Look for the bar-like fencing helping to defend Army Buffalos from rocket-propelled grenade attacks to find their way onto RG31 and Couger vehicles beginning in January.
And BAE, the company behind the L-ROD rails, is already developing the system for its RG33s and Caimans, which also are mine resistant ambush protected vehicles, MRAPs.
The L-ROD kit is basically an easy to install or remove “cage” that is an extra layer of protection around a vehicle. It can’t stop an RPG but as the weapon penetrates the cage the bars begin stripping away at the explosive’s casing — and much of its lethality — even before impact.
William Kellner, director of special programs and sensor systems for BAE Systems of Reston, Va., said the simple design and standard sizes of the L-ROD system make for efficiencies in commonality that translates into making it easier to keep forward locations supplied with them.
The L-RODS have been used on the Buffalo vehicles since about 2005, Kellner said.
The bars are made of the same material as aircraft wings, so that they’re flexible — you can even climb up and down them — but they don’t bend, he said.
– Bryant Jordan
Editor’s Note: Military.com and Defense Tech contributor Bryant Jordan will be trolling the halls of this year’s Association of the U.S. Army trade show in Washington this week. He’ll be posting updates on gear and issues of interest to DT readers throughout each of the three day conference. Check back frequently for new info.
Wouldnt Rebar be the same thing? I assume it is, they are just using flowery words to make it sould at least a little high tech. But heck Rebar would cost what, $1000 per cage at the most. Wonder how much there paying for this?
I believe this bar type of defense against RPG projectiles first appeared on a specific Polish manufactured T-55 experimental tank variant in the 1960’s.
At the end of WW2 the Russians welded bedsprings to their T34s, an even cheaper alternative.
This is ridiculous. Stupidity. Solutions dreamed up by politicians who think counterinsurgency is a medical procedure. The standard political procedure is ‘when in doubt, add armor.’ Rather, our guys should be going out as COIN operatives, in the population, not a pseudo-APC.
I believe we have gone full circle with the armour! First problem encountered by vehicles over there was the RPG… recently the roadside bomb and back to RPG — it just shows how stupidly things are designed these days!
I work for the aerospace/defence industry — the way I see things working these days is:
Media writes p*ss poor article on a problem.
People get caught up in hype.
Politician rides this wave of hype and issues a contract to manufacturer — but in light of keeping budget low — design it purely around specifications hyped up by the media report.
Manufacturer issues a vehicle based purely on the specifications provided — as can only be expected.
Product has shortcomings– more money to be spent on new vehicle or modification.
And back to start again!
If you want a jack of all trades vehicle — it will cost more initially — but no need to perform major redesign will mean that the long run is cheaper — but what politician is really long term? I don’t know of any!
Also — I realise people might not be advocates of the F-22 programme — but I think it is a good example of a jack of all trades example — we spent a lot of money on this project, but it shows how the aircraft can adapt to any new role quickly.
Whether money should or shouldn’t be spent on these programmes, I don’t know — I guess the politicians will decide for us anyway!
The Palestinians have shown that if you make a big enough bomb,you could even blow a Merkava tank up to kingdom come,of course you’d take the whole neighborhood with it,but it can be done.The world has been having problems with vehicle borne “IEDs” for generations.Remember Northern Ireland,Colombia,Spain,& Lebanon in the 70s,80s,& early 90s? The list goes on & on.
After being out in Iraq, and seeing these vehicles first hand, the extra L-shaped cage around the vehicles work! The RPG strikes the cage and detonates, shooting the shaped penetrator inside towards the vehicle. The distance between the cage and the vehicle gives it enough time for the penetrator to cool off and make it unable to damage the vehicle. The Stryker units have them on right now…and they came to my shop and I could see what happened.
If it cost $10000 a cage, so what…if it saves one American life of a soldier inside that vehicle, it was well worth the money spent.
The vehicle in the picture does not have the L-Rod armament package installed. http://www.baesystemspresskit.com/ausa2007/Image_Gallery.cfm
When I look at the picture I wonder how much added weight the L-Rod adds to the vehicle and how much it will degrade the capability of the vehicle. Also how does one exit a vehicle wrapped in bars, what does it do to the vehicles stability and the list goes on…
Best answer to these questions of the support that this new defensive tactic is to ask the tank commander who has to put his butt in the vehicle. If they say it works and they need em… katy bar the door, get’em on and pronto!
I see the same thing, everyone getts all excited over IEDs, then here we go with RPGs again. Media hyped Dragon Skin, MRAPs, UAVs, robots, how bad the M-16 is, how bad the M-9 is, and on and on. So we end up spending a boat load of money on problems that are only short term, or simply nonexistant. All a person would need to do is start shooting Black Talon 9mms and the pistol problem is solved. Spoon tipped bullet and the 5.56 problem solved. Training the troops better, robots and UAVs solved. MRAPs are good and I like em, but it is a short term fix, all you have to do is make the bomb a little bigger. Cage armour, great, it works, it should be really cheap, but again its a short term fix, not a real solution.
As for a real Solution, who knows maybe it is just more troops, maybe its nukeing someone. But you can never expect to win a war if you are always just defensive, you have to be agressive and go after the people getting the weapons in the country (can someone help me say IRAN).
I don’t beleif our military leaders have a clue. Churchill said that if history teaches us one thing, it is we never learn from it.
No matter how much is spent we can not make war safe. An encloed vehicle is a death trap. Tanks and self propelled artilery are the only vehicles that should be enclosed. Even then these two can be death traps.
Seat belts, shoulder harness, and metal tops kill. I you have been there the last thing you need is an impedement to exit a vehicle.
Walter A. Murray, Jr.
A cage like this, doesn’t block your door. One gets the picture of a cage and thinks it surrounds the whole thing, that just ain’t so, your doors are still very much free. And if it did, in 5 min you could cut it off and re-weld it to where it wouldn’t. it is a good system and it works, its just a matter of our tactics.
This is a short term fix, granted. Looking down a bit farther, consider the increased threat of weapons in the Iranian inventory that are not currently being found on the Iraqi battlefield, but will likely turn up in number in response to a US attack on its territory, such as sophisticated ATGM’s. Should a US attack be launched against Iran, weapons previously withheld (held back partly as a chess-like move of calculated escalation) could turn up in abundance, turning the Iraqi battlefield into something more resembling the battlefield in southern Lebanon 2006. During that conflict, IDF APC’s took a drubbing from a variety of shoulder fired weapons, and the more sophisticated ATGM’s targeted AFV’s like the Merkava.
Its true that our armor & armor upgrades have not been tested against the AT-14 Kornet(although they said that Iraq did use them against us in the beginning of the Iraq War),AT-15 Khrizantema,or the AT-16 Ataka-V VIKhR anti-tank rockets & the RPG-29 Vampir.I remember that the Palestinians made a huge roadside bomb that blew up a Merkava tank,but I think that that is more rare to be faced than the above mentioned rockets.If we go to war against Iran,it is guaranteed that we will see these rockets against us.
You should be aware that the bars impact the fuze mechanism of the shaped charge, initiating the base detonator prematurely. Instead of forming on the armor face, most of the energy is wasted above. The point of an RPG is a windscreen containing no explosive. Look for electromagnetic armor to eliminate shaped charge anti-tank weapons in the future.
Hmmm… why add more armor if it can take a hit and keep moving and people inside are not jelly like? We should totally up the firepower and start adding armor and reworking and improving to mabye a hummer or a guy but your right we should infiltrate the population and gain intel. Thats what we need the most intel. Though protecting our guys to fight another day is a good thing too.