From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Tue Dec 14 2004 - 09:30:41 PST
>From the conversations that I've had with a
>number of weapons scientist and amateur experts,
>the above scenario isn't very good.
I've had to do quite a bit of research and practical application of
various armor and anti-armor scenarios. Ryan's got it very much correct.
The only current effective direct defenses are those that involve space,
such as the louver armor on Strykers, or a counter force, such as
reactive armor. The Army is currently experimenting with other
alternatives such as a mini-Patriot type defense system, lasers, and
other forms of high tech disruption that will likely prove impractical
for a long time.
One last comment...
>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.
After a long debate about this several years ago we came to the same
conclusion. The debate was prompted by a study of the extensive use of
sandbags on US armor in the ETO in order to defeat German Panzerfaust AT
weapons. One side made the mistake of claiming that the sandbags must
have worked otherwise people wouldn't have used them. This is a very bad
starting point for an argument revolving around physics :-) Looking at
real world modeling and simple common sense we concluded that those
tankers back then were doing themselves far more harm than good, they
just didn't know it.
Steve
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