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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.'"
It took me three tries to get past the "Nothing To See Here" notice.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Calling this a "force field" is a bit of a misnomer. It looks more like a point defense system for tanks and other armored vehicles. Very cool, but not as cool as a real force field.
As much as we might like to blame the summary, but the term occurs in the FA, too.
Ballistic - relating to or characteristic of the motion of objects moving under their own momentum and the force of gravity; "ballistic missile"
So....... if I keep my enemies at bay by throwing rocks at them, I am protected by a "force field"?
If I read that correctly, its not really a forcefield as we think of it. Its more like a bunch of sensors, that when they detect a threat, shoot something in the way of the threat so the decoy is hit instead of the tank. Its like chaff or any other decoy.
From TFA:
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Reactive armour is basically another layer of material on the outside of the vehicle. If I read TFA right, the Trophy system sends a stream of projectiles to intercept incoming threats at ranges of 10-30 metres. It's more attacking the incoming weapon ahead of time than waiting for the weapon to hit but trying to disrupt its effects when it does (though the basic principle - try to get it to explode early - is the same).
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
In the article, the threat is destroyed before it hits the tank.
With reactive armour, the threat is destroyed by the outer layer of reactive armour before it can penetrate the real (non-reactive) armour.
How long before this device opens and something launched automatically into a ballistic trajectory directly into someone's chest because of a system error?
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
More like a patriotic ether if you want to get technical.
You're merciless. But fair and balanced, I think.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
With the "launching automatically into a ballistic trajectory to intercept the incoming threat", it sounds more like this.
The examples in TFA all seem to talk about big armour like tanks and APCs. AIUI, the major (though obviously not only) threat from RPGs in places like Iraq is to Hummers and such, and the big problem is that even up-armoured versions of these light vehicles are far from immune to a good RPG shot. If this system really is as effective as the article makes out, and really will be ready within a couple of years, I wonder whether its first use will be on light vehicles like the next generation Hummer replacement, rather than on the M1A2 and friends.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The public... they've adapted!
You sir, are the king of all conspiracy theorists. I at least find it an entertaining read.
As you can see from the video, calling it a "forcefield" is nothing but an attempt to get free publicity. This thing is in reality a point defense system that uses radar to sense incoming projectiles and shoots out the equivelant of chaff to destroy the projectiles before it hits the vehicle.
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It's a sad day for Slashdot when something that could be done by a trained bat operating a tennis ball launcher is labeled as "mysterious" and vividly lauded. This is no more a forcefield than a fishing net is a cybernetic bio-containment unit. Another case of wishful PR thinking.
Now, if they had actually trained bats, then we're on to something.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Sorry, force fields are fields made of energy that can repel matter. Anyone watching one episode of Star Trek understands this.
Call it protective field or simply coutermeasure device, but don't bastardize the concept of force field to sensationalize this story.
You get all us Trekkie geeks excited over nothing.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
You must be auditioning for a position on Fox News. I beleive you mispelled the word "Faux".
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Although this does nothing to deter or stop IEDs or landmines, this is only effective against projectile type weapons...
This is _exactly_ like the shield systems used by warships in the game Independence War.
Salutaciones, JCAB
Here's a brief article I was able to find about it:
http://www.engadget.com/2004/06/14/force-field-for -tanks/
Translation: It's a machine gun. Probably 5.56mm NATO standard, as it's just big enough and the ammo is cheap.
Basically the same as a scaled down Phalanx.
Reactive armour has no electronic control, it's just a sheet of explosives sandwiched between two layers of steel held off of the vehicle hull. When a HEAT shell detonates on the surface, the explosive sheet also detonates, disrupting the jet.
The "populist xenophobia" was brought to us by rightwingers like Pat Robertson chanting repetitive mantras about demonic arabs, and O'Reilly telling FOX viewers that the bleeding heart liberals who are against profiling arabs are antiamerican and want Americans to die.
The problem was created entirely by the Politics of Fear tactic Bush was employing, and 100% of the blame for the UAE port deal failure falls on Bush and those who rode in on his coattails.
When I see something like this of course my brain starts to pick apart how it may work and what went into it. TFA didn't mention much about what was controlling it .. however this is my guess:
LynxOS
Damn I wish I got paid to make stuff like that. Anyone find any other info giving more detail as to exactly what went into that system? This would be an invaluable safety system on vehicles, if nothing less just shielding the driver from the initial crash.
Is it surprising that a small percentage of Arabs eventually decided to react to violence with more violence?
Eventually? You mean to tell me that part of the world hasn't been violent for over a thousand years? Don't take this the wrong way but I think you need to brush up on history a bit.
This seems like an awful lot of computing and wasted material just to shoot down a projectile at long distance. Who is to say that the projectile would even hit its target? We've had ERA for a while... Let the projectile come to you. If defense contractors and the armed services had to spend their own money instead of yours and mine, we wouldn't be doing any of this crazy stuff. It's only a good product if it's inexpensive and does what it is supposed to.
"Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Best AC political comment ever.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Where do they find these idiots who watch too much Star Trek?
The problem is that they don't watch enough Star Trek. Any fan would know the difference between this thing and a "force field."
