Electric Armor

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.

Comments

Re:Ouch

[antirename]

No, you'd somehow have to peirce the outer plate to get a discharge... I wonder if this will have any side effects on electronics, though? Also, would anyone inside be able to hear after a round hit? Even if it didn't penetrate, it would be like being trapped in a gong... which is still better than being dead, though.

Polarize the hull plating?

[Blaede]

This kinda sorta sounds like what Archer does to the Enterprise everytime he goes into battle (yes, I know it's just fictional entertainnment, calm your ass down). Remember all the /.ers scoffing at the "bring the armor plating online" script line for the first episode this season?

Re:Very Effective

[ericman31]

In order to be man portable (one soldier can carry the entire system himself) the weapon cannot carry effective tandem warheads. And the whole reason that the TOW II was designed (tandem warhead, top down attack) is that the TOW IB, which had the largest warhead of its generation of ATGM's, was not able to effectively penetrate the laminate style armor used on Challenger, the M1, and the Leopard II. An RPG hit to the rear or flank of the tank might get a mobility kill, although even that is questionable. The RPG hit my tank took was on the turret flank, no penetration, some minor damage to the sponson box on that side of the tank (tool stowage).

The new top down attack ATGM's like TOW II, Milan, etc. are quite effective against tanks, until the tank crew starts putting effective fire on the missile crew, since they have to hold their sites on the tank for as long as 15 seconds. A main gun round and several hundred machine gun rounds will just screw up your whole day.