Electric Armour Detailed - Brits buy Tech Demos

[Kirkhill]

Defense Industry Daily posted this link to a 4 year old article about electric armour.  There had been some interest on details about 4 months ago on this site so that is why I thought it might be of interest.

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. The outer plate, which is bullet-proof and made from an unspecified alloy, is earthed while the insulated inner plate is live.

The electric armour runs off the tank's own power supply. When the tank commander feels he is in a dangerous area, he simply switches on the current to the inner plate.

When the 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.

But despite the high charge, the electrical load on the battery is no more than that caused by starting the engine on a cold morning.

In a recent demonstration of the electric armour for senior Army officers, an APC protected by the new British system survived repeated attacks by rocket-propelled grenades that would normally have destroyed it several times over.

Many of the grenades were fired from point-blank range but the only damage to the APC was cosmetic. The vehicle was driven away under its own power.

This original Telegraph article is the most complete description, in layman's terms, I have yet seen of the system.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2002%2F08%2F19%2Fnmod19.xml
http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/002465.php
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2006/01/2-fres-vehicle-survivability-contracts-to-thales-boeing-lockheed/index.php#more

It is all the more interesting in that the contract was one of four awarded simultaneously by the MOD, two to BAE Hagglunds for their hybrid SEPs as well as two armour contracts.  These are part of the FRES programme (Future Rapid Effects System).

It is also interesting in light of a comment made on the discussion about the deployability of the MGS that the old M113 married with the C130 made a useful combination for the arctic - Could the SEP (tracked) with this armour be the modern version?

Also there is this quote from DID that I thought might resonate with some folks on this site:

...readers should also understand that stealth and sensors aren't everything. Sometimes, one must simply have systems with the protection required to face and defeat high-intensity fire. Otherwise one has a very expensive and frequently successful system whose first unexpected encounter is likely to be its last. See the story of Objective Peach during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

Cheers

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/sep/ for info on the SEP

 

[Dog]

Sounds ingenious... honestly wouldn't have ever thought of a system like that.

Sounds like it could be complicated to fix if anything ever went wrong though.... I wouldn't want to be inside of it if it had a malfunction... would give a whole new perspective on the phrase "Tommy Cooker."

 

[Blackhorse7]

Interesting... a flaw though.  "When the tank commander feels he is in a dangerous area, he simply switches on the current to the inner plate."

Unless he's Spiderman, there are going to be a lot of times where a dangerous situation explodes out of nowhere.

 

[a_majoor]

Interesting... a flaw though.  "When the tank commander feels he is in a dangerous area, he simply switches on the current to the inner plate."

Unless he's Spiderman, there are going to be a lot of times where a dangerous situation explodes out of nowhere.

Unless there is some unspecified reason that the system should be off (excessive current draw, interferes with on board sensors, makes the vehicle glow like a neon sign while active), then it should be simply wired to the starter switch and engaged whenever the vehicle is manned. If the engine is off, the driver can simply "turn the key" to the Accessory position to keep it active.

 

[c_canuk]

possibly they shut it off cause there might be a chance of it arcing from the vehicle to the ground or through the crew, plus if it's very high voltage the built up charge could eventually break down the insulation...

those are just wild ass guesses, I have no data on how it works.

 

[DBA]

During training, parades, refueling, maintenace and after the equipment is degraded while getting on or off are probably times such a system should be off.

 

[Dog]

Doesn't sound like the sort of system you would want to be running off of the battery.

You get hit once, and immediately you are sitting in the worlds heaviest paperweight. Forget trying to start it up to run away or return fire.

 

[Kirkhill]

Dog:

These systems are being derived on the basis of "hybrid" drive systems as they are now known.  They could also be described as modified diesel electric systems which have been around since the 1940s at least.  Now they are more compact and fuel efficient.

A primary advantage of them is that (in the case of the SEP) there are two separate engines, one on either side of the vehicle at the front, powering two separate generators which both keep an array of batteries charged as well as powering the 6-8 independent motors that drive the wheels, all electronic devices including, potentially the shields.

Because things are connected by wires rather than by metal shafts many "transmission lines" can be run along different wire-ways meaning that space can be opened up inside, but more importantly it means that even if a hole is punched through the vehicle and a wire (or shaft) is damaged there is likely to still be power delivered to all systems.  There is less likelihood of a mobility kill with this system, in fact less likelihood of running out of juice on silent watch.  There is enough reserve in the batteries that the vehicle can run for a number of miles at road speeds on battery power alone.

Cheers.

 

[Dog]

I stand corrected...


Look at that, 0705 and I've already learned something today.  ;D

 

[Lance Wiebe]

The Brits have been working on this system for years, finally their hard work is starting to get results.  Funny how the Brits are way ahead of their allies when it comes to armour protection....

