten alloys may soon
out-perform DU alloys, enabling the production of tungsten munition which will
be better than existing uranium munition, and whose overall life-cycle cost
will be lower, due to the absence of the problems related to the radioactivity
of uranium. The reasons why DU weapons have been introduced and used are
analysed from the perspective that their radioactivity must have played an
important role in the decision making process. It is found that DU weapons
belong to the diffuse category of low-radiological-impact nuclear weapons to
which emerging types of low-yield (i.e., fourth generation) nuclear explosives
also belong. It is concluded that the battlefield use of DU during the 1991
Gulf War, which broke a 46-year-long taboo against the intentional use or
induction of radioactivity in combat, has created a military and legal
precedent which has trivialized the combat use of radioactive materials, and
therefore made the use of nuclear weapons more probable.