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TFA sounds a lot like the early descriptions of the Phalanx Close-In Weapons System for defense of ships against low-flying antiship missiles like the infamous Exocet. I recall the Phalanx being described around the time of the Falklands War as throwing up a "wall" of bullets in front of an incoming missile through its extremely high rate of fire (up to 75 rounds per second). The widget in TFA may do much the same with a "force field" of fragments from the explosion of a shaped charge.
That is, I surmise "force field" is a metaphor here. Marketspeak, to forcefully (as it were) convey the impression of how the device works.
This is actually all fact, our history in the middle east in the last 40 years has been terrible. The fact that our two biggest enemies of the region (Iraq and Iran) both use US military hardware against us as well as Osama is a very capable tactician in the way US forces move their troops is a testament to this since we TRAINED Bin Laden and gave him stinger missiles during the Soviet Afghan war.
Even worse is the fact that both Bush and his right hand man Cheney have hands in the company who through its many subsidiaries is largely gaining from this war in defense contracts, rebuilding contracts, and security contracts.
Haliburton
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Hate to remind you, but the majority of casualties in Iraq is to Iraqi citizens, largely due to the total absence of security and stability in their country. Casualties in tanks are few in Iraq.
The ideal of these systems is to reduce the passive armor content of armored vehicles so that things like main battle tanks could be made lighter and therefore A) easier to deploy in quantity by airlift and B) faster and longer-ranged.
If they could put such systems on HMMWVs, that would certainly be a plus. Humvees weren't really designed to be APCs (though uparmor kits are available), though, as we've found out much to our dismay. Even with the armor kits, they would still be vulnerable to roadside bombs.
From the article: The system can simultaneously engage several threats,
arriving from different directions...
Let's hope the bad guys don't shoot two RPG's from the same direction at the
same time!
For some reason, I'm getting this image in my head of 2 of our tanks
side-by-side, automatically shooting each other with their 'force field'
because they are in an infinite loop of sorts. Hmmm... automated friendly
fire... that's new!
What is the difference between this and the Phalanx system used on U.S. Naval Ships? The Phalanx defense system, currently employed on U.S. Warships, shoots down enemy air projectiles that are heading towards the ship. The Phalanx uses radar to detect incoming missiles and shoots them out of the sky by unleashing an insane amount of bullets in direction of the target. Pictures and info here.. -C
So this thing is a "force field" against projectiles like my umbrella is a force field against rain?
Won't the key to defeating this be to use weapons that are faster than its reaction speed?
You know, for someone who wants to be an editor, it probably isn't the best to berrate the editors.
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
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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This system is a point defence system, similar in concept to the system deployed on the French LeClerc tank, and sort of a scaled-down, simplified version of a naval point defence like Phalanx.
But you aren't all that mistaken by comparing it to reactive armour, as the functionality of reactive armour is getting more complex all the time. A new-generation Russian reactive armour uses a sequence of outward-facing, linear shaped charges inside the reactive armour "brick", all tied together with a common detonator. If one of the charges is initiated by a long-rod penetrator or via a HEAT jet, all the charges initiate simultaniously, producing a series of "blades" that shoot out of the brick, and either section the rod/jet (as it very rarely hits dead-on) or cause it to yaw to the point where penetration is greatly reduced.
Or going in the other direction, there are new "bulging" armours that use metal plates separated by blocks of rubber. When a penetrator hits, the plates bulge, forcing the penetrator to continuously cut through the plates as they are forced into the side of the rod/jet. If you get lucky, the side force on the rod may become so great as to yaw or snap the penetrator.
Reactive armour doesn't really have any weaknesses. It's lighter per mm/RHA equivelent protection than a steel block, it can be serviced/replaced in the field, and if new technologies are invented, you just replace the bricks with the new stuff. Yes, if you take two hits to the same brick space, the protection is weaker on the second hit... but that's true of any armour.
Early reactive armour tended to be somewhat less than friendly to local infantry, but anything made in the last decade or so has largely solved that problem. If you are close enough to a hit to be damaged by the effects of a reactive armour initiation, the splash of the hit itself was likely to be injurous anyway.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Is it "half of the vehicle" or a "hemisphere of protection"? If it's a hemisphere, I don't expect that they run the protection throught the ground, and if so, that would give full coverable of the vehicle. If it's half, then it's not a hemisphere, because only a quarter of a sphere will protect half of it.
Maybe this is why people don't like hanging out with me.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
I think he's just upset because someone else used "Monkey" in their handle.
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That isn't a force field at all! It just shoots you!
Odd that you should mention Fox News. It was originally fox news that called it a force field. See here
"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."
Like in a Looney Tunes cartoon?
What?
it's gonna be precisely bugger all use against railguns, so i give this a workable life of, say, five years? if it can honestly track *and destroy* a projectile moving at approximately 3500 m/s (the desired speed, according to wikipedia), then i will happily eat each and every aol CD that comes through my door, for the rest of my days. i say it'll be useless before long. before you mod me a troll, or off-topic, or whatever, DARPA actually managed to make a working railgun, and they are funding a continual effort to generate a more solid design. it only failed to see regular use because the magnetic rails suffered heavy damage every time it was fired.
http://xkcd.com/313/
a 'Star Wars' implementation for vehicles. Not that it wouldn't be a interesting idea, but the 'glowing forcefield' ala grabbing the Quake that I envisioned is more intriqueing.
fak3r.com
Troll, but I'll bite. The Arabs in Iraq are busy killing each other and doing a great job at it.
