'Electric armour' vaporises anti-tank grenades and shells

Its ingenous but I feel kinetic weapons are gonna quickly overwhelm armor designs for quite a while to come. This design can overcome the rpg-7 which can send a shape charge at about 1000 mph. But next gen rpgs (and they really should be called something else now as they are far from mere rocket propelled grenades) are rumored to send a pellet at anywhere from 5-10 000 mph... dont think any uber expensive armored vehicle will be able to withstand that.
 
pax said:
Its ingenous but I feel kinetic weapons are gonna quickly overwhelm armor designs for quite a while to come. This design can overcome the rpg-7 which can send a shape charge at about 1000 mph. But next gen rpgs (and they really should be called something else now as they are far from mere rocket propelled grenades) are rumored to send a pellet at anywhere from 5-10 000 mph... dont think any uber expensive armored vehicle will be able to withstand that.
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however, how many of these are available in the hotspots where US and British troops are currently deployed? As the article mentions, an RPG-7 can be had for a mere $10 and are quite abundant, making the threat of the RPG-7 enormous vs that of "next gen" RPG's.
 
Copper vapour doesnt do much damage ... travelling at 1000 or 10000 mph, the amount and its conductivity matters more than the speed for this defense. It's just another form of active armour though, with the same weaknesses.
 
What if the copper in the pellet is changed to something else? Although Id like to see the same armor tested with the velocities of those new rockets...

man 10$ for an rpg7... didint knwo they were that cheap ... but even at 1000$ a pop an 'rpg-8' (if it doesnt already exist) with 5-10 k mph pellet would be cheap by tank costs standards and a market for such a weapon would be huge so id bet arms manufacturers are certainly gearing up for this...

Now of course there could be a window of opportunity for the new armor to save lives before the new kinds of rpgs became fielded. That certainly would be worthwhile... Hopefully the Russians and others will keep their new rpgs to themselves a few years before selling them on the open market.
 
Those prices aren't likely indicative of construction costs, simply the local Iraqi cost based on supply (from all the ammo dumps).
 
pax said:
True... but they are black market prices. Im sure no way those things are legal...
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The black market still obeys market forces.

Lots of them available "for free", hence they're cheap.
 
And the armour would probably only stop one hit after that A) the capictors have to recharge

B) The vapourised metal have most likely been deposited across the insultation closing the circuit permantly until someone gets out and fixes it.

Also I'm sure this puts a realtively nice EM pulse.
 
bloodbob said:
And the armour would probably only stop one hit after that A) the capictors have to recharge

B) The vapourised metal have most likely been deposited across the insultation closing the circuit permantly until someone gets out and fixes it.

Also I'm sure this puts a realtively nice EM pulse.
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did you read the article? it stated clearly that they demo'd a light transport vehicle that they fired several rounds into, rounds that would have normally destroyed it many times over. The vehicle drove away under its own power, suffering only cosmetic damage.
 
Sage said:
bloodbob said:
And the armour would probably only stop one hit after that A) the capictors have to recharge

B) The vapourised metal have most likely been deposited across the insultation closing the circuit permantly until someone gets out and fixes it.

Also I'm sure this puts a realtively nice EM pulse.
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did you read the article? it stated clearly that they demo'd a light transport vehicle that they fired several rounds into, rounds that would have normally destroyed it many times over. The vehicle drove away under its own power, suffering only cosmetic damage.
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They may have been lucky to get to not have B happen its still a real possiblity. Did they say how long they waited for tha cap banks to recharge before each shot was fired? I fail to see where they said this? In war your enemies don't wait for you force shields to rechage before firing again.

Also after the first shot you have to worry about rain.
 
bloodbob said:
Sage said:
bloodbob said:
And the armour would probably only stop one hit after that A) the capictors have to recharge

B) The vapourised metal have most likely been deposited across the insultation closing the circuit permantly until someone gets out and fixes it.

Also I'm sure this puts a realtively nice EM pulse.
Click to expand...

did you read the article? it stated clearly that they demo'd a light transport vehicle that they fired several rounds into, rounds that would have normally destroyed it many times over. The vehicle drove away under its own power, suffering only cosmetic damage.
Click to expand...

They may have been lucky to get to not have B happen its still a real possiblity. Did they say how long they waited for tha cap banks to recharge before each shot was fired? I fail to see where they said this? In war your enemies don't wait for you force shields to rechage before firing again.
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yes, it could have been lucky but more likely I think that the chances of "luck" decrease on each succesive roll. Sure, you may get lucky the first time, but to also get lucky the second, third, etc times is less luck and more design ;)

And, no, they did not say how long it took to charge. However, I'm assuming it doesnt take an excessively long time. Of course, you're assuming that enemy soldiers will figure out that they have to launch two RPG's in a certain timeframe in order to destroy these vehicles. You're also assuming that they have the capability to... if it's just one guy then it takes time to drop his RPG launcher, pick up another, and shoot it. By that time the shields could have recharged and lost of very pissed off people with bigger guns than he has know where he is. Will it make the vehicles invulnerable? No, I really dont expect it to. However, it definitely looks like it could cut way down on armor taken out by RPGs.
 
They may have been lucky to get to not have B happen its still a real possiblity. Did they say how long they waited for tha cap banks to recharge before each shot was fired? I fail to see where they said this? In war your enemies don't wait for you force shields to rechage before firing again.

Also after the first shot you have to worry about rain.
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The way the systems's been designed means you won't get B happening, unless you believe billion to one odds will occur. Not a very long wait at all ;) , remember this is not a toy, it's been designed to operate in combat environments and would never have got to public testing unless they had already tested it to death. I wouldn't be surprised it if could take multiple simultaneous strikes with the same degree of effectiveness. Luckily for the military the press are never going to be let anywhere near this thing although I'm tempted to ask around and see what a few of my colleagues know.
 
Also if I was designing this I would have backup banks just like they have buffers in various electronic devices. You have to have some kind of redundancy built-in and I'm sure the engineers and scientists haven't overlooked any of this stuff.
 
Well the system does have it's weakpoints, but obviously enough specifics aren't ever going to be revealed. However suffice to say it's extremely effective for what it does and can take projectiles with an extremely high velocity.
 
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