Resolving the Next-Gen Armor Muddle
All right boys and girls, there's been a helluva lot of discussion over at Military.com about Dave's armor design and whether it would work or not work or whatever. Honestly I think part of the problem is that first off it's over most (not all)of our heads. Second off, Woroner doesn't want to tell too much about the damned thing out of OPSEC or COMSEC concerns, which makes explanation difficult at best. Imagine trying to explain a lawnmower engine if you couldn't talk about internal combustion, or if pistons were classifed.
Lemme see what I can do to make it make a little sense.
Have you heard about the Boomerang System made by the folks out of Boston? It's an acoustical sensor system that uses "acoustical entrapment" to quickly and reliably identify the location of a sniper or other shooter that's putting rounds downrange towards our grunts. It's been on Future Weapons and a couple other shows, has actually deployed to the AOR and apparently works.
Woroner's system is kind of like that, but it uses light sensitivity to detect incoming projectiles. Sound won't work, it's too slow for a system to detect an EFP or whatever and mitigate the blast. You might be able to detect the blast, depending upon the strength of the device and the range, but you damn sure wouldn't be able to detect it and then take steps to defeat it. Only light and electricity are fast enough to react to something moving at thousands of feet per second, which is why light and electricity are the basis of Woroner's "barrier system".
It's in the high nanosecond, low microsecond range of response, putting a countermeasure out to intercept the incoming weapon and either destroy it or mitigate it by shearing the blast wave off with it's own blast moving at a reciprocal speed. This is effectively a countermeasure system intended to be used in addition to next-gen armor to reduce or nullify the incoming blast and projectile(s). Let me put it to you the way I had to explain it to Slim, which I think you'll find is a little simpler than Dave's explanation.
Some delinquent little bastard in your neighborhood uses a potato gun to launch a spud at your car. You've got Woroner's system mounted on the hood. It detects the incoming spud using light, not sound, and throws out some high tech shit you can't pronounce let alone explain to intercept it. That stuff is moving at about the same speed as the spud. It hits the potato and slows it down, possibly deflecting it some so that while it still hits your fender, it only hits with the impact of a nerf dart.
Potato-gun launched spud to nerf dart. Makes sense to me. I'd rather get clocked in the head with an orange foam bullet than an Idaho baker any day.
Translate that to the Big Sandbox. Hajji detonates an IED next to a humvee with Woroner's system mounted on it. Woroner's system senses the wave of the incoming projectile and puts a radically different defensive measure into play. This measure deflects the oncoming shear waves and ameliorates the remaining overpressure and underpressure events by shear redirection and deflection. Whatever's left of the incoming projectile and its blast hits the humvee. The crew inside are better off if its up-armored, and better off still if it's armored in next-gen armor and best of all if they weren't in it to begin with (but that's not really practical now, is it?).
So that's the deal with his 'armoring' system. I can't tell you any more about it 'cuz me no speaka da geek and I only understand about half of what he says. If you want to know more, you need to ask Woroner himself, or maybe that fat bearded guy that does the TV advertisements and infomercials. I dunno. I don't know if you flip a switch, click an icon or piss on the damned dilithium crystals to turn it on, and I couldn't tell you whether it's powered by lithium batteries, sparkplugs or a pseudo-Riemannian manifold. What I do know is that if there's the slightest chance the thing works, and it'll help our guys come home whole, then somebody somewhere with some mojo needs to check it out and get it some attention. It's a sad truth that without the lobbyists and pitchmen and assorted high dollar schmoozers the big corporations have, it may not even matter whether it works or not because no one will hear about it.
That's why I ran the damned article in the first place, and I honestly don't much give a shit if you agree with him or disagree with him, think he's a genius or a complete assclown. If we get a debate started about it, generate some dialogue, then maybe something positive will come out of it.
Oh, and about the MRAPs and all that other business - those of you that are bitching about his statements regarding the MRAP are missing the point. He agrees, I agree, Slim agrees, everybody agrees they're saving lives. That's not the issue. The issue is we're going to have to come up with something else to address other missions and other terrains, because it gets stuck and it rolls over and you can't turn the damn thing around in a narrow street. Unless our next war is waged in the world's biggest parking lot, then that's going to cause some problems.
So, hope this clears things up a little bit. If not, then I hope it at least piqued your interest. If you were somehow offended by anything I've said, then I'd like to humbly suggest you grow a thicker skin or just don't subscribe to the damned blog. What kind of fucktard gets offended by an action figure anyway? (Even an action figure as undeniably bad ass and devilishly handsome as I?)
That's it for now, more to follow.
Swingin' Dick Out!