The ability to shut the system down, is quite simply, to save wear and tear on the alternator on current vehicle systems.  As Kirkhill pointed out, once diesel/electric combo drives become fashionable, the alternators will be designed from the outset to act as high output, efficient generators.  The draw from the electric armour will be neglegable....

 

[Kirkhill]

The Brits have been working on this system for years, finally their hard work is starting to get results.  Funny how the Brits are way ahead of their allies when it comes to armour protection....

It seems to me that even before the coming of Cobham armour the Israelis at least preferred the Centurion over the M48/M64 on the grounds that the extra weight of armour was worth more in terms of survivability and tactical mobility on the battlefield than an extra 10 miles per hour of speed.

Is that perhaps indicative of a greater influence of the Royal Tank Regiment in design than the Cavalry regiments?  Keep in mind that the RTR started life crawling across trenches at infantry speeds offering direct support and didn't have the luxury of maneuvering out of the way of the enemy.  Also, with the Infantry heavy nature of the British Army might not that have lent some political weight to ensure that even if "Infantry Tanks" were no longer the flavour of the day that tanks were still capable of functioning in that role? 

Maybe thats a matter for another thread, one thats already open.

Off Topic completely. -

I was just reading that Tony Blair is intending in the near future to fully privatize Qinetiq, the public/private corporation that was launched from the government research agency that brought you Cobham armour as well as this latest endeavour.  As a fiscal conservative I am generally in favour of privatizing.  On defence matters I am not sure that that is always the best policy.  Traditionalist that I am I am not inclined to try an fix things that ain't broke.  On the other hand the Yanks seem to have done reasonably well in the aerospace industry using the "private" model while the Brits' "public" model also produced the SA80.

Maybe it just doesn't matter.

 

[Blackhorse7]

Kirkhill.... interesting...

I wonder if there would be a way of routing damaged sytems to non-damaged area's.  But it sounds from your post that would be the case.  I would like to see what this looks like operationally.  I think the Brits are on to something big.

 

[Kinote]

This new electric armour idea is very interesting! Maybe it will be in service and in Canadian armour by... Mid 3000's? What would happen if the armour were to be struck multiple times in the same area? A cooling system? If you're vaporizing semi-liquid metals into simple nothingness there will no doubt be quite a bit excess heat given off into the vehicle.

 

[a_majoor]

While a high efficiency alternator is needed regardless to power the various electronic systems and sensors new generations of military vehicles will need, an alternative system might be to borrow the "hyberbar" system from the LeClerc.

This is a small gas turbine which feeds air from the compressor stage into the Diesel engine, providing "instant" response. The engine exhaust provides a greater proportion of the energy to the turbine as the engine RPM increases. The turbine also powers the APU, providing energy to the vehicle when the main engine is off. This is a more robust system than the conventional alternator and battery system.

 

[ZipperHead]

Warning: I have no engineering background, and I am prone to arcing out batteries  when doing maintenance on them, so take any advice/observations with a grain of salt.

To me, this sounds very good indeed. On a completely wild tangent, I will mention something I saw on a documentary about camouflage a whole bunch of years ago. I'm pretty sure it was the Brits who tried this, but nonetheless, what they did was hook up a whole bunch of lights (yes, lights) to the side of a carrier (FV432 if memory serves), parked it on the top of a hill, broadside (admittedly not the ideal position for a vehicle, but work with me here.....). They flicked the lights on, and Voila!!! you couldn't see the carrier anymore (from a goodly distance). Yes, the application for this is very limited (i.e night would be a bad time to try this), but it goes to show that TRYING unconventional means of defeating something can be useful (the current (overused) term is "thinking outside of the box").

I think worrying about multiple hits (beyond 2 or 3) is kind of pointless. It is similar to worrying about the bruising that occurs when one is shot while wearing body armour: getting one second chance is usually enough. Hoping to have 9 lives, a la a feline, is pushing it.

I'm surprised that no one seems concerned about kinetic energy rounds (sabot). Talking with a colleague (makes me sound like a professor, kinda like the Maestro on Seinfeld) he had mentioned that 90% of the rounds fired today are still chemical energy rounds (ie RPG 7 rounds as mentioned in the Winds of Change article).

As for turning it on in a "dangerous area", I think we would relate that to being part of the Action Drill, which is conducted prior to moving out of a safe area, towards the enemy (readying weapons, turning on laser, loading smoke/frag grenades into grenade dischargers, etc). I could imagine a few humourous scenes where the commander (or gunner) hops off to take a leak, accidentally hits the armour with weapon slung and ends up with an Afro (no offence to people of Negroid descent .... I looked it up on Wikipedia, and it is still OK to use the term .... CYA troops (and not short for see ya later)).

Al

 

[Lance Wiebe]

Oh, I guess somebody should have been clearer (Like me...)

