www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,17764997,00.htmlBritain's sci-fi tanks to fend off attack with force-field
Michael Smith, London
09jan06
THE British Army's next class of armoured vehicles will be protected by a "force-field" of electrified armour that will vaporise rocket-propelled grenades.
Britain's Ministry of Defence has signalled that the electric armour, invented at the ministry's scientific research centre, will transform armoured warfare, enabling vehicles to be more lightly protected and more easily moved around the world.
It will also confound repeated claims from military experts that "the tank is dead" because it is too cumbersome for conflicts expected as part of the war on terror. The new armour will allow Western armed forces to regain the upper hand against terrorists and insurgents armed with the ubiquitous RPG7 rocket-propelled grenade, which can penetrate most current heavy armour.
The invention is just as effective against the "shaped charge" roadside bombs used by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, using technology allegedly supplied by Iran.
The armour is also much lighter, with about two tonnes of it reckoned to provide protection equivalent to that of 20 tonnes of conventional armour.
The army's Challenger 2 tank, which weighs 63 tonnes, and the 25-tonne Warrior armoured vehicle had to be ferried by sea to the Persian Gulf for the Iraq war -- a complex process taking many weeks.
The new vehicles -- which are expected to enter service early in the next decade -- will be smaller and lighter, enabling them to be moved by C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft.
Last week, the Ministry of Defence handed a contract to Lockheed Martin, the US company, to make a demonstration version of the British invention.
The success of the RPG7 in the recent conflicts in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq has caused major problems for Western troops.
The anti-tank weapon, invented by the Soviet Union in World War II and still made in several countries, is widely available for as little as $US10 ($13) in Third World arms markets.
The British electric armour is made up of several layers, the first of which is an earthed bullet-proof outer skin.
The second skin is live, although insulated, and has several thousand volts of electricity flowing through it, powered by the vehicle's battery.
The third skin is the normal vehicle hull. When an RPG7 grenade hits a tank with standard armour, its conical warhead fires a jet of hot copper into the target at about 1600km/h.
This can penetrate more than 30cm of conventional solid steel armour.
On the electric armour, the grenade penetrates the insulation on the live second skin, creating a sudden surge in electricity that vaporises the copper stream in the same way that a surge burns out a fuse wire.
The effect is to leave the inner hull intact and the crew safe, with the vehicle capable of taking repeated hits.
The Sunday Times
sounds a bit much tbh , but you never know
