I love this idea; use sheets of cloth to detonate anti-tank rounds before they reach the armour. Brilliant.I'm certain that the inventor was a bird-obsessed carnivore who tried to stop a train from hitting him by pulling down a window blind.
Monday, 10 August 2009
Wile E Coyote, call your service
I love this idea; use sheets of cloth to detonate anti-tank rounds before they reach the armour. Brilliant.I'm certain that the inventor was a bird-obsessed carnivore who tried to stop a train from hitting him by pulling down a window blind.
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Obviously, this is absurd... but before dismissing it, there's one vital question: does it work?
After all, tanks, machine guns, blitzkreig warfare, helicopters- all were once absurd.
I've no doubt it works. I'm merely commenting on who invented it.
Actually, it does work. Shaped charge warheads need to be detonated at precise distances from armor in order to be effective.
This thingy indeed works. It is intended against HEAT anti-tank rounds such as bazookas and RPGs.
HEAT, shaped charge or hollow charge warhead works by not penetrating the armour by brute force but by literally melting through the armour. The HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) round contains high explosive, whose whole explosive force is projected on a coin-size area. The explosion creates a flame not unlike a welding torch - just four times hotter, about 8000 deg C - and that plasma melts through anything it meets. It will take up to one metre of armour to stop modern HEAT charges.
But if the charge is exploded prematurely, such as those cloth sheets - the whole energy of that tremendous explosion will dissipate and the armour survive unscatched. The Germans invented the skirt armour in WWII to counter the threat of American bazookas, and Russians used chicken wire for same purpose. Worked then and works today.
You won't stop a tungsten carbide or depleted uranium shell by that contraption, but it sure is going to make the life of that RPG-wielding loonie very miserable.
By checking closely, it isn't the cloth which will explode the HEAT rounds, but that girderwork underneath.
The principle is the same as on the Russian "chicken wire" armour - the round collides on the framework, explodes and goes poof. The framework can be used on attaching camouflage panels.
Just imagine what might be behind that grand harmless Coca-Cola billboard...
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