Creating a Perfect Force Field

The US and Israeli researchers are creating a force field that cannot be penetrated by any firearms and projectiles.

In an RPG attack, the best way to survive it is to have an impenetrable defense. That’s what Israeli and US scientists and researchers believe. That’s why they are creating a rocket and missile neutralizing Active Protection Systems to do it.

Active Protection Systems, also known as APS, are designed to prevent small firearms and propel explosives (grenades included) from reaching or annihilating a target. These systems utilize a variety of sensors to monitor incoming threats. Once it detected a threat, the APS calculates the inbound trajectory, sending a counter measures to either disarm or destroy the threat, and then traces the flight path back to the shooter.

Israelis are the leader in this kind of field, and because of that, they incurred damage to 40 tanks that was caused by rockets and missiles attack during the 2006 war with Lebanon. They have created the “Trophy” or the “Windbreaker” system, and have deployed it in a progressive combat attached to a Merkava 4 tank in the Gaza Strip.

As Danger Room explains: The system uses flat-panel radars to watch out for incoming fire, Defense Update notes. Once a rocket-propelled grenade or other projectile is spotted, Trophy verifies that the round is coming straight at the tank, calculates its time-to-intercept, and picks to best angle to shoot it down. Then it fires off a bunch of explosively formed penetrators, which produce narrow jets of molten metal that shred anything in their paths. The whole process takes a few seconds, at most.

The Trophy system cancels all known anti-tank rockets and anti-tank missiles, despite of distance, terrain or weather. It will even neutralize consecutive attacks.

The American forays into active protections systems and utilizes similar concepts. Crosshairs, created by the US Armed Forces, uses radar and audio mics to triangulate incoming projectiles from small firearms to mortars. When combined to a Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station, the system will automatically aim the turret and attack the shooter.

Iron curtain, a Darpa-funded project, uses flat panel radar and optical sensors to lookout for any incoming firearms and projectiles. This system uses a series of explosive countermeasures along the top border of the vehicle. Once it detects an incoming threat, the Iron curtain fires a single counter measures down. As the rocket crosses over, it prevents the ammunition from exploding and letting the rocket bob back harmlessly off the side of the vehicle.

The US military is also working to include these two system into a single unified protection blueprint for Armored Personnel Vehicles to create MRAPS, or Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles.