US to deploy RPG-busting 'force field'

[ECH1969]

The US is to field test an innovative Israeli set-up designed to act as a "force field" around armoured vehicles, protecting them from rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and anti-tank missiles, according to a Fox News report.

The system, dubbed "Trophy", uses radar to track incoming threats and then destroys them when they're in range by attacking the warheads with an "invisible force", according to Fox. Quite how it does this is, unsurprisingly, classified, but Defense Update understands Trophy is "designed to form a 'beam' of fragments, which will intercept any incoming HEAT threat, including RPG rockets at a range of 10 metres to 30 meters from the protected platform".

The sceptical among you should note that Trophy has allegedly completed "hundreds of live tests with the Israel Defense Forces and demonstrated effective neutralisation of anti-tank rockets and guided missiles, high safety levels, insignificant residual penetration, and minimal collateral damage".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/12/trophy_system/

[pk_du]

1. and its effect on IEDs ?

zippo.

[wtmusic]

4. Yep

I was under the impression that RPGs were responsible for only a small percentage of casualties. :shrug:

[saigon68]

2. WOW Its Capt America to the rescue

To kill a few guys with towels on their heads

[quaoar]

3. Maybe it uses photon torpedoes

Or maybe it just beams the RPG to another planet.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

5. Yeah...right.

[wtmusic]

6. What we really need are stealth gophers to go after buried IEDs

Little bastards can help keep America free

[SlavesandBulldozers]

15. HAHAHAHAHAH

"little bastards can help keep america free"

goddamn that was funny!

[onehandle]

7. How does it affect the nervous systems of the soldiers in the vehicle?

Not very well I bet.

[BlueManDude]

18. We'll find out in about 5 years.

[davepc]

24. how would it effect their nervous systems?

[Crayson]

32. No Voodoo Hoodoo Ray Gun

I think this doesn't involve any magic force field energy radiation magnetic ultrasonic microwave thingy.

It probably just shots a shotgun in the about direction of the incoming rocket and like this makes it detonate some metres before impact.

I understand that ships have similar machine gun like anti missile systems that just fill the air with lead.

[Igel]

41. That's more or less what the post seems to describe,

isn't it?

Radar spots incoming something, and it blasts away.

I can see why it would be classified, though I suspect many of the details they're keeping secret will be known quickly enough: if it exhausts its supply of 'fragments' on rocks thrown at it, how it treats bystanders, whether it also takes out birds ...

[eppur_se_muova]

45. Phalanx (LINK)

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/mk-15.htm

[electropop]

8. If they can't be bothered to issue armor,

they'll never spend a dime on science-fiction defenses.

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. This article will slip into inbsignificance

when casualties from RPGs double, and then double again.

[IndianaGreen]

10. Under what conditions was "Trophy" tested? Against Palestinians stones?

If this is Israeli techonology, it means that the Israelis will also sell it to whoever is willing to pay hard cash for it.

[saigon68]

12. LOL Palestinians stones

Maybe Irish Confetti

A/K/A Half a cobble stone

[Crayson]

33. hmm.. only if the stones were heated by the sun before

Else they wouldn't have much of a heat radiation signature....
;-))

[number6]

11. fantasy land

The sceptical among you should note that Trophy has
> "allegedly completed" < bla bla

[DavidDvorkin]

13. If it really worked

would you install it on the kind of vehicle that's likely to be captured? I imagine that the Russians and the Chinese would pay an immense amount for such a vehicle - money that could be used to buy immense amounts of weaponry.

Which makes me think the story isn't likely to be true.

[formercia]

14. even if they detonate the warhead at 10 to 30 meters

the copper jet from the shaped charge can still do damage. The jet breaks up and the copper particles do burn up but i've personally seen the jet penetrate 13mm of steel plate 100 meters beyond the detonation. A RPG-7 in an optimal impact can penetrate 175mm of steel armor, so the damage for a 10 to 30 Meter detonation should be somewhere between those 2 figures.

[blackhorse]

28. Yes,

... might even cause detonation at a distance more optimal for the copper jet to form than it normally would.

100 meters? Yow, that's far for a shaped charged effect!

This technology sounds like it might be a "threat-aware" variant of Israeli reactive armor.

BH

[formercia]

31. That's what I was thinking too

If it's active then it's just something else for a hostile weapons system to lock on to.

The copper jet will start to break up after a short distance. From what I observed, the pattern at around 100 Meters looks like a rough shotgun blast about 5-10 Meters in diameter. If you examine the impact points, you can see the copper coating the inside of the crater if it didn't completely penetrate the armor.

[IndianaGreen]

16. The best way to protect our troops is by bringing them home

We went into Iraq because Junior wanted to outdo his father. Junior did outdo his father, he also outdid all the bad Presidents we ever had.

[951-Riverside]

17. Faux News Video on how the system is susposed to work

http://media2.foxnews.com/040606/040606_fr_tobin_300.swf

If someone else has a different link please post it so I can remove the faux news link :puke:

[davepc]

19. force field my ass. Its a scaled up shotgun hooked up to a radar system

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TROPHY_Active_Protection_System

TROPHY (in Hebrew: "מעיל רוח", lit. "Wind Coat") is a protective shield system for both light and heavy armored vehicles that intercepts and destroys missiles and rockets with a shotgun-like blast just before they hit. TROPHY was developed by RAFAEL together with Israel Aircraft Industries' Elta Group. The system is known as an "active protection system" (APS). The developers claim it is a major milestone in weapons design. They would have a system like TROPHY reduce or eliminate the need for heavy armor for combat vehicles.

