Brit firm stops anti-tank warheads with cloth Cunning new UK technology will see British troops' vehicles in Afghanistan protected from armour-piercing rocket warheads - by cloth. The MoD was pleased yesterday to unveil its new TARIAN "textile based" vehicle protection system, which will see lightweight cloth attached to the sides of military vehicles in Afghan combat. …
This has been tried in a different war at a different time.
The predecessor of wire bars was stand-off ceramic plating developed by Russians and Germans in WW2. It was abandoned for a very simple reason - machine guns could easily damage it to a point where it will no longer protect against sabots and shaped charges.
So in fact it is a bit too early to say goodbye to good old wire bars and hello to cloth ones.
Granade... Old fashioned one (in the absence of RPG17 icon).
Obviously.
As for "first incendiary, then detonator, then piercing" round as proposed by Clostermann --- well, that's making it all rather fragile and complicated (if you realize the average weapon is an IED, this may be too much engineering and retrofitting effort).
It wouldn't normally work, as it wouldn't get the protection out of the way fast enough. So you want a small explosive that pushes the protection away, then the detonator-plus-piercer... both to be delivered in the same place, close after each other but not too close. You're in Quake-weapons territory with that.
..when I can wear RPG proof trousers. Not that I have any need for them where I live as RPGs flying through the air is a rare* event. However you never know when Skynet will unleash its mechanical horrors upon us**, its best to be prepared as no man wants a jet of molten copper to the dangly bits!
Good Job boffins!
* never in recorded history
** Sorry, but I just wanna use the new terminator piccy thing!
Why use fire,
Hit the thing with a AK47 firing in auto mode, will cut the cloth into shreds that the RPG will then go through. The thick "chicken mesh" currently used is very hard to hit with the AK47.
The article does say the cloth has to be taught to work, after being hit with from the AK47, it won't be taught.
That's TARIAN not TARTAN.
As to those suggesting that all the enemy has to do is make a hole in the cloth first, I would imagine that the first slug of molten copper that gets smeared over one's tank (or sporran, as the case may be) might just be a hint that it's time to get the hell out of there smartish. Two shots in the same place on a moving target?
Now let's see if this British company can turn trials into money-making production. Good luck to them.
So, with all these references to afghanistan...how many tanks have been lost to RPGs there?
er, none. Contrast that to how many troops have died because they didn't have the basics, like body armour? Not better to spend the money where it would protect the most number of soliders, rather than the highest value kit?
Many troops lost to homebrew shaped charges and assorted booby traps,friendly fire and so forth, but the numbers of taliban who will attempt to take on a tank are tiny and diminishing - basic darwinism at play.
Not saying the cloth isn't effective in that one situation, but give it a week and some bright spark at will have invented a two stage RPG. 'tis the way the arms industry works; a self perpetuating cycle of bigger guns, better armour, bigger guns...ed-209 enforcement 'bot in a frock, shark in a waistcoat with frickin lasers
Maybe he is being complimentary because this is not the usual story of a defence firm blatantly
ripping off the British taxpayers to provide inferior and highly expensive kit to our troops.
Look forward to BAE buying them up, replacing the cloth with wet tissue paper and charging
a 100K per square meter to ensure future British technical expertise in the field :S
Now that the copper is splashed over the side of the vehicle, and presumably cools nicely in a "splat" shape by the time one returns home for tea and medals, given the price of copper on the market at the moment, is it worth some enterprising squaddie scraping these off for a bit of "hazard pay"?
Reminds me of time spent collecting shell casings on the range....
We're talking about tanks here, they can move a lot of weight... I'm guessing you would still need a top and bottom rail to hold the cloth up and away from the armor. So the only weight this is saving is the middle part of the cage, which I believe they can make out of aluminum anyways... So I don't really get how much weight they are saving. 40lbs... on a tank? It's still in you way as far as maintenance etc. Although it would make a nice pet project I guess? Maybe 40lbs is worth whatever extra this stuff costs, I'm no military strategist.
Some of the comments above have foreshadowed several methods of defeating this cloth covering ie. machine guns, incendiary rockets etc.
My take on this is ,approaching is one or more armoured vehicles, you have shoulder use RPG's. What you desire to do is to pop up, fire, then run like hell. Not, pop up, fire, wait for a result, then fire again or worse, wait while your mates hose the vehicle down, then with the crew fully alert, pop up, take aim and fire. These are well armed armoured vehicles, perhaps with supporting vehicles of some description, the crew is not going to give you the sporting chance of a second shot, they are going to be banging away at you with everything they have, they and any support they may have.
Anything that means that the attacker takes longer to complete an attack means that the balance of power swings away from the attacker and to the defender.
But by the time the tellybannies (say Eh oh!) have fired enough rounds to make it useless the APC's will probably have enough time to use their Heavy Machine Gun on them... or called in an airstrike or make a cup of tea and then take them out with a few mortar rounds...
mines the one with the Kevlar inserts and the militarily colours....
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