U.S. Military Uses the Force
[[I wonder if a similar techique can be used against bullets for personal armor or home defense.]
From Wired News -- <<http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54641,00.html>http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54641,00.html>
U.S. Military Uses the Force By Noah Shachtman One of the most dangerous and pervasive threats facing American and British troops in combat zones is a primitive grenade launcher that only sets your typical terrorist back about $10. The Anglo-American defense against this no-tech threat: an electrical force field that's costing hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. Fitted on light armored vehicles such as personnel carriers, the force field uses a series of charged metal plates to dissipate the effects of rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), a weapon found by the thousands from Mogadishu to Kabul to Baghdad. ... Get your free encrypted email at https://www.hushmail.com
On Thu, 22 Aug 2002 keyser-soze@hushmail.com wrote:
[[I wonder if a similar techique can be used against bullets for personal armor or home defense.]
It also says: "Electric armor only weighs a ton or two," Not exactly something you can use for bullets :-) It sounds like it's just an MHD instability. The shaped charge of the RPG is a copper jet - so the high current pulse breaks it up. Fire 3 in a row and there's not much current left - depends on how they generate the current between the plates. So you might be able to spread out a bullet and reduce the impact on a kevlar shield. As it is now, the kevlar works amazingly well and is pretty light. And not very expensive either :-) Fun physics in any case. Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike
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keyser-soze＠hushmail.com -
Mike Rosing