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Electric Armor Tested For Light Armored Vehicles

joncrie writes "The Telegraph is reporting that British MoD scientists are now testing a new electric armor to protect light armored vehicles against RPGs. The new electric armour is made up of a highly-charged capacitor that is connected to two separate metal plates on the tank's exterior. When an RPG warhead fires its jet of molten copper, it penetrates both the outer plate and the insulation of the inner plate. This makes a connection and thousands of amps of electricity vaporises most of the molten copper. The rest of the copper is dispersed harmlessly against the vehicle's hull. The initial development was mentioned previously."

3 of 418 comments (clear)

  1. interesting concept by zogger · · Score: 0, Troll

    I wonder if there are any non military useages of the idea. Perhaps in a storm shelter? Not sure.

    Anyway, here is my translation from a couple of paragraphs in the story,as if the story was written from some poor peasants point of view, as opposed to joe stockbroker sipping latte and reading the latest mil industrial complex conglomerate quotes at his local "axis of profits, nothing personal it's just business" coffee house

    "With the easy availability of RPG-7 rocket launchers-thank god we have at least something to defend our village with- "it only takes one individual on, say, a rooftop in a village to cause major damage or destroy passing armoured vehicles", he said.-Man, those tanks and soldiers from BigNation.Com, Inc. suck the big one. They come in here, invade, kill the people, every one of us is called a terrorist, they drive their tanks over our crops causing famine, smash our huts down, shoot all the men they can find, rape our wives and daughters then sit around and torture the remnants for sport. This is dismal. Glad I scraped up enough dough to get me an RPG. It's not much but it might stop them. Why don't they stay in their own country anyway? Oh ya, I forgot, we have oil/tin/gold/diamonds/whatever, and they want it, and they say our current dictator is worse than their dictator, so that makes us all terrorists. Silly me, how could I forget....

    "But the use of electric armour, which will protect against all shaped-charge warheads including artillery and tank shells, would reduce the threat to zero."--Oh crap! Now, we have nothing to stop those invaders with! I guess we lose, might as well get out the black boot polish and rags and beg for some pennies from the nice soldier guys, when they get done with our wives and daughters that is. In the mean time I'll get back to whittling a wooden leg for one of my kids who was unfortunately a "collateral damage" statistic. I hope the new dictator the soldiers appoint to be our ruler will be better than the last one they appointed 10 years ago.

  2. Re:While this is helpful... by CrowScape · · Score: 0, Troll

    Are they uniformed? If not: terrorist.

    --
    common sense: noun
    What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
  3. Re:Filed: 19/08/2002 by malarkey · · Score: 0, Troll

    The 19th month of 2002--Is that July of 2003, or what???