This guy is way out there
Dude; you gotta learn to read, before submitting articles with "Man Bites Dog" headlines...
-- -pjk Perry Kundert perry@kundert.ca http://kundert.2y.net
Tested already in late February... "A few weeks back, Trophy, an Israeli active protection set-up, went through its first tests on an American Stryker vehicle. It's already being used to protect Israeli tanks against rocket-propelled grenades. [In a] Feb. 28 test... two inert RPGs were fired simultaneously; one would hit the Stryker while the other was intentionally aimed for a near miss... Trophy was able to track the trajectory, discriminate among the two parallel targets, and determine which one would actually hit the Stryker before selectively unleashing its lethal countermeasures. The actual method used to destroy the targets is classified." http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002230.html
Two problems with that statement:
Other than those two points, your statement is correct.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
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.
THIS is a forcefield!
Either way, both concepts are relatively old; I'm surprised the articles are only showing up now on slashdot.
There's a small chance I could be wrong (I've been wrong twice before), but when you've been around as long as I have and you've seen so much crap hyped by companies wanting another round of financing you learn to watch for obvious clues that things don't smell right. In this case hyping the use of the term force field which it obviously isn't is a huge clue they are trying to sell us on a pile of crap (despite the sold-called successful Army tests). Granted a point defense system that works is of obvious use, but the fact that they are not selling it as a point defense system tells me it simply doesn't work well and they are following the age-old tactic that snake oil salesmen have always used by dressing up crap and calling it filet mignon. The fact is that all TV news organizations now happily take "news footage" created by corporate marketing departments and show it as their own news. In this case I'll bet the news footage was created by the Israeli company including the commentary by the news caster.
The description of this thing as a "forcefield" seems to come from this Fox News clip (big SWF file.)". It's not. It's an active defense system that shoots small rockets back at incoming weapons. Exactly what it shoots back is not being revealed. UPI has a better article.
I think, if you want to stretch it, it can be described as a forcefield, emphasis on the "force" and please try to forget about the "field". After all, f=ma. They're supplying the ma, so there must be some f around there somewhere....
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
And here's one you can buy at you-know-where (of course, some "after-market" scaling may be required if you want it to deflect bullets, etc.)
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
Will recognize this as being similar to the point defense laser mounted on the US Paladin tanks.
Except that, as pointed out, this is not likely to use a laser but a standard projectile sort of weapon to accomplish the same purpose.
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
1. gotta be expensive (we don't wanna look like cheap assholes) 2. gotta make it sound like it's out of a sci-fi movie Training donkeys to help soldiers with carrying provisions : REJECTED A million dollar noisy and entertaining robotized donkey, looks like those big quadruped machines on Hot in Episode VI - ACCEPTED Laser beams shooting out of airplanes, like on space ships - ACCEPTED Light mattery to replace bullet proof vests - REJECTED Robotized cyborg-like appendages, makes soldiers look exactly like Robocop - ACCEPTED Machine gun that shoots of RPG-s targeted at tanks - REJECTED Mysterious Force field repelling RPG-s - ACCEPTED
The ones that would probably not be too happy are the grunts on foot or the ones on the Hummer following the tank in the direction of the RPG. Actually anyone friendly between the RPG and the countermeasure. It would work in a regular fight but probably it can be exploited to generate more casualties if one can set up the situation, just like the insurgents can.
Parent:
I still think it would be nicer to use all this money being spent to get those with the hate and the weapons to not hate as much.
Response:
And how would you like to accomplish this? Pay them to think happy happy joy joy feelings?
I think he meant to take that money, and use it to abduct potential threats and lobotomize them.
That pembo13 is scary hardcore, man. I prefer just protecting the tanks myself.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's probably easier to see and hear things outside the tank anyways.
You said, "... [the U.S. government] TRAINED Bin Laden and gave him stinger missiles during the Soviet Afghan war."
Actually, the consensus is that Laden was likely never funded, trained or armed directly by the CIA. But, that's not relevant.
Osama bin Laden did not need money or arms. He had millions of dollars of his own money; he was extremely wealthy and had connections with other extremely wealthy people who wanted to fund his ideas.
Here's part of what the CIA gave bin Laden, perhaps completely indirectly:
A deep understanding of how to be an efficient terrorist: What bin Laden needed was the CIA's manuals that tell how to be a terrorist. There was a news story about an Arab terrorist manual that had been found, and some of the text was quoted. The U.S. government stopped the quoting. However, before it was stopped, it was completely obvious that the original language of the terrorist manual was certainly not Arab and it seemed obvious to me that it was American English.
Jobless people trained in violence: When the U.S. government's largely secret support for aggression against Russia was finished, all those trained in violence and CIA terrorist methods needed work. Their resumes did not support getting jobs as rug merchants; all they knew was violence. That was the CIA's second biggest contribution to OBL: A huge group of people trained in and looking for violence.
Followers who hated U.S. government interference and violence: Other incidents of what the CIA calls "Blowback" provided strong reasons to hate U.S. government intervention. Also, many people in the U.S. government have a difficult time understanding this, but Arabs don't like to be killed.
