Full Version: New type of armor for riggers ...
Here's the link. Boffins invent grenade vaporising ‘electric force field’.
| QUOTE (Vlad the Bad) |
| Here's the link. Boffins invent grenade vaporising ‘electric force field’. |
It's been in the news a while. See my links, below. GURPS has already incorporated it into their Vehicle rules expansions.
"Force field" is an incredibly misleading term for this system, though. Basically, the penetrator has to get between two electrical conductor sheets in the armor. When it does, a lot of electrical current is pumped through it, and it gets treated like a fuse: it pops and blows apart. The spattered chunks do not have nearly the penetration capability of a coherent shaped charge jet.
Description from August 2002
Comments from the developers
And...there it is, I first posted home rules for it in Battletech in August of 2002, when I first stumbled over it.
"Force field" is nothing like accurate. It's just a variant on reactive armor.
| QUOTE (John Campbell) |
| "Force field" is nothing like accurate. It's just a variant on reactive armor. |
How do you figure this resembles reactive armor?
It's the same basic principle, just a different technique... it works by disrupting the shaped charge's penetrating jet the same way conventional reactive armor does; it just uses an electrical arc to do it instead of an explosion.
| QUOTE (John Campbell) |
| It's the same basic principle, just a different technique... it works by disrupting the shaped charge's penetrating jet the same way conventional reactive armor does; it just uses an electrical arc to do it instead of an explosion. |
Reactive armor uses two metal plates to disrupt the shaped charge's jet (and, in the case of "heavy" reactive armor, they can disrupt long rod penetrators, too). The explosive is the deployment system for the plates.
Analysis of the Performance of Light and Heavy Reactive Armors
In this "electric" armor, the solid armor plates do not seem to contribute in the same fashion as in reactive armor. Rather, it's primarily the work of the electricity. The net effect is certainly much the same: disintegration of the jet.
I guess it's a matter of semantics/nitpicking. Depending on how broad your definitions are, Whipple Shields on spacecraft and Chobham armor also behave similarly to reactive armor: they break up penetrators, rather than letting them remain coherent.
I think he's looking at the similarity more in terms of active penetrator disruption. Whipple shields and chobham armor may be layered, but they're still passive.
[edit]
Anyone know how this stuff fares against tandem/duplex warhead projectiles?
[edit]
Anyone know how this stuff fares against tandem/duplex warhead projectiles?
| QUOTE (Arethusa) |
| Anyone know how this stuff fares against tandem/duplex warhead projectiles? |
Nope, no idea.
Yeah, the title was misleading, but not totally
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