The Navy has been using something similar for decades called the Phalanx. They took the basic idea behind that, and adopted it to be used on a vehicle. No force fields, no science fiction.

[ChristianLibrul]

23. Phalanx

Phalanx is a Gatling Gun firing 6000 rounds of 20mm per minute at incoming anti-ship missiles. While technically a machine gun, its effect is the same as a big shotgun's at range.

[Richard Steele]

26. Yup. Dick Cheney tested a similar system last month.

No "force field" at all, just bullshit and a modified shotgun.

[SidDithers]

35. And where do the shotgun "pellets" that miss the RPG go?...nt

Sid

[eppur_se_muova]

46. Oh, they, um, harmlessly disperse. NOT. nt

[hatrack]

20. And in response, the guerillas will change tactics.

Duh.

[Karmakaze]

30. No need - their current tactics will likely defeat this system...

In the video you see test after test with many different kinds of incoming weapon. In fact there is only one similarity between all the tests shown - only one incoming missile! Iraqi insurgents use a volley tactic. They dont fire one, but numerous RPGs at the target to maximise the chance of a kill. I bet this new system can not handle multiple incoming warheads.

In fact think of it like Missile Defense (star wars). Sure they can kill one or two incoming ICBMs, but the system just can't handle dozens of them. So if the Iraqis get 5 guys with RPG's, and RPG's are almost as numerous as AK's over there, to ambush a tank by firing at the same time, then I doubt this system will have any affect on the outcome.

[hatrack]

34. Or they're simply use more IEDs, or train more snipers . . .

Or they'll take their time to infiltrate more people into US bases or Iraqi police/military HQs.

Why is it that Americans tend to assume that all we need is a shiny new techno-fix when such fixes seldom if ever get to the heart of the problem?

[Javaman]

38. Because americans are fascinated with shiny new things...

actually talking or using diplomacy, well, that's for "other" people to use. Not us.

[Paulie]

21. Just the name...

we always try for the high tech, but when low tech we use a high tech name.

It's really sad...

[genieroze]

22. Force fields??? Maybe they can get some tractor beams to catch

Osama Bin Forgotten.

[sweetheart]

25. their bullshit field is leaking in to my rubber boots

I have an even simpler weapon to stop an RPG. I was born
with it; its called a "b r a i n". And my brain says to
avoid places where people shoot RPG's at you. It works
amazingly!

Finland has the same system, "brain". They haven't taken any
RPG casualties at all this year. So many people all over
the world have deployed the new "brain" system, lost forever
in the amerisraeli military where idolitry is worshipped. Hence why
they've replaced "brain" with "Trophy".

[Javaman]

37. So would that mean they have trophy brains? nt

[daleo]

27. They trot out claims of a new wonder weapon every couple of weeks

Yet, U.S. troops get killed at the same old rate, month after month. It is all wishful thinking at best, lies and propaganda at worst.

[lovuian]

29. as Spock says Fascinating!!!

:tinfoilhat:

[HuffleClaw]

36. suuuuuuuuure

what idiot fell for that? next they'll announce 'invisibility cloaks' !

[Dragonbreathp9d]

39. If the Israelies made it, I believe it

[Sabriel]

40. My garden hose emits a "beam of molecules," too.

Does that make it a defensive weapon? (It's good for blasting leaves, too.)

[chapel hill dem]

43. My garden hose has a "fire suppression" feature as well. n/t

[DUHandle]

42. Prayer

is the invisible force.

[Strelnikov_]

44. Orwellian Comes To Mind

All members of the Inner Party believe in this coming conquest as an article of faith. It is to be achieved either by gradually acquiring more and more territory and so building up an overwhelming preponderance of power, or by the discovery of some new and unanswerable weapon. The search for new weapons continues unceasingly, and is one of the very few remaining activities in which the inventive or speculative type of mind can find any outlet. In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science'. The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty.

. . .

The scientist of today is either a mixture of psychologist and inquisitor, studying with real ordinary minuteness the meaning of facial expressions, gestures, and tones of voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of drugs, shock therapy, hypnosis, and physical torture; or he is chemist, physicist, or biologist concerned only with such branches of his special subject as are relevant to the taking of life. In the vast laboratories of the Ministry of Peace, and in the experimental stations hidden in the Brazilian forests, or in the Australian desert, or on lost islands of the Antarctic, the teams of experts are indefatigably at work. Some are concerned simply with planning the logistics of future wars; others devise larger and larger rocket bombs, more and more powerful explosives, and more and more impenetrable armour-plating; others search for new and deadlier gases, or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents, or for breeds of disease germs immunized against all possible antibodies; others strive to produce a vehicle that shall bore its way under the soil like a submarine under the water, or an aeroplane as independent of its base as a sailing-ship; others explore even remoter possibilities such as focusing the sun's rays through lenses suspended thousands of kilometres away in space, or producing artificial earthquakes and tidal waves by tapping the heat at the earth's centre.


- From "1984" by George Orwell

[truthisfreedom]

47. that's really, really, really nice. let's give it to the Iraqi soldiers &

get the f*** out of Iraq.