A huge cache of modern missiles and explosives: Sure, maybe there was never a formal transfer of weapons to OBL, with contracts signed and handshakes, but a huge number of weapons and a huge amount of weapons material were left, and became available to OBL.
That's not a "mysterious force field". That's an even more bogus version of the "Star Wars" missile defense system for intercepting ballistic attacks with ballistic attacks. Which has never even worked at the long distances, large scales and long times, as well as vast, complex, powerful systems and humongous budgets. This system is better known as "science fiction". The mysterious force you're sensing is the defense contractor budget propaganda marketing field. Which has been protecting this country from good sense for generations.
--
make install -not war
It also does nothing to stop air-burst nuclear weapons and meteor strikes, but so what?
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Warning Label on Tank:
Do not play frisbee, football, or baseball near the talk.
Thank you,
The Management
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
The US Navy used the Phalanx to protect against missles fired directy against a ship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS
Also... the second series of Ghost in the Shell - 2nd Gig shows a "smart tank" controlled by an AI that can defeat RPGs with a similar active defense mechanism.
Regardless theres a LOT of very realistic scifi in GiTS... def worth watching.
It's not 5.56mm. Misses would be akin to opening up with a C9 pointed in some random direction.
It's closer in operation to a short-range shotgun, or command-detonated reactive armour.
Note too that the blast effect is not what disrupts the HEAT jet in reactive armour. Instead, reactive armour uses the explosion of the propellant to force a series of steel plates laterally through the jet.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Has anyone considered the friendly fire considerations of this automated chaff-firing defense system?
Horns are really just a broken halo.
A while back, there was talk of a technology called DREAD, which pretty much was a high-speed rotating disc that electronically released balls from it. By timing the spinning and the release, the balls could be fired in practically any direction as quickly as the machine could load the ammo.
s &file=article&sid=526
It looks like you could combine DREAD with a high-speed tracking radar and you get something like this technology.
Check out this link for more info:
http://www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=New
No way. This tech is intended to destroy incoming long-range projectiles such as missiles and, maybe, shells.
In theory, it works against RPG fire, assuming the radar catches it fast enough, which is subject to discussion, since RPG 7 is typically fired from 100-200 m away. Regarding IEDs, it would probably be totally inefficient. IEDs cause damage pretty much like landmines do: blast, heat/fire (where their device is not effective), and shrapnel (too dispersed to be intercepted). Plus, the IEDs fire off at very close range, while this device is supposed to trigger when the incoming projectile is 20/30 metres away.
Plus, they're only planning to implement it on expensive, big-ass armoured vehicles such as M1s and Strykers: in other words, the ones that aren't really put at threat by RPG7's and IEDs in the first place. I don't see the Army deploying this multi-million-dollar tech on their Hummers anytime soon...
This is "just" some new kind of anti-missile technology, only miniaturized and applied to tanks. Calling this a "protective force field" reeks of astroturf and, worse, political propaganda. This is high-tech for high-tech wars between high-tech armies, not protection gear.
Assuming this kind of high-tech weapons systems helps the conduct of non-conventionnal warfare, low-intensity warfare and ground occupation in anyway it misleading, counter-productive, and ultimately, dangerous (not to mention tax-dollar-wasting):
1. It makes political leaders and citizens think they can send troops to war without putting them in harm's way (assuming they care about the soldiers' lives at all), while ignoring all warnings from experts (both in and out the Army) that no amount of tech will ever make asymetric warfare completely safe.
2. It facilitates entry into war by ensuring complete, total, casualty-less, blitz-style victory against the military opponent (such as during the first weeks of the Iraq war). This both allows to "sell the war" (politically speaking) more easily, and it makes political leaders and military planners believe they don't even need a post-war scenario (since, by their standards, they'll have won the war and will be able to retire in the following weeks).
3. And during actual occupation, all these gadgets are of absolutely no use whatsoever to protect the troops against guerillas/militias/terrorist cells and/or an angry populace.
Sure, tech can help, even in non-conventionnal warfare. But it will never replace diplomacy, non-conventionnal military skills, solid ground intelligence, negociations with the adversary (don't get me wrong, negociating doesn't mean you can't stab them in the back the next minute), and not pissing off all of the locals at once. All things which the US Army is arguably not very good at, but this is another debate entirely.
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
It seems that is nothing more than the active defense system that David Drake envisioned more than 30 years ago in his Hammer's Slammers book series. Impressive if it works, but notice how they don't really mention what happens to any friendlies near the "system" when it fires... Like all point defense systems, keeping the thing from killing your own guys is a major concern.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
First off, this is totally useless against mines/IEDs/roadside bombs, which have proven so useful in the current conflict in Iraq that you can guarantee their use by anyone else who wants to take on the US military.
Second, I keep having visions of the "slow penetrator" from Dune: something that moves so slowly that the device will not notice it. Like the opposite of a kinetic-energy penetrator. I'm having visions of an RC car with a bomb.
It shoots out a bunch of stuff at an incoming whatever. It's a tiny version of whatever they're calling Star Wars these days. This belongs on Slashdot why?
The other thing isn't Star Wars, this isn't a forcefield, and those assholes should be focusing their efforts on space-age technology to spot roadside bombs and keep us from shooting down our own helicopters. Also a means of wiping out civilian populations that will be agreeable to human rights organizations.
