PROJECTILE CARRYING SUB-MUNITIONS

A projectile carrying sub-munitions which may exhibit orientational sensitivity utilizes a resilient member to prevent individual grenades from rotating out of the desired orientation. As a skilled artisan would readily understand, the sub-munitions is one type of rotationally sensitive device. Other types of rotationally sensitive devices include but are not limited to grenades, grenade fuses and sub-munition fuses. In the described embodiments, artillery shells carrying grenades packed in circular arrays around a central longitudinal axis may exhibit orientational sensitivity with some types of slide fuses, such that an optimal orientation is that the slide fuse faces outwardly along a radial line from the longitudinal axis. A resilient member, such as a resilient sleeve around one or more sub-munitions, is provided to with adequate elasticity, surface area, and coefficient of friction in contact with the sub-munitions to prevent the sub-munitions from rotating about their individual axes during shipment, storage, firing, and flight of the artillery shell.