This electric armour is great for CE rounds, and lousy for KE rounds, ergo, this armour is meant more for non-KE targets, such as IFV's.  For heavy tanks, the electric armour may become an "add-on" type armour, especially when they go playing in built up areas....

Sorry for any confusion.  I've been following this project for quite a while, and sometimes I forget to point out the "little things"....

 

[Kirkhill]

Lance:

Would you think that this system would be effective against the full range of HEAT warheads?  ie M72/RPG up to Hellfire?

Also do you know if HEAT rounds are effective with a cone made of a material other than copper?  This system seems to rely on creating a conductive plasma - is copper required to create the plasma?

Finally,  how would it hold up to squash-head/HESH/HEP rounds?

As you say, this stuff seems likely to be the catsass against the "man with the RPG" and maybe the ATGM generally - just wondering what the counter to the counter might be. Effective  KE rounds will generally require a large platform and less likely to be encountered in a co-in situation I would think.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Looks neat, although its all voodoo magic to me.

I'm not a gunnery expert, but I figure that HESH would not be affected.  HESH is relying on an explosion generated on the exterior face of the armour to produce a shockwave that passes through the armour.  I can't see how an electrical current would interfere with this process but I'm no engineer.  There are other counter-measures for HESH (spaced armour being one), and to my knowledge HESH rounds are fired from tank cannons, not shoulder-launched systems.  While this type of electric armour would presumably counter ATGMs, I see its potential value being for light AFVs against the RPG threat.  If a light vehicle comes up against a tank then the light vehicle will still be in trouble, in my estimation, as the tank could fire Sabot or perhaps HESH (if it carries HESH).  Light AFV cannons that fire Sabot (25mm and 30mm chain guns for example) would still be a danger as well, so this shouldn't be seen as some universal talisman against harm.  That being said, the threat these days seems to be RPGs and not tank cannons.  The electric armour's ability to counter IEDs would also, in my estimation, be reliant on the mechanism of the IED.  A shaped charge IED might well be countered, but ones relying on blast and fragmentation might not.

I was also wondering about the copper bit, and whether the size of the warhead made a difference.  I don't know if they make shaped charges with a lining material other than copper (and I didn't know that copper was used in the first place).  Still, if it gives protection against the existing massive stockpiles of RPGs in the world for LAVs then that is a good thing in today's operating environment.

"Shields up, all hands brace for impact"

p.s. The article mentions "point blank range" for an RPG.  While range will be a factor in achieving a hit, it shouldn't affect penetration for a shaped charge.

 

[a_majoor]

Copper is the most common liner for shaped charge warheads because it is easy to shape (both during manufacture and during detonation), reasonably dense and relatively common and cheap. In theory, a material with greater density would pack more punch when inverted and accelerated to @Mach 25 when the shaped chage goes off, but if it is brittle it will turn into fast moving dust, or any other number of unexpected things could happen during the explosion process if it is lacking in the qualities of copper.

Bad news is that many Soviet/Russian shoulder fired weapons can carry Thermobaric rounds (similar to Fuel Air Explosives), and shaped charge technology can also be adapted to firing Kinetic Energy projectiles (a much thicker liner is used, which is essentially turned "inside out" into a pointed projectile which is now moving at @ Mach 20; mostly used in Western artillery systems. The common term is Explosively Formed Projectiles).

Electric armour will be useful for some situations, the open "box" configuration described in the initial post will probably have a certain "spaced armour" effect against HESH and small KE projectiles, and clever vehicle design will have to do the rest (using the engine block to absorb the attack across the front arc like a Merkava, for example, or the huge water tank in the lower hull of the ADI Bushmaster, which not only gives the troops a cold drinking supply, but soaks up the energy of mine strikes [heh]).

 

[Lance Wiebe]

Good points, all.  The single greatest threat, at this moment in time, to western light armour is the shoulder fired RPG family of weapons, and the electric armour is created specifically to defeat that threat.

EFP (explosively formed projectiles) has been played with for a long time, and have still not found a real niche beyond stand off mines.  Although I must admit, they do well in that regard.  The new add on armour developed primarily by IBD, among others (and bought by us for use on the Leo) will in fact, defeat most EFP's.

I think that it is best to think of the electric armour not as a total package, but part of a defensive armour suite.  No one armour type is effective against all threats, not even the latest generations of armour used on MBT's.  However, incorporated with other armour types, the electric armour will greatly increase the protection factor of light AFV's without a corresponding increase in weight or complexity.  Think of a Warrior, with add on armour, then electric armour, then the base vehicle armour. 

I also believe that the electric armour would be effective against HEAT warheads incorporating exotic materials instead of copper.  These warheads are still relatively rare, as the cost of materials and the cost of manufacturing such warheads are extremely high.  I do not believe that the electric armour will defeat weapons such as the Hellfire, although they perhaps could be developed to be proof against such weapons.  Hellfires (and similar missiles) are not all that common a threat to British forces right now.