Sounds like systems designed for carriers.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
isn;t this the exact concept of the hugely successful "Patriot" missile system? Preemptively stiking an incoming projectile? Albeit a mush smaller faster scale.. Not a forcefield.. Silly geese
So many injustices..so little time..
The title drew me into this posting. This kind of bullshit needs to stop -- it really dilutes the credibility of Slashdot. I fully understand that TFA used the term force field, but obviously someone wrote out the term "mysterious force field" with the intent of deceiving people.
It's my understanding that RPG's didn't become a big deal until tanks and other heavy, armored equipment did. They were, in a sense, a cheap response to an expensive problem. From what I recall (and feel free to correct me, I very well may be wrong) you can acquire RPG rounds for suprisingly little in some areas of the middle east - we're talking around $20. My suspicion is that this point-defense system isn't nearly as inexpensive to fire. We're presenting their cheap response with another expensive problem. I'd be curious how difficult it would be to build a radar jammer that could confuse this system enough to allow something through. I wonder how cheap it would be to build said jammers, and duct-tape them on to existing RPG launchers.
I don't have any doubt that systems like these, designed to save the lives of people who put themselves on the line for this country, are valuable assets. However, I do question the economy of it all. When we have to spend millions of dollars for every 20 bucks our enemies do, one has to wonder how that will play out in the long run.
- the field is an open curved surface with no flat side - shaped like a soup bowl.
- the field is a closed hollow surface including a flat side.
- the field is a non-hollow solid.
I would guess that a force field would be generated from a device situated at a point, and probably emitting a solid field whose force decays proportional to the inverse square of the distance from the device, so it would be non-hollow solid.We Magic geeks were wondering where the U.S. Army got all the mana to repel these projectiles, too.
___ In the words of Gen. Douglas McArthur: "I'll be right back."
You know as well as I do, fighting a vehicle with that system isn't that difficult... Just scratch RPG's off of the options list and move to the next. It's MUCH easier to be the attacker than the defender! ;)
Still, you've got to admit that this would be a huge psychological deterant. I mean, if I fired RPGs at a tank, and the RPGs (seemingly without cause) pre-detontated before they ever reached the tank, I'd be looking to get the hell out of there and warn all my friends!
How would you like to be an insurgent trying to sneak up on an M1 and suddenly find yourself looking like a marshmellow in a microwave oven? I am not surprised that the army has showcased this stuff as a defensive weapon but think of the potential of replacing fragmentation weapons.
an ill wind that blows no good
How portable are these things?
Anybody know if I'll be able to install one into my pimped ride?
"Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb." - Dark Helmet (Spaceballs)
Big hot thing coming in on radar. Fire a 'beam' of bullets at it.
Wham. Phalanx anyone?
Bush: Well, I done heard that these I-ranians have hi-tech equiptment and the like
Daddy: Yes son, and we have been skimming billions off our defense budgets for our friends in the middle east for years now!
Bush: That don't make no sense!
Daddy: Yes son, that is the beauty of it!
Bush: So lets get someone to make something up about our stuff, to make it sound good?
Daddy: Thats right son, and lets sell ADS as a new optional extra on hummers!
Bush: I like them cars! brum brum!
Daddy: Tree Fiddy?
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That depends. Are the 'rebels' a foreign superpowers military that is overthrowing the dictator under the guise of motives that turn out to be completely fraudulent and more likely than not just going to exploit your national resources and establish a puppet government?
No, actually the 'rebels' are mostly a group of independant freedom fighters run by a quazi-religious organization of people with supernatural abilities and are attempting to regain democratic control of an empire (with the quazi-religious group being the appointed guardians of that empire) despite the fact that the senate was stupid enough to vote the dictator into his position anyway by giving him emergency powers in response to a perceived threat (that the dictator himself helped create), and which powers he maintains by using a army of mostly ineffective but nevertheless cheap fighters who were cloned from a bounty hunter and by using an extremely powerful (but sadly mangled) and corrupted person from the quazi-religious group, and who has awesome supernatural powers, bad fashion sense, and a propensity for building weapons on a truly immense scale.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Of armour versus anti-armour weapons... We'll now be seeing anti-tank missiles dispensing chaff or with multiple warheads (like this http://www.army-technology.com/projects/starstreak /images/star2.jpg) or built in jamming technology.
Well, it keeps some geeks gainfully employed at least.
Matt
oops...
I'm not 100% sure what Australia's equivelant of Guantanamo is, but I think you can start having your mail forwarded to New Zealand...
The Defense Update article was in "Year 2004 Issue: 1".
This is point defense. It's cool, but it's not a force field; more like a 'sensor net.' Proximity field. Whatever, insert your favorite bastardized sci-fi term.
THIS is a force field, and it's 4 years old:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/8/19/12550/648http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/08/19/boffins_i
http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Others/Others-Doc
That which does not kill us makes us... st
Seriously, I know, you are joking, but nobody seems to jokingly wear, say, Swastika on their clothing, yet the Hammer-and-Sickle remain all the rage :-(
Imagine a new line of German schnaps being promoted with those crossed symbolic fasces. It would -- understandibly -- cause an outrage. But new Russian vodkas continue to proudly display the murderous Red Star, and the above mentioned tools.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I said nothing about the cause of the lack of security, merely asserted it's existance.
All hail Shai-Hulud!
