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Super-Tanks being developed

WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.

Original Post Date: 2001-08-20  Posted By: Jan

From the News Archives of: WWW.AfricanCrisis.Org
Date & Time Posted: 8/20/2001 12:26:05 AM
Super-Tanks being developed

Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday August 19, 2001
The
Observer

Scientists are developing super-tanks which would use powerful magnets to
melt and destroy incoming missiles and shells.

Each vehicle would be covered in ‘smart armour’ using electrical fields,
instead of thick metal, to give protection against anti-tank weapons. The
technology, which is being perfected by defence researchers on both sides
of the Atlantic, would transform armoured-vehicle construction.

Current machines, such as Britain’s Challenger tank, weigh more than 60
tonnes because they have to carry plating that is more than 2ft thick.
Such vehicles require massive amounts of fuel and other supplies, and
cause logistical headaches when being transported to conflict zones, say
military experts.

But a tank that relied on electromagnetic pulses, instead of plating, to
provide a shield against missiles would weigh a modest 20 tonnes. A fleet
would form a light but powerful rapid deployment force, and would
transform Western nations’ ability to take international military action.

Smart-armour research is treated as highly confidential by military
officials and manufacturers. A Ministry of Defence spokesman would only
confirm that projects aimed at transforming tank construction – part of
the Army’s Future Land Command project – were taking place. ‘Developing
technologies that will cut back on armour weight are a key part of that
research,’ he added.

However, scientists at the US Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen,
Maryland, have now revealed details of how smart armour would work.

According to research published in the current issue of New Scientist,
each tank would be covered with tiles made of strong plas tic under which
a sandwich of different materials would be installed. First there would be
a mat of optical fibres, then a thin sheet of standard armour plating, and
underneath that would lie a series of metal coils.

When an anti-tank shell explodes on standard armour, the copper cone of
its head is projected as a powerful jet of metal that travels at five
miles a second. This jet focuses an immense amount of energy on a tiny
area and so can slice easily through several feet of dense metal, causing
devastation inside a tank.

However, on striking smart armour a shell would produce a very different
reaction. Firstly, it would sever optical cables in the mat below the
tank’s outer plastic cover. This would trigger sensors to activate
electrical capacitors inside the tank which would send a mighty electrical
current surging through the metal coils at the base of the smart armour.

A massive electromagnetic field would be created inside the armour, as the
high-velocity copper jet begins to pass through it. This field would
induce electrical currents in the copper.

‘If you get enough current into the copper, you can heat it up and start
pinching it in certain regions, making it unstable,’ states Mike
Zoltowski, of the Army Research Laboratory, in the New Scientist article.
The thin copper jet would be flattened and broadened out and so would be
unable to cut through the thin standard plating at the base of the smart
armour.

Essentially, electromagnets would be used to dissipate the energy of an
anti-tank missile or shell, like the force shields that protect the
fictional Starship Enterprise.

‘This kind of development is now seen as urgent by military planners,’
Chris Foss, editor of Jane’s Armour and Artillery, said. ‘For example,
some countries are working on “top attack” missiles which fly over the
turret of an oncoming tank instead of striking it front on, where it is
most strongly shielded. They would drop their payloads on the tank’s
relatively unprotected turret area.’

To protect against that, designers would be forced to add even more thick
armour plating to these other parts of the tank, adding to its weight and
fuel consumption and making it more unwieldy. The answer is magnetic
pulses, says Zoltowski. ‘The benefit is that you wouldn’t need 800
millimetres of steel armour.’