"The Sunday Times January 22, 2006"
Tanks to get anti-missile ‘force field’
THE British Army’s next class of armoured vehicles will be protected by a “force field†of electrified armour that will vaporise rocket- propelled grenades, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has signalled, writes Michael Smith.
The electric armour, invented at the ministry’s scientific research centre, will transform armoured warfare, enabling vehicles to be more lightly protected and more easily moved around the world.
It will also confound repeated claims from military experts that “the tank is dead†because more nimble forces are required for the war on terror.
The new armour will allow western armed forces to regain the upper hand against terrorists and insurgents armed with the ubiquitous RPG7 rocket-propelled grenade, which can penetrate most current heavy armour.
The invention is just as effective against the “shaped charge†roadside bombs used by insurgents in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
The armour is also much lighter, with about two tons of it reckoned to provide protection equivalent to that of 20 tons of conventional armour.
The Army’s Challenger 2 tank, which weighs 62½ tons, and the 24½-ton Warrior armoured vehicle had to be ferried by sea to the Gulf for the Iraq war, a complex process taking many weeks.
The new vehicles — which are expected to enter service early in the next decade — would be smaller and lighter, enabling them to be moved by C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft.
The MoD has now handed a contract to Lockheed Martin, the American company, to make a demonstration version of the British invention.
The electric armour is made up of several layers, the first of which is an earthed bulletproof outer skin. The second skin is live, although insulated, and has several thousand volts of electricity flowing through it, powered by the vehicle’s battery. The third skin is the normal vehicle hull.
When an RPG7 grenade hits a tank with standard armour, its conical warhead fires a jet of hot copper into the target at about 1,000mph. This can penetrate more than a foot of conventional solid steel armour.
On the electric armour, the grenade penetrates the insulation on the live second skin, creating a sudden surge in electricity that vaporises the copper stream in the same way that a surge burns out a fuse wire.
The effect is to leave the inner hull intact and the crew safe, with the vehicle capable of taking repeated hits.
Sounds interesting - does anyone have anymore information in regards this armour technology?
