DARPA acquires British hi-tech fabric vehicle armor
U.K. company Amsafe developed hi-tech cloth which protects vehicles from RPGs and other rockets; DARPA, which has been trying for a long time to develop similar material under the RPGnets program, decides to order test quantities of the U.K. material
Good news for British technology. We wrote a few weeks ago about a small British company with an innovative product: cloth that can serve as armor for military vehicles in the theater (27 June 2009 HSNW). Now, DARPA has decided to try out the technology which is already going into action with U.K. forces in Afghanistan.
The kit in question is the TARIAN cloth armor system from Dorset-based Amsafe. Though it is made of lightweight fabric, TARIAN can resist armor-piercing antitank rocket warheads. It is being fitted to British combat vehicles in place of much heavier “bar” or “slat” protection, intended to protect them from the shoulder-fired RPG rockets.
Lewis Page writes that both TARIAN and bar protection work the same way: they are mounted a little distance out from the vehicle’s surface so that the tip of a flying RPG warhead hits them first, triggering it slightly early. The plasma jet formed by the explosion thus loses much of its focus and energy by the time it strikes the regular armor plate, and lacks the penetration to pierce it.
The difference is that the mattress-like TARIAN is much lighter than metal bars or slats, which is good news as more stuff can be carried or overloading reduced. Following Afghan trials, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) now intends to make widespread use of it. TARIAN was apparently developed after Amsafe — which makes various tough-fabric products including safety belts and cargo nets — came up with the idea and made a “cold” approach to the MoD in 2005.
Meanwhile in the United States, DARPA has been trying to develop a lightweight RPG barrier for a long time. The DARPA program is called “RPGnets,” and is aimed at “special high-capability nets to dud, break, or otherwise disable rocket propelled grenades (RPGs).”
The other day DARPA announced that it intends to give Amsafe a $100,000 sole-source order for thirty “test articles.” According to DARPA, “the proprietary Amsafe net technology shows unique promise in successfully defeating RPGs.”
