New way to protect armoured vehicles from shaped-charge landmines

New Scientist

Hanging a heavy armour plate beneath the vehicle slows it down too much. So TACOM, the US army's Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, is patenting a better idea.

TACOM has come up with a mat that can be slung underneath a vehicle made from hundreds of rollers, each a few centimetres in diameter and made from very hard plastic. Normally, when the vehicle is on tarmac roads, the mat is retracted and does not touch the ground. But when the driver sees a suspicious dusty track ahead he slackens the tension so that the mat touches the ground and its rollers roll-hug the terrain.

If a shaped charge mine goes off the first charge will throw up the soil but most of it should bounce off the mat and re-cover the mine. So, when the second charge detonates, its lethally focused shock wave is damped and spread by the uncleared soil. And enough of the blast should also vent up though the rollers to prevent the mat from breaking up.


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