Explosive device for automated protection of armored vehicles.

Abstract

An automated protection device for armored vehicles against enemy attacks, comprising one or more casings with an outwardly open base, each containing a powerful explosive charge, and which are fixed and evenly distributed preferentially on the front and rear of the armored vehicle's chassis. This device causes the vehicle to move instantly horizontally over a distance at least equal to its length by means of the horizontal directional detonation of the casings in the instant preceding the impact of the enemy munition, under automated control of the systems detecting threats approaching the armored vehicle. Figure for the abbreviation: Fig. 1

Description

Title of the invention: Explosive device for automated protection of armored vehicles.

[0001] Presentation of the technical problem:

[0002] The protection of armored vehicles, such as tanks, against enemy attacks has become a key issue in warfare due to the development of attack systems available today. Recently, the war in Ukraine has shown that Ukrainian infantry troops equipped with light and cheap anti-tank missiles, sometimes in conjunction with target detection by consumer drones, could cause considerable damage to Russian armored vehicles and their crews.

[0003] Anti-armor weapons systems have indeed become as light, mobile, and flexible as they can be easy to use, automated ("fire and forget"), powerful, accurate, and inexpensive. All this while offering long firing ranges, 2500 meters to 4000 meters. This places their operators in safety, often out of range of their targets.

[0004] In this category of modern anti-armor weapons, we can notably cite anti-tank missiles: Hot, Eryx, (France); Javelin (USA); Pars3 (Germany); Spike (Israel), etc.: there are dozens of them with varied performances. And the unit sales prices of all these systems range from twenty thousand (Nlaw) to eighty thousand euros (Javelin). While the unit prices of tanks range from five to eight million euros. Without mentioning the cost of the lives of their qualified personnel. Nor the disastrous effects of seeing an offensive and shock troop stopped dead or annihilated so cheaply.

[0005] As for older anti-armor rockets (typically RPGs), their unit price can drop to a few hundred euros per munition, for lower armor penetration powers and more limited ranges - from one hundred to eight hundred meters and give an order of magnitude -, which nevertheless remain devastating in a combat situation.

[0006] Basically, all current self-defense systems for armored vehicles are based on the principle that they must necessarily be subjected to ground-to-ground and air-to-ground (helicopter) attacks and that, consequently, they must be protected from them in one way or another.

[0007] This vision of things has led to increasingly heavy and sophisticated armor (laminates); reactive armor (passive; semi-reactive; explosive reactive; explosive composite reactive; electric; etc.). But also to a large variety of other active protection systems (APS). APS that are soft-kill (detection of enemy targeting systems; jamming; smoke; thermal decoys, etc.), or hard-kill, that is to say anti-projectile or anti-missile munitions that are ejected from the armored vehicle after remote detection of threats, in order to decoy or destroy them. In this area, the Israeli Trophy system (Merkava III and IV tanks) is well known. In France, the new Scorpion armored vehicle program must be equipped with the Pilar acoustic warning system (Metravib).

[0008] These APS nevertheless have a series of disadvantages which include their weight; their complexities; their prices; the difficulties of articulating them with existing vehicles; their maintenance, etc. Finally, whether they are soft-kill or hard-kill, these APS cannot provide the attacked armored vehicles with complete protection, in particular against high-velocity munitions or direct shots at too short a range.

[0009] More fundamentally, all these self-defense systems for armored vehicles are still based on the endless circle of the shield and the sword. Where the shield must constantly be reinforced and sophisticated as the sword increases its effectiveness, at the same time as it reduces all the conditions of this.

[0010] On the contrary to all this, the device according to the invention extracts itself from this race. It takes the option of a strategy of avoidance and mechanical stealth, being designed thus: one or more cases containing an explosive charge and placed to cause a horizontal directional deflagration, which are constituted ad hoc to do this (see below), and which, 1. Are articulated and fixed to the chassis of the armoured vehicle at the rear, as well as at the front, of the latter, in the direction of its movement, 2. Are coordinated with its systems for detecting approaching enemy munitions and for calculating them, 3. Are preferably coordinated with the braking and mechanical transmission systems of the armoured vehicle, so that these can be automatically disengaged by the attack detection systems of the armoured vehicle associated with the device according to the invention, 4. Automatically detonate within the minimum time required (second, half-second, quarter-second) to move the armored vehicle forward or backward by means of horizontal directional explosion over a distance at least equal to its length. So that, when the enemy munition presents itself for impact, its target has disappeared and the munition has not had the time and distance required to be able to adjust its strike at the last moment. 5. Secondarily, the device according to the invention can be implanted in the same way on the front / rear lateral sides of the armored vehicle and induce, if necessary and by slightly delayed explosive coordination, an additional right / left directional effect to the horizontal explosive movement forward or backward of the armored vehicle. 6. Preferably, the cases equipped with explosive charges are distributed on the front and rear of the armored vehicle chassis in groups of n pairs (2, 4, etc.), in order to make the effects of the horizontal explosive deflagration homogeneous; to contain its opposing effects on the armored vehicle chassis; and finally to reduce the overall size and bulk of the device according to the invention. 7. Optionally, the device according to the invention can be triggered manually by the crew of the armored vehicle, in the event of an emergency escape requirement other than dodging made necessary by approaching enemy ammunition. 8. Finally, the device according to the invention can be adapted to aerial vehicles (drone, helicopter, airplane) depending on their aerial operating condition and the instantaneous dodge sought, vertical and / or lateral.

