Adaptive Armor

a really cool new technology that has been in the works I just heard about was adaptive armor, now it is probably not what you are thinking of (james bondy invisible cars) however, it is still pretty cool. this special alloy reacts to impacts. Example: when a shaped charge hits an armored transport utilizing this armor and it starts to burn through it in order to disperse the molten shrapnel inside the charge, the armor will react, blowing the charge right off of the vehicle! It sounds outrageous, however a physics professor that I know told me all about it (he should know, he headed the project). I got to see some of the files and things for it and I am blown away! no pun intended!

This is called Reactive Armour. It's been around about 20 years, and it uses explosive tiles rather than special alloys. Invented, I believe, by one Manfred Held, and first used by the Isarelis and then the Soviets.

Reactive body armour has not so far been a success

No doubt!

I read somewhere that back in the 1950s ,both the US & Soviets developed explosive armor that was mounted directly to the hull of the tank. Problem was that when it went of it usually disabled the tank in the process. It was critical to the explosive armor was mounted standoff from the main armor to allow for movement of the plates that the explosive drives apart. Even box type ERA attached to the armor of modern tanks and apcs actually feature the ERA elements inside the box mounted away from the armor usually at some kind of angle to increase the effectiveness.

Maybe he is talking about a different type of armor the one where some sort of electrical field is used in the armor to destroy the projectile, don't now what its called though.

actualy i think explosive armor, the newwer kinds at least, work quite well insofar as they may save the lives of tank crew incase of armor percing misiles or whatever. however this sounds like something difrent.

this kind of thing has been aproched lots of ways, you could even do it with strong magnets/electro magnets and wires

I have never heard of aloys tho....


Cheers!

i have heard of a project for body armour where 'gel' packs are used. the liquid is like a thick squdgy paste which in trials has repelled 90% of small arms and reduces the physical impact by a fair bit. I wonder if that could be used in tanks?

It is VERY difficult to stop a 25 lb. piece of hardened tungsten flying at your vehicle at 2000 FPS or more, I dont know the numbers. They've tried everything, but those kinetic rounds are incredibly mean.

Yes, there have been a number of US and UK projects to defeat shaped charged rounds using electrical means. SOme of them have been quite effective, but are not in service yet. It's not gonna stop a kinetic round though.

While an interesting proposition, there was infact nothing electrical, it was infact an actual metal being developed, kinda like a fast reacting memory metal that is maleable to the impact but then reacts... taking the phrase "for every action... there is an equal and opposite reaction" to yet another great extreme.

cool... is it really strong??? what if ur trying to plant some c4 on a tank and the guy with the machinegun sees u... will the armor b able to block about 10 rounds if they hit in the same spot???

On that it would stop bullets, yes it is without a doubt just as strong as regular armor or else what good would it be? However, planted c4? ewww... I don't think so - from what I understand it relies on the force of the impact in order to repel it away... I think that the chance opportunity or likelyhood of someone getting to an armored troop transport is so remote or unusual it isn't really considered - or maybe it was and they couldn't do anything about it. But the ANSWER to your question is no to the best of my knowledge.

against planted c4, the best thing is:

1. a cage
2. driving in a convoy
3. being armed with machineguns ^^

ok i was just wondering about the 10 bullets thing

sticking c4 to tank armor? perhaps not with personal, but......

anyway, ive heard of this sort of thing recently, might be on another forum, (very sorry that i cant find the link, im dead tired) its a sort of gell that reenforces kevlar, makes it better able to resist blunt trama.

i see how this tank 'gell' armor could work... spreads kenetic force out almost like liquid, think of a ripple in a pond, pebble is shell, force is fanned out before hitting the main armor.

EDIT: that was completly off topic....

[edit on 30-6-2005 by Fiction of Truth]

lol... ive heard ov that gell armour 2...