British 'force field' protects tanks by zapping grenades
By Michael Smith
LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH


LONDON ó An electric "force field" for armored vehicles that vaporizes anti-tank grenades and shells on impact has been developed by scientists at Britain's Ministry of Defense.

The "electric armor" has been developed in an attempt to make tanks and other armored vehicles lighter and less vulnerable to grenade launchers such as those used by Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan.
It could be fitted to the light tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs) that will replace the heavy Challenger II tanks and Warrior APCs in one of the two British armored divisions.
The ubiquitous RPG-7, a rocket-propelled grenade, can be picked up for a mere $10 in many of the world's trouble spots and 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 about 1,000 mph. It is capable of penetrating more than a foot of conventional solid-steel armor.
The new electric armor 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 bulletproof and made from an unspecified alloy, is grounded, and the insulated inner plate is live.
The electric armor runs off the tank's 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 vaporize most of the molten copper. The rest of the copper is dispersed harmlessly against the vehicle's hull.
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 armor for senior army officers, an APC protected by the new British system survived repeated attacks by rocket-propelled grenades that would typically 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.
Professor John Brown of the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, which developed the "pulsed power system," said it was attracting a lot of interest from both the British Defense Ministry 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 armored vehicles," he said.

Now that's cool! I wonder if there will be a lower grade of this to repel bugs from my car windshield?!?!? LOL

Someone once told me that Tesla once made a coil like device that he wore on his back with a little water tank that shot water out of it...... he wore a type of rubber suite, activated the coil and shot electrically charged streams of water!!! heh heh

Nice if you have to shake some hands.

" How do you do ? " brrrrzzzzzzzzzzzz....Oups, sorry sir.

This technology should be used with aircrafts too.

[Edited on 22-8-2002 by ultra_phoenix]

niiiiiiiiiiiice!!!!!!!!!
i hope quebec will have that when we will be a countr...
<.<
>.>
nevermind!

" Vive le Quebec libre !!! "

Well, it's been quite a while since I have gottenn around to the forums on ATS, but here I go.

This concept is stunningly similar to that of ERA (Explosive Reactiev Armor) which explodes in an effort to destroy or redirect an incoming warhead.

hey phoenix, can you please provide the HTML link to the specified article. I would like to read it myself. The reason I'm curious is that I read about the same thing once in one of T. Clancy's books.

If they did go over to this kinda armour though, wouldn't an EMP pulse be able to knock out the electrics of the armour, thus making it vulnerable ?

Interesting concept, and would be highly useful against the slow HEAT rounds.

However, unfortunently, we still dont have a light and effective way to stop a 20 lb. piece of tungsten flying at 4000mps, which will cream virtually any armor vehicle.

EMP shouldn't effect the electric armor, since it would be about capacitance and not current. It might suck the powersource dry, but I suspect that tanks are prepared for this kind of attack already . . .

The speed of the incoming device shouldn't matter since any missle won't be traveling anywhere near the speed of the electrons in the capacitor . . .

Now, couldn't you rig up a warhead of molten material that is non-conductive, for the grenade to inject through this armor?

Does uranium conduct electricity? Or howsabout bismuth? If you could find a metalloid that didn't conduct electricity, then this type of armor wouldn't work.

And the armor would be a "one-hit wonder." Once the capacitance was discharged, the next RPG (assuming you could fire 2 against the tank) could penetrate.


Personally, I think the age of the tank is passing. We are entering a new infantry age.

P.S. If your tank's shell basically becomes a giant capacitor, it'll have an EM field. and if I can measure field-flux, I should be able to triangulate in on the exact position of your tank whenever it moves through a larger magnetic field (like the earth's).

Handy for firing non line-of-sight artillery at a tank. Night ops, too.



[edit on 12-9-2005 by dr_strangecraft]