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Electric Armor

Posted by michael on from the everything-is-better-with-electricity dept.

Ch_Omega and others wrote in about a new type of reactive armor in development. As far as I can tell, what they're talking about is essentially large capacitors on the outside of the vehicle, charged up by the vehicle's electrical system. Anti-tank warheads use a shaped charge to create a jet of molten copper that pierces armor, but in this case, when the jet bridges the capacitor plates, it immediately becomes a conductor for X coulombs of current, which effectively vaporizes and disrupts it enough that it won't pierce the vehicle's armor. (Conventional reactive armor does the same thing with explosives.) Interesting idea, if it works.

6 of 389 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ouch by ka9dgx · · Score: 5, Insightful
    In other articles on this subject, it was disclosed that the internal electrode carries the charge, the outside one is grounded, so there's no danger.

    The advantage of this system is weight, and the fact that it can cycle fairly rapidly to repel multiple attacks. The disadvatage is that it requires a lot of power to charge. In theory, once charged, the caps shouldn't require more energy.

    It's not perfect, but to stop a single random weapon, it's a very good idea.

    --Mike--

  2. It's all about the Joules by ka9dgx · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The real trick is to have a large amount of energy stored in a capacitor, which gets delivered to disrupt the blast before the hull of the take is damaged. The energy stored would be measured in Joules (aka watt-seconds). I guestimate it would take approximately 10^6 watt seconds to do the job.

    If you take Maxwell Products BCAP0010A03 as a sample of what can be done. It's a 2600 FARAD, 2.5 volt capacitor. You could array this in a 55 parallel by 5 series bank of 275 caps, yielding a capacitance of 28,600 farads at 12.5 volts (14 volts peak), the maximum current (within commercial ratings) would be 33,000 amps, which would deliver 412,500 watts. Optimizing the capacitors for discharge rate should be fairly simple for someone with a military budget. But even this simple calculation shows a way to store 2x10^6 watt seconds in less than 144kg using known technology. This is the equivalent power to running a conventional microwave oven for over an hour!

    --Mike--

  3. Re:Researching more efficient ways to kill people. by neocon · · Score: 2, Insightful
    With due respect, the more sophisticated our methods of killing people get, the less people are killed in the wars we fight. It's exactly those `more efficient means' that your nuts are in a bunch over that helped us kill so few civilians in Afghanistan (less than about 1500 by most reliable measures, see the section on civilian casualties at the end of this articla for details).

    The U.S. government has bombed 14 countries, directly killing about 3,000,000 people in the last 33 years.

    Do you have any credible backing for this number? Do you have any comparable number of how many lives we've saved in our wars? For example, Ho Chi Minh's thufs killed more Vietnamese in the first three years of `peace' after the Vietnam war than had died in the entire previous twenty-five years of war. At least that many lives would have been saved had we stuck it out and won the war.

    And as for `non-violent' solutions, may I ask you to explain what solution you think would resolve our current situation, where a multi-national group armed and sheltered by hostile national powers is working to gain access to weapons of mass destruction to use against us?

  4. Re:Very Effective by Phanatic1a · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1st rate armies dont us RPG's, the Russians sell them cheap but even they dont use them!

    Bullshit. The RPG-7 is long in the tooth, but it and its successors like the RPG-18 are still perfectly capable infantry weapons, and are certainly effective against bunkers and the like even if you're nuts to fire one against an M1A2 in the frontal arc. They fulfill a role similar the the 84mm Carl Gustav, which rest assured is used by 1st-rate armies. Like the USMC, ferinstance.

    Nobodt expects an RPG to knock out a tank

    Again, bullshit. Ask the Russians how many tanks they lost to RPGs in Chechnya; the number's a good deal higher than they'd have liked. The Chechyns would form anti-tank teams of three or four men, each with an MG gunner, a sniper, and a RPG gunner or two. They'd gang up, 5 teams to a tank, and they'd launch from basement or upper-floor windows. The MG was there to suppress the infantry accompanying the tank, the sniper was there to either just pop the TC or make the tank button up, and then the RPG gunners would start taking shots at the top, rear, or sides of the tank.

    They killed quite a few T-80s, last I heard.

    They are really only used against APC's which I believe serve no purpose to begin with

    Bullshit for a third time. If APCs and IFVs serve no purpose, I can't help but wonder why they're such a large part of modern armored forces and doctrine.

  5. Re:Another article stolen from Kuro5hin. by noahmax · · Score: 2, Insightful
    that's all true. 'cept the electric armor isn't meant for tanks. it's for personnel carriers & the like, to give them some of the same protections a tank has.

    nms

  6. Re:Very Effective by olman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Composite armor can pretty much ignore HEAT weapons *head on*, but let's see which way the Abrahams jumps when hit on ass with an RPG. In any case, the RPG-7 everyone and their grandmother owns in 3rd world is pretty damn old. Current generation weapons such as APILAS and Panzerfaust-III have a tandem warhead and bigger diameter overall. Have to wonder what the precursor charge will do to the capacitor.. I guess not very much!