Soldier magazine

THIS dramatic photograph captures the split second in which a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) was neutralised by revolutionary new electric armour protecting a British armoured troop carrier.

Fv432 udstyret med elektrisk panser bliver ramt af granat

British Army officers watching the demonstration laid on by the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) saw the vehicle survive repeated attacks that would normally have destroyed it many times over. The system reduces the effect of RPGs to almost zero.

No internal damage was sustained by the troop carrier, which was driven away under its own power.

The shaped charge of an RPG explosive warhead is designed to shoot a rapier-like jet of hot copper into the target, invariably resulting in loss of life and the probable destruction of the armoured vehicle or tank.

The system unveiled by DSTL scientists consists of bulletproof metal plating, insulation, power distribution lines and storage capacitors.

 Weighing in at a couple of tonnes, it has a protective effect reckoned to be equal to the vehicle carrying an extra 10 to 20 tonnes of steel armour.

Professor John Brown, of DSTL, said, RPGs can be picked up from street stalls for as little as $10 in most of the world’s trouble spots. It only takes an individual on a rooftop in a village to press the trigger to cause major damage to passing armoured vehicles.

The DSTL electric armour system is an exciting advance, which has generated a lot of interest in both UK and US defence circles. I am confident that our system is the way forward for lightweight defence of military vehicles.

When a vehicle is threatened by an RPG or shaped-charge warhead, its outer skin of metal plates can be rapidly electrified to several thousand volts. The incoming copper jet has to pass through the electrified layers, where it is instantaneously dispersed by the high temperatures in much the same way that a 13-amp current can blow the fuse of a domestic electrical appliance such as a hairdryer.

Any residual debris created by the impact is absorbed by the vehicle’s ordinary armour plating.

The electric armour system in, say, a troop carrier would be powered by the vehicle’s normal electrical supply and the load imposed by stopping an RPG attack is said to be no greater than that for starting the engine on a cold morning.