Originally posted by LePaul
Yea, reactive armor, Im pretty sure we've had this stuff for a while too
Reactive armour is a passive defense made of explosives tiles which blows on contact with an RPG round, very old and originally created by Israelis.
Arena is an active defense system developed by Russians in the 90's - just like the one we're discussing here.
I'm surprised it took this long for USA to develop a similar system.
Originally posted by Woflala
You'll still need the armor. Difference is, and someone can correct me on this - the warhead is destroyed far enough away so that the destructive potential is greatly reduced. Such as setting a bomb off 10 feet away as opposed to 10 inches away.
RPG rounds can be either HE or HEAT, which of the HEAT is used against armoured targets and it doesn't use fragments to penetrate.
HEAT projectile creates a concentrated explosion towards the armour which becomes a hot flow of "plasma" that is supposed to cut through the armour like a knife through butter. The plasma jet loses it's power pretty quickly. In WWII they used the skirts to protect the actual armour layer - main idea was to trigger the projectile prematurely and in the empty space between the skirt and main armour the plasma jet would lose its penetration power. Nowadays you can't rely on the skirts anymore due to much more powerful warheads (and it's about impossible to effectively protect a vehicle entirely with skirts without losing great deal of mobility due to added size etc.).
The "new" system simply destroys the projectile before it can reach its target. Soldiers next to the explosions might not like it that much, however the AFV and troops right next to it will be safe. Armour is still needed against kinetic projectiles, artillery fire and bombs (shrapnels and other crap in general). You could penetrate many of the AFV's with old WWII era anti-tank rifles
