From: J. Lee (milveh@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Fri Aug 23 2002 - 09:22:19 PDT
Thanks Nigel, I am stunned by what I just read. This is absolutely amazing.
Best breakthru in decades if it is truly all that and it certainly appears
so! What an incredible advancement, likely to change everything in armour
tactics and design. Weight, range, speed, shapes... this is just amazing...
I suppose it could even protect aircraft like the A10 and the British did it
first!
Hats off.....outstanding! Jack
>From the Daily Telegraph article today: "An electric "force field" for
armoured vehicles that vaporises anti-tank grenades and shells on impact has
been developed by scientists at the Ministry of Defence.
The "electric armour" has been developed in an attempt to make tanks and
other armoured vehicles lighter and less vulnerable to anti-tank grenade
launchers such as those used by the Taliban and al-Qa'eda fighters in
Afghanistan.
It could be fitted to the light tanks and armoured personnel carriers that
will replace the heavy Challenger II tanks and Warrior APCs in one of the
two British armoured divisions.
The ubiquitous RPG-7 anti-tank grenade launcher can be picked up for a mere
$10 in most of the world's trouble spots but is capable of destroying a tank
and killing its crew. When the grenade hits the tank, its "shaped-charge"
warhead fires a jet of hot copper into the target at around 1,000mph. This
is capable of penetrating more than a foot of conventional solid steel
armour.
The new electric armour is made up of a highly-charged capacitor that is
connected to two separate metal plates on the tank's exterior. The outer
plate, which is bullet-proof and made from an unspecified alloy, is earthed
while the insulated inner plate is live.
The electric armour runs off the tank's own power supply. When the tank
commander feels he is in a dangerous area, he simply switches on the current
to the inner plate.
When the warhead fires its jet of molten copper, it penetrates both the
outer plate and the insulation of the inner plate. This makes a connection
and thousands of amps of electricity vaporises most of the molten copper.
The rest of the copper is dispersed harmlessly against the vehicle's hull.
But despite the high charge, the electrical load on the battery is no more
than that caused by starting the engine on a cold morning.
In a recent demonstration of the electric armour for senior Army officers,
an APC protected by the new British system survived repeated attacks by
rocket-propelled grenades that would normally have destroyed it several
times over.
Many of the grenades were fired from point-blank range but the only damage
to the APC was cosmetic. The vehicle was driven away under its own power.
Prof John Brown, of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, which
developed the Pulsed Power System at its R&D site at Fort Halstead, Kent,
said it was attracting a lot of interest from both the MoD and the Pentagon.
With the easy availability of RPG-7 rocket launchers "it only takes one
individual on, say, a rooftop in a village to cause major damage or destroy
passing armoured vehicles", he said.
But the use of electric armour, which will protect against all shaped-charge
warheads including artillery and tank shells, would reduce the threat to
zero."
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