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

Researching more efficient ways to kill people.

[Futurepower(R)]

The U.S. government spends more money to research more efficient ways to kill people and gain forceful control over them than any other area.

The least socially sophisticated way of resolving problems with other people is killing them. Yet there is a lot of enthusiasm for killing among U.S. citizens.

I pulled together some links and explanation about this in the article What should be the Response to Violence?. The article is needs updating, but there is a lot of support for the idea that the enthusiasm for violence is due to a social breakdown in the United States.

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