From: Ryan Gill (rmgill@mindspring.com)
Date: Tue Dec 14 2004 - 07:10:01 PST
At 1:59 AM -0600 12/14/04, JTravis wrote:
[snip]
>underneath, at least on the sides it might help
>with an RPG hit. Assuming that my limited
>understanding of how an RPG penetrates by a
>hollow shaped charge that creates a focused
>inner cone of plasma that burns through to
>penetrate, the outer plate would take the
>detonation, and when the plasma penetrates this,
>it would then burn into the tube and some of its
>energy would
From the conversations that I've had with a
number of weapons scientist and amateur experts,
the above scenario isn't very good. First off, a
shaped charge isn't plasma. It's a focused jet
that isn't charged (plasma) but is still
technically a solid, it's just flowing like a
liquid (think bullets striking a target hanger,
they flow, but they're still in a solid state,
the force is so great that the bonds between the
crystals can't resist and flow like a liquid
(though they're not).
In terms of defeating a shaped charge, the jet
tends to break up after a certain distance of
effectiveness. It cannot maintain it's focus over
a large gap. However sand bags can help maintain
the jet and keep it tight and able to defeat
armor over a greater distance so sand or other
fine materials can have the opposite effect.
Spaced armor, ceramics, stand off armor, and
other methods are best in terms of passive
systems. Active methods are of course things like
reactive armor that disrupts the jet.
--
--
Ryan Gill rmgill@SPAMmindspring.com
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