Not all protection involves a material that cannot be penetrated. In some cases, at least a component of 21st century armor may be electronic, such as the “sensor bubble” that was part of the FCS concept to reduce the need for heavy physical armor.
“Active protection includes active intercept and electronic countermeasures, what some people call a ‘soft kill.’ Some anti-tank weapons are laser-guided and you can put a brighter laser spot on the ground away from your vehicle and divert an incoming missile to that spot. A nice thing about the electronic soft kill is you do have an unlimited magazine,” he said.
“With FCS, we wanted high transport, light weight, but also high survivability. When we did the modeling and live fire tests, I can tell you flat out some of the proposed FCS vehicles had better survivability than an Abrams. But that is predicated on your active protection systems working and that remains a challenge. I can tell you just about every goal ballistically with FCS not only was met, but well exceeded by our armors. It would have been an interesting vehicle.”
About 45 Soldiers from A Company, 1st Battalion, 29th Infantry Regiment, 197th Infantry Brigade, Fort Benning’s experimentation force, conducted platoon-level operations on five different platforms at Fort Bliss, Texas: M2A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, Turret-less Bradley, Double V-Hull Stryker, Swedish CV9035 vehicle and the Israeli Namer. Each vehicle was evaluated for durability, capacity, modularity, lethality, interior space and operational capability, June 6, 2012. U.S. Army graphic
Much of what was planned for FCS can still be seen in the GCV, Templeton added.
“It may be heavier, but that is driven by current threats, such as the IEDs in Iraq and now emerging in Afghanistan. You still see the same thrust for modularity, not just for armor but other parts of the vehicle. But you can’t tailor the vehicle for specific threats by carrying a lot of excess stuff you don’t need,” he said.
“We are seeing the use of carbon nanotubes and other nano-scale materials in structural components that give us significant weight decreases while still being able to carry a load. I think we’re probably five to seven years from seeing a fair number of vehicles produced using those approaches.”
“I want to do a whole plethora of things, but I don’t want one system for Function A, another for Function B, another for Function C, ad infinitum, when I can have one system that can do them all. And ideally not just with the added weight of all four at the same time, but tailored to each individual requirement.”
Future generations of armor, he believes, are likely to start with a base frame, then incorporate advanced levels of modularity and tailorability, incorporating a variety of new composites, including nanotech.
“We are seeing the use of carbon nanotubes and other nano-scale materials in structural components that give us significant weight decreases while still being able to carry a load. I think we’re probably five to seven years from seeing a fair number of vehicles produced using those approaches,” Templeton said.
“A lot of what drives the introduction of new technology is cost – and the cost for a lot of these new and revolutionary materials and combinations is coming down significantly. The cost of ceramics, due to better manufacturing processes, including a lot of robotic technology, has dropped for armor by roughly 60 percent in the last three years alone. In terms of real dollars, we’re talking several hundreds of thousands of dollars per vehicle – and the cost is still coming down. That is a tangible aspect of the research now going on.”
Another key development is how disparate materials are combined, an area of R&D Templeton said is still “virgin territory” and the focus of considerable work. But how that is conducted also is changing, in ways that could lead to faster development and fielding of future advanced armor designs.
“In the past 10 or 15 years, the classic Edisonian experimental approach of build, test and rebuild has progressed into a lot more modeling and simulation, using virtual space. You don’t incur the cost of building something with very expensive components, then blow it up only to find it didn’t work well,” he explained.