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
From the briefing provided by US sources, Defense Update understands that Trophy is design to form a "beam" of fragments, which will intercept any incoming HEAT threat, including RPG rockets at a range of 10 - 30 meters from the protected platform. Which works out well for everyone except soldiers that work 10-30 meters from the protected platforms, who were quoted as saying, "F*ck..."
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
It's called metal storm, and I too immediately thought of that type of gun when I read about this system.
-John Fenley
How about Happy Fun Ball?
Red alert - charge the hull plating! One of the latest experimental versions of reactive armor being developed for British Defense and Science and Tech Lab is "electric reactive" which uses an extreme high-potential capacitor linked to metal plates on the hull of a tank. The metal plates have a non-conductive layer between them. When a penetrator rod (Sabot) or the explosively-formed penetrator of a shaped charge breaches the plates, the lighting-like discharge vaporizes the penetrator of shaped charges, and if scaled up may be able to deform or vaporize (turn to plasma) kinetic penetrator rods.
I think an ultimate system for light combat vehicles like the LAV, Stryker, FCS, and russian BTR would use a combination of electric-reactive armor and directed energy weapons like particle beams to pre-detonate or vaporize incoming ballistic threats.
"As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Thank God that they didn't leak the new designed tank using this that can transform into a bit robot. D'oh!
MadOgre.com
he is a troll, ignore him.
Granted he is a good one.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The video shows something being thrown at the incoming RPG (seems an explosive).
3 00.swf
f _Israeli_Made_Forcefield_
The video requires the swf plug-in which does not work on Linux (macromedia, foxnews, anyone?):
http://media2.foxnews.com/040606/040606_fr_tobin_
Here's the original discussion from 2 days ago:
http://digg.com/technology/Direct_Link%3A_Video_o
Here is a simple feature I would *love* to see here on /.
The "Is this worth our money?" poll, to be attached to any story discussing anything tax-funded. Politics aside, it is our money. Is this how we want it spent?
Honest question, useful data (IMO).
Math is math. Regular expression is regular expression. The tools are there. The future is now.
Notice: This is not reactive armor, check out the video here.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
You have to wonder if they even bother to retype the Pentagon, Administration, and defense contractor press releases which hit their fax machines.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Casualties in tanks are few in Iraq.
Well, this is the problem. RPG rounds fired at tanks is not a big issue. If this could react against IEDs, then it'd be big news. Until then it's cool, but not something that's going to make much of a difference (at least in Iraq).
I...I'm attacking the darkness!
Laser cannon reference was to this doofus.
We need an active defence system to shoot down posts like yours before they hit the thread.
Read Pynchon.
We can fight something like this. First of all there might be a way to deplete the point defense system with
machine gun fire. Second of all there are probably electronic countermeasures against it's radar which can also
be used to deplete point defense projectiles. Third, the system does not protect against antitank mines or
other means of physically disabling the tank (such as fast hardening foam etc.). And best of all the active
radar component is actually a great way to detect and triangulate the hostiles. What's more, this just means
that projectiles either have to have more mass to get past the defensive projectiles or have higher velocity.
The race is on and it can't really be won.
Reminds me of the radar jamming devices the Germans had on board their bombers albeit for a very short time
during WWII. The british used the jamming signal to triangulate the bombers.
Why don't they just build a mysterious force field of their own?
Honestly, can these people do nothing for themselves?
Read Pynchon.
Don't get me wrong and also don't bore me with the Domino Doctrine which Wikipedia rightly calls a theory but I never got my ass kicked in Vietnam, Korea or anywhere else on the globe. I never authorized any force against anyone nor was I ever asked to authorize it, nor will I ever be likely to authorize it. Aside from the humanitarian aspect, take a look at the latest "Holy War".. so if all the oil wells are under their control, why is it that I still have to pay for gas at the pump? This is not my war and I don't profit even remotely from it, so even if I was a sick enough son of a bitch I'd still have no incentive to back this crap.
If someone blows people up half-way across the globe and says he did this in my name and with my consent then fuck him, he either doesn't know any better (guy in an uniform) or is lying through his teeth (suit with american flag pin label). Oh and spare us all the "War against Terror" angle. There wouldn't be any terror in the first place if the scum over here didn't threaten the mostly islamic clerical scum in charge over there.
To be fair, TFA does not say that. What TFA says is:
"The Threat Detection and Warning subsystem...[provides] 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..."
Emphasis mine. In particular, note from what I've emphasised:
1) The system can not protect against multiple threats from arbitrary relative angles. Unless all threats lie within a hemispherical arc, the system cannot even theoretically protect against them all.
2) The system has not only informational steps before firing (detect, identify, verify), it has mechanical steps it must perform (open, position), and those can't be done at the speed of electrons. Given that 90% of urban targets are engaged at under 50m and that the most common RPG has a speed of 100-300 m/s, urban combat is going to require reaction times on the order of fractions of a second. That's a tall order for simply the informational parts of the process, much less the mechanical parts.
Basically, the article reads like a marketing pamphlet, and isn't all that informative. Based on the nature of the threats involved, though, it's unlikely that the system will perform as a "protective forcefield" in realistic conditions. It may well be useful and valuable, but I'm very dubious that it will in any way live up to how some people are hyping it.
With dogs?
Reactive armor is a Russian thing.
