Electric Armour Protection

Izzy1

Banned Member
"The Sunday Times January 22, 2006"

Tanks to get anti-missile ‘force field’


THE British Army’s next class of armoured vehicles will be protected by a “force field†of electrified armour that will vaporise rocket- propelled grenades, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has signalled, writes Michael Smith.
The electric armour, invented at the ministry’s scientific research centre, will transform armoured warfare, enabling vehicles to be more lightly protected and more easily moved around the world.

It will also confound repeated claims from military experts that “the tank is dead†because more nimble forces are required for the war on terror.

The new armour will allow western armed forces to regain the upper hand against terrorists and insurgents armed with the ubiquitous RPG7 rocket-propelled grenade, which can penetrate most current heavy armour.

The invention is just as effective against the “shaped charge†roadside bombs used by insurgents in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The armour is also much lighter, with about two tons of it reckoned to provide protection equivalent to that of 20 tons of conventional armour.

The Army’s Challenger 2 tank, which weighs 62½ tons, and the 24½-ton Warrior armoured vehicle had to be ferried by sea to the Gulf for the Iraq war, a complex process taking many weeks.

The new vehicles — which are expected to enter service early in the next decade — would be smaller and lighter, enabling them to be moved by C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft.

The MoD has now handed a contract to Lockheed Martin, the American company, to make a demonstration version of the British invention.

The electric armour is made up of several layers, the first of which is an earthed bulletproof outer skin. The second skin is live, although insulated, and has several thousand volts of electricity flowing through it, powered by the vehicle’s battery. The third skin is the normal vehicle hull.

When an RPG7 grenade hits a tank with standard armour, its conical warhead fires a jet of hot copper into the target at about 1,000mph. This can penetrate more than a foot of conventional solid steel armour.

On the electric armour, the grenade penetrates the insulation on the live second skin, creating a sudden surge in electricity that vaporises the copper stream in the same way that a surge burns out a fuse wire.

The effect is to leave the inner hull intact and the crew safe, with the vehicle capable of taking repeated hits.



Sounds interesting - does anyone have anymore information in regards this armour technology?
 

cosmos

New Member
chameleon skin and electro-magnetic force field

Creating armourbots ,we have pixibots and nanoprobes.Armourbots would move at a very fast area where ever the electric armour is at a weak point.Then create smartbots,that command all of them to many tasks.Then by sending a signal to the smartbots from the Pilot's co-pilot Robot made by Honda .The Robot could take over controlling the all of those bots.cosmos
 

Bfn42

New Member
hmmm...sounds very intresting....The brits are always coming up with neat stuff.....first off the tank....then...chobam....then dorchester.....THEN electric armor...what next?


Btw.... alittle off topic but whats with the writing in that article....what is this "Army’s"?
 
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gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Bfn42 said:
Btw.... alittle off topic but whats with the writing in that article....what is this "Army’s"?
It's a cut and paste translation problem that happens with some web sites.

In the above example, it gets its knickers in a knot trying to
translate ’ for '
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Bfn42 said:
Thanks...mate....would have never guessed ;)
:) I actually have no idea why it varies though. On known problem sites I have tried a cut and paste, saved HTML as text and it still stuffs up. Sometimes you end up with small boxes as space breaks.

All rather frustrating when you're busy.
 

Bfn42

New Member
I wonder how well it'll do against KE rounds and such...............oh and also....would the m1a2/M2a2 and a3 bfv be fitted with this new armor?
 

Scorpius

New Member
most probably.I actually read this thing before but it wasn't about the Brits it was about the US military.
 

Bfn42

New Member
heh..well thats good to hear....I was really amazed when i read this part:


"The armour is also much lighter, with about two tons of it reckoned to provide protection equivalent to that of 20 tons of conventional armour."
 

cosmos

New Member
Well I have not shared on this site for awhile.I think another Ideal might work,Create a focused Hologram and aim it at one of the enemies planes,and the missile they just shot at you turns around changes targets and strikes it's own aircraft.One missile is flying around making the hologram while others are busy doing it to the othewr enemies planesShoot a projection of your own hologram of your aircraft onto theirs,where the missile turns and destroys their planes.Wouldn't that just piss them off:)cosmos
 

Wooki

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
Meatball88 said:
what stops the vapourised metal from acting like a blow torch and cutting the armour up?
gas cannot exert pressure... no hydrodynamic penetration characteristics as a result.
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
cosmos said:
Well I have not shared on this site for awhile.I think another Ideal might work,Create a focused Hologram and aim it at one of the enemies planes,and the missile they just shot at you turns around changes targets and strikes it's own aircraft.One missile is flying around making the hologram while others are busy doing it to the othewr enemies planesShoot a projection of your own hologram of your aircraft onto theirs,where the missile turns and destroys their planes.Wouldn't that just piss them off:)cosmos
forgetting the "buck rogers stuff", the modern day analogy is Nulka. No holograms - but it is an electronic seduction system.
 

meatball88

New Member
confused.....

Wooki said:
gas cannot exert pressure... no hydrodynamic penetration characteristics as a result.
Gas cannot exert pressure? then what holds a plane up? Furthermore, the copper stream is travelling very fast, where does all the kinetic energy go?
 

Wooki

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
meatball88 said:
Gas cannot exert pressure? then what holds a plane up? Furthermore, the copper stream is travelling very fast, where does all the kinetic energy go?
lets just say not enough pressure to create hydrodynamic penetration.
 

Red aRRow

Forum Bouncer
Hmmm I'm skeptical about how the tank or armoured vehicle is going to generate the intense amounts of electricity which will be needed for such a 'force field'. Wouldn't adding heavy batteries just increase the weight and I guess multiple RPG attacks will just sap the power up in a matter of seconds. So how good will such electric armour be against multiple RPG attack?
 

Wooki

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
Red aRRow said:
Hmmm I'm skeptical about how the tank or armoured vehicle is going to generate the intense amounts of electricity which will be needed for such a 'force field'. Wouldn't adding heavy batteries just increase the weight and I guess multiple RPG attacks will just sap the power up in a matter of seconds. So how good will such electric armour be against multiple RPG attack?
Good.

It depends upon the mass of the shaped charge of course, but, even the most rudimentary of systems could/should take out 2 rpg 7s in one stroke. Recharging is a matter of milliseconds in theory, but do it a couple of times and you slag your capacitors as a rule.

People forget when talking about electric armor; yes it has huge weight savings, but it also has ongoing operational costs. You'll have to maintain the system for x hours for y hours of combat operation, which means more mechanics, etc, etc.

So before you get on the E armor band wagon, take a look at what you want to achieve. If it is reducing costs and making the Army more "business like" and "streamlined" then perhaps it is not the way to go.

cheers

W
 

Red aRRow

Forum Bouncer
I guess the 'electric armour' will be used in conjunction with normal armour. Basically the electric armour will form a sort of a first line of defence (probably good for couple of RPG shots) before the energy is depleted and the job goes back to the 'real armour'. Of course it will come back into play once the system gets juiced back up again. So I am guessing its kind of an additional line of defence to the real armour...not a replacement.
 
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