Flechette

A flechette /flɛˈʃɛt/ 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.

Air-dropped flechette

In WWI, darts, also known as flechettes were dropped from aircraft to attack infantry.

Small-arms ammunition

Small-arms makers are attracted by the exterior ballistic performance and armor-piercing potential of flechettes. 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 biological warfare agent to deliver through a ballistic wound. The initial work was with 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.

Flechette (company)

Flechette is an independent film and television production company operating from Glasgow, Scotland, and Dublin, Ireland. The company has had a close association with filmmaker Garfield Kennedy (who produced and directed the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Emmy Award winning 9/11 documentary, NOVA: Why the Towers Fell, for PBS broadcaster WGBH Boston). Flechette has co-production links with Texas-based producers, Raygun Films Inc., and is developing theatrical films in Europe and North America.

Flechette has produced a series of fictional films including the BAFTA-nominated short, Bye-Child (written and directed by Bernard MacLaverty, and based on the poem of the same title by Seamus Heaney). Bye-Child and documentary, The Grandparents (directed by Ioana Joca), have been nominated for 3 BAFTA Scotland Awards and MacLaverty won Best First Time Director prize. In 2005, Flechette produced a fictional film for children, Winning Streak, which featured television racing pundit, John McCririck, playing as himself.