We layer on the ceramics, steel, depleated uranium, and kevlar. We like to bolt on great big thick sandwiches of the stuff, uranium between steel. For the stryker, we add stand-off armor with a 2-foot air gap designed to pre-detonate stuff away from the vehicle.
It's lots safer. Reactive armor is a hazard to people near the tank. This new system looks like a hazard too, so I guess we're getting over our qualms about foot soldiers getting blasted by "friendly" tank protection.
Shaped charges send a beam of copper in a desired direction. The copper is not exactly a normal solid or liquid, but in any case, droplets or particles go really fast.
It all depends on how you measure.
Fuel efficiency? Hell no. Speed? Yes. Since we upgraded to the German guns, we have rather nice firepower. Our armor is no-nonsense stuff that handles all sorts of stuff. To penetrate our tank with an RPG, you need a very lucky shot with a rare double-warhead projectile. (through a narrow seam in the skirt it seems, then between the wheels, and you probably won't kill anybody)
Reactive armor (popular with Russia) is very wimpy against sustained 30mm canon fire, as delivered by the A-10 or the Bradley fighting vehicle. Just 7 hits and you're dead. At 4200 rounds per minute, it only takes 1/10 of a second. Americans use real armor: layers of uranium, ceramic, steel, kevlar... and we lay it on thick.
to post?
... But, more likely, this'll make useful fodder for sci-fi scripts....
Hell, why wait that long. If you set up a saturation attack from multiple quadrants, it's just a matter of time before a tank's swiveling/slewing reactive armor can't cope, and might even break down. It's just a matter of time before the close-in defense gun either jams, overheats, or expends its ammo.
How to speed this up? Well, launch a wave attack. Only SOME of the rounds need to be live shots. The rest, if convincing enough to trigger the perimeter alert/defense system, will keep the tank crew on edge until they make a fatal or mission-fatal mistake.
Some of the "vampire" rounds could deposit acid or sand or some corrosive or jamming agent to gunk up seals, gaskets and even cooling systems, causing slower slewing, seal failure, and even false alarms (get sand in the lensing system and maybe you can force the crew to come out to clean it...)
But, why bother with all that? Just bring your OWN super generator and microwave guns and cook the people IN the tank. If you can penetrate the armor with microwaves, then you'll cook the crew and maybe end up with a perfectly operable tank... But,for airplanes... they'll crash if not on autopilot...or if a/p fails...
This is NOT a how-to on attacking US technology... It's universally applicable to ANY ground vehicles, maybe even including ET's tanks
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Another note to add. Let us not forget that the US is primarily responsible for keeping iraq impoverished for 10 years prior to invasion. We basically prevented them from selling their only major economic resource, oil. I am sure it didn't help that we bombed them now and then because we didn't think they were fully cooperating when it came to weapons inspections (nevermind that we now know that Iraq didn't have anything to hide all along).
Yup, there's no religious war going on over there. It's all the US baby-killers, right? I'll bet you'll neve rhave the balls to say what you just said to some troops arriving home from Iraq. Not in person at least.
This guy is way out there
I bet I do. The troops are just following orders.
Troops just don't follow orders to kill babies because those orders do not exist. And if you ever are foolish enough to say this to some troops, I look forward to you getting shut up quick, fast, and in a hurry. You could of course, enlist and go to Iraq and "expose" everything that you claim is going on over there. Not that you'd put your own body on the line for your beliefs.
This guy is way out there
Using microwaves you may at most cook the target's radar and comm gear, the hull is more or less a Faraday cage. (But then, once they are blind and mute, you may use conventional weaponry.) However if you'll be spotted lugging around this gear, which you will be as your EM emissions betray you to the nearest AWACS at the moment you switch it on, you'll get a missile from the nearest UAV right into the trunk of your car. Therefore I would suggest to stay lowtech.
Tinfoil-wrapped stones launched from a suitable sling-shot could work as good decoys, as they will give excellent radar signature. Normal stones are not as reflective.
Hightech toys are pretty and sexy, but sometimes they are more a liability than a help.
You misspelled money.
A nice WIZZBang system like the "force field" makes sense only if it is capable of sending counter battery fire directions to other USForce's for the KILL.
l d+weasel
Kind of like the UASF Wildweasle missions. One in, ten fire.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wi
Otherwise the soldiers will burn the explosive to heat the morning coffee.
LLUA, it is time you dropped off your high horse. I know very few people who don't have SOME relation in Iraq. I did serve my term wearing a Marine bib in the Navy as well.
As for the orders you claim don't exist (based upon nothing but your own assertion that they do not exist (because God knows, if troops were ordered to make an example of a terrorist family the brass would ring up every dipshit ex-marine and his brother so that they could make that statement without talking out their arses.
I have given a link to the reports and video. You have given your authorative "nu uh". Oh yes, I forgot, you also assured me that evidence doesn't count unless it is being presented by your brother in Iraq.
"You could of course, enlist and go to Iraq and "expose" everything that you claim is going on over there."
Why would I expose stories that have already been exposed? or did you think I magically summoned the video and articles I posted in this discussion?
Unless you have something more fruitful to add than your trolling let us call this an end to the discussion shall we?
So how about using this Point Defense System on vehicles that are demonstrably vulnerable, instead of on juggernauts that apparently don't need as much protection.
