Friday, January 31, 2014

Uparmored Bradley Could Be Tough Enough For AMPV

At the height of the surge, when sophisticated Iranian-designed IEDs called “explosively formed projectiles” were punching slugs of molten copper through American armor plate, one young officer told me he had to keep his Bradleys in the back of the column and lead with massive M1 Abrams tanks, because the Bradleys were just too vulnerable. The Bradley undergoing the “underbody blast test” that DOT&E mentions, however, was partially upgraded to a new standard called “Engineering Change Proposal 1.” ECP1 doesn’t just add extra armor on the outside: It also changes the passenger compartment, especially the flow, and rearranges how ammunition is stored to minimize potential damage to the troops inside.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Explosively Formed Projectiles are not a particularly new thing. They are not exactly precision-made, although if you can do machining to within a dozen thousandths of an inch, they may be a little more aimable.

1930's Germans (SURPRISE!) were experimenting with "hollow charges" as well as EFP's. The US military and commercial experimenters did a lot of post-war work. Here's a book that lays out the details for the advanced-math impaired: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0471621722/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=37WOA8GCQ1BY8&coliid=I3KWNM9WOZQJRL

I could see cutting out a disk of 1" thick copper from a plate and casting an explosive into the correct shape. Not even close to rocket science for a bright Syrian freedom fighter. Range: up to 1000x the diameter is much much more range than a plain "pile of explosives". A plasma spear of copper puts a hurt on vehicle armor that is a little thin.