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Mysterious 'Forcefield' Tested on US Tanks
An anonymous reader writes "Not too long ago General Dynamics announced a successful test of their new Trophy Active Defense System (ADS). The Trophy ADS generates something similar to a force field around one half of a vehicle as a direct reaction to incoming fire. From the article: 'The Threat Detection and Warning subsystem consists of several sensors, including flat-panel radars, placed at strategic locations around the protected vehicle, to provide full hemispherical coverage. Once an incoming threat is detected identified and verified, the Countermeasure Assembly is opened, the countermeasure device is positioned in the direction where it can effectively intercept the threat. Then, it is launched automatically into a ballistic trajectory to intercept the incoming threat at a relatively long distance.'"
Iran announces that it has successfully enriched uranium, and shortly afterward the U.S military announces that it has laser cannons and force-fields. Coincidence?
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Just a guess, but I wonder if you could defeat it by shooting 3 RPGs from 3 different directions at it? Can it act that quickly against all of them?
The Russians were far ahead in this field. This "mysterious forcefield" is nothing more than the US version of the Russian Arena system fitted in T-90 tanks since 1995. There are even videos on the web showing some fire tests which are truly impressive. If you find them you can see anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) get destroyed or thrown out of course by this special cannon matched to a radar system. When activated it creates a field of protection around the tank where anything approaching the tank at certain speeds of enough size gets an automatic response from the system. They also have an electro-optical jammer system called Shtora-1 which is far more interesting in my opinion than this active protection system.
The problem is that they lost track of the idea that they should not be fighting. The most effective army is the army that isn't used. Particularly when it doesn't fight an equally big centralized adversary. Iraq has gone a long way in getting the shine off. It's not as scary as it used to be. The Romans, inspired by the Spartans, had a doctrine also for this "si vis pacem para bellum". If you want peace "prepare" war. Note the difference between "prepare" and "wage". When the Spartans drunk on their success against the athenians forgot that they were not supposed to wage war to maintain their psychological and tactical advantages, they only taught the Thebans how they could be beaten. All armies have their weaknesses, and in history no army has been succesful agains irregular combattants in the long term (of course you're going to quash any group of irregulars that you meet in any kind of open battle, but they just keep coming, and coming and coming). A large army is expensive to maintain, and keep constantly in battle readiness. The irregulars have lots of volunteers among the opressed populations... and they choose when and where to strike. They don't have a very centralized hierarchy. They can only be defeated by defeating politically the reason they were given birth for. History is full of those lessons, but politicians are not very good at learning their lessons. Of course, in some cases it's because all of their knowledge of history comes from the Simpsons.
This kind of system seems like a perfect use for the electronically fired caseless bullet system that an australian developed a decade ago called metal storm. It can fire up to 1 million rounds a minute, sufficient to make a cloud that would basically be impossible for the incoming round to fly through. The problem I have with such a system is that it necessitates active radar use, which just makes you a big target for radar guided weapons.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.