A-Bomb
overwhelm and deplete the counter-measures system by making decoy rockets/projectiles? arrays of roadside bombs that sprayed decoy projectiles? especially if the enemy knows how it works, there's all sorts of ways to exploit it and make it useless
... if this is like a force field then a chain saw is like a light sabre
Don't worry about having to take care of it.
As happens to most very highly complex systems, it'll break down in wartime, failing to protect the tank.
Besides, it'll be crushingly expensive - meaning the USA will collapse from its economic pressure even sooner. Not that I appreciate this all that much (I do have some US friends), but at least the world will be quite a bit more peaceful again.
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
I wouldn't have thought it would even be that complicated. Just run a series of projectiles being fired from the same location, along the same trajectory, targeted at the same point on the vehicle.
The front 4 or 5 projectiles (depending on the rate of recognition and firing rate from the tank) would be decoys, and the last in the series would be a nice, heavy shell (or whatever). Each decoy would get closer and closer because the system wouldn't see the next projectile until after it had destroyed the preceeding one.
Finally, the defense system doesn't have enough time to respond to the real attack.
--
onedotzero
thedigitalfeed.co.uk
There's a small bit about this in my 1995 Popular Mechanics magazine... A tank that can tell when a projectile is incoming, and launches a panel of its armor to intercept 20-30 feet away from the tank.
Has it ever occured to you that maybe you should start spending some money on things that actually promote human life...instead of your perverted desire to kill everything you can find. You are a war-mongering bunch of pyschopaths.
The urban dictionary is wrong. It calls Wild Weasels a "crazy" mission. It wasn't. It was dangerous, but so is everything else in warfare. I used to work on the F4D and F4G - The Phantom F4G was called the "Wild Weasel" in its day. af.mil/museum. It was a cool plane. In 1984, when the US bombed Libya, F111's were the Wild Weasels, and one didn't come back. I don't think it was the result of enemy action, tho, IIRC it had mechanical problems.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Maybe in your set. In my world, which granted is mostly comprised of people over the age of 26, I haven't seen a hammer and sickle t-shirt yet. The Che Guevara face shirts I've noticed in some sort of pop media context, but never seen in person.
In fact the overwhelming cultural weight in my world is thrown behind a lot of bogus "family values" and "support the troops" posturing that's nothing more than a thinly-veiled justification for exactly the sort of authoritarian views you yourself would probably detest in Soviet, or Che Guevara, admirers... There's absolutely no shortage of ribbons on the backs of cars to that effect -- "Support our Troops" meaning "Never criticize our foreign policy (as long as a God Fearin' Republican is in power)."
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Sships have been using a similar system for years. Thales make a shipboard radar controlled automatic missle defence system that shoots down incomming missles.
/Mad
No forcefields, no Star Trek, just bullets.
yawn.
420-some-odd responses, and nobody has mentioned OGRE?
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Yes! Our fearless leader will be decisive for us and our children.
That sure makes me feel warm and macho.
Ron-bo for president!
The parent was talking about roadside attacks which are mainly IEDs...
Hussein was a bloody butcher of his own people. I remember the news reports of what his sons had been doing.
Check out these news reports:
* Qusay was the more deferential son, always showing Saddam great respect in public. He often oversaw the arbitrary killings of prisoners who were murdered to alleviate overcrowding in jails.
* AMMAN, Jordan, 3/21/2003 (UPI) -- A group of American anti-war demonstrators who came to Iraq with Japanese human shield volunteers made it across the border today with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, told UPI the trip "had shocked me back to reality." Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists. Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so they could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head."
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
A few problems with your statements too.
Firstly, I, and others, have seen posts posted right after stories are 'aired' (for lack of a better word) that say that "Tripmaster Monnkey" should be an editor. Now, unless some other subscriber is posting these messages,from the mysterious future, on your behalf, without your permission, that does mean you want to be an editor.
Secondly, your last point would be true in an place where there was some higher power over the editors. There is none on Slashdot. The editors are the one who decide who gets to be another editor.
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
If it "only" stops RPGs, that's still an improvement over current tech.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
5.56 != fragments
explosive charge within metal casing == fragments
I just searched through every post you made to this story. I found two "links" that did not exist and one that did.
The one that did was to a story that may or may not be true. The military spokesman said that the allegation had not been heard yet. Which means that we have not had a chance to investigate it. That makes it pretty one-sided, does it not?
It could be a rogue squad went crazy. Much more likely is that a few terrorists got their hands on some surplus cammies and a few AR-15s and tried to frame US forces. I'm not saying it was one or the other - simply that your single article is not proof of anything, let alone all the crazy bullshit you've been spouting.
So who's the real troll here?
Understandably. And stupidly. The delusional mass hysteria facing the swastika (and indeed all things supposedly-Nazi) is one of the more disheartening symptoms of the prevailing hypocrisy and idiocy of the hoi polloi in western society.
What about whiskies with American flags on them, then?
-GleeMany a true word hath been spoken in jest -- mod funny posts "Informative".
Definitely, just making the distinction ;)
So why does this article state that GDRS (General Dynamics) has unveiled their newest product, when in fact it was RAFAEL (isreal) and IAI Elta who designed this technology. Typical GDRS propoganda! Buy someone elses product and claim it's your own.