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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.'"
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:
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~ |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.
More like a patriotic ether if you want to get technical.
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.
This is _exactly_ like the shield systems used by warships in the game Independence War.
Salutaciones, JCAB
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.
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
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.
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?
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
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
Dude; you gotta learn to read, before submitting articles with "Man Bites Dog" headlines...
-- -pjk Perry Kundert perry@kundert.ca http://kundert.2y.net
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.