[0011] To obtain a concrete representation of the device according to the invention, we will consider here a practical, typical and simplified case: - The Leclerc tank is the armored standard of the French army, - It is nevertheless a rolling mass of fifty-five tonnes for approximately ten metres in length. - Moving this flat mass horizontally over a distance of ten meters in half a second requires an instantaneous energy of eleven million joules. Indeed, - To move a mass 10 meters in 1 / 2 second under these conditions, an instantaneous speed of, Speed ​​= Distance / time = 10 m / 0.5 s = 20 m / s is required. - The kinetic energy required to do this is E = 1 / 2MV2 or E = 0.5 x 55000 kilos x (20 m / s)2 = 0.5 x 55000 x 400 = 11,000,000 joules. - These 11 million joules can be obtained by, considering here the detonation power of trivial explosives, 2.63 kilos of TNT (Trinitrotoluene; 4.2 MJ / kilo), or four explosive cases of 0.66 kilos each; or by 1.9 kilos of RDX (Cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine; 5.8 MJ / kilo, which is already used for the in-flight ejection of rocket stages), or four explosive cases of 0.47 kilos each; and horizontal directional explosive cases equally distributed preferentially at the rear or front of the tank and articulated to its chassis in the direction of its movement; the device being, for its ignition, connected to the tank's systems for detecting enemy threats. As well as, preferentially, to its braking and braking systems mechanical transmission, so that the latter can be disengaged at the same time and thus limit the friction of the mass during the directional explosion of the device according to the invention.

[0012] This result can be obtained with four times less TNT and RDX (0.7 and 0.5 kilos), and therefore four charges of only 150 / 250 grams each, if we decide that the imperative time for moving the armored vehicle over ten meters must not be half a second before impact, but one second. Since then the energy required to do this is only 2.75 million joules, four times less.

[0013] Finally, let us note that in this instantaneous movement, this leap, the crew of the tank will undergo an acceleration of between 1 and 4 G (depending on the case: one second or half a second) to save their lives. But only over ten meters. This is jarring, without presenting any particular danger. Indeed, fairground attractions for the general public currently offer 4G of acceleration to their customers, and for much longer because it is over distances (loops of the rides) of 50-150 meters in length.

[0014] Concerning the horizontal directional explosion cases containing the explosive charges and fixed on the chassis of the armored vehicle, these are designed 1) on the basis of high-strength steels of military quality, 2) according to a structure and geometry which allows the directional ejection of the energy of the explosive from the case in the direction of movement of the armored vehicle. This is typically, but not exclusively, the shape of a shell with a reinforced tip of the warhead; the base open towards the outside; where appropriate optimized by an outlet designed in the shape of a cone-nozzle, and thus increase the horizontal directional thrust by the acceleration of the ejected gases.

[0015] As a non-limiting example, the device according to the invention is in its standard format produced using four high-strength steel cases of military quality; each of the cases having the general shape of a shell containing the necessary mass of RDX (vs the weight of the armored vehicle to be moved horizontally in the instant before impact), and the tip of the warhead of which is reinforced, its base being open towards the outside and provided with an outlet nozzle which is of conical geometry. These four cases are placed at the rear of the armored vehicle in the direction of its movement, being equally distributed over its width and height; for this purpose they are articulated-welded perpendicularly to the structures of the armored vehicle's chassis, including by means of a suitable tenon.These four cases are finally connected and controlled, for their electrical firing, by the threat detection systems of the armored vehicle, systems which also preferably ensure the disengagement of its brake and mechanical transmission systems at the ad hoc moment. The entire device according to the invention can be triggered manually by the crew using an ad hoc command.

[0016] With the device according to the invention, the probability of being able to destroy an armoured vehicle 1) by a direct shot at the target 2) of a single enemy offensive munition, becomes very low. 3) this makes this type of offensive munitions largely ineffective. Consequently, armoured weapons, whether land or air, thus become a weapon difficult to stop. And so, it regains its status as master of conventional warfare.

[0017] The device according to the invention is, by its simplicity and its effectiveness, primarily intended for the automated protection of armored vehicles against enemy attacks; secondarily for aircraft of all types and the same purpose.

Claims

Claims

1. Explosive device for automated protection of armoured vehicles against enemy attacks, characterised in that 1) it comprises one or more cases containing a powerful explosive charge and designed to cause a horizontal directional deflagration, 2) which is / are articulated and fixed to the chassis of the armoured vehicle; preferably at the rear of the latter as at the front, and in the direction of its movement; 3) is / are coordinated with the systems of the armoured vehicle for detecting approaching enemy munitions, and for calculations; 4) is / are preferably coordinated with the brake and mechanical transmission systems of the armoured vehicle, so that these can be automatically disengaged by the attack detection systems of the armoured vehicle associated with the device according to the invention;4) that it(they) detonate(s) automatically within the minimum time required (second, half-second, quarter-second) to move the armoured vehicle in one bound by horizontal directional explosion and over a distance at least equal to its length; 5) the explosive cases being designed for this purpose in the form of shells with a reinforced warhead, the open base, possibly optimised by a cone-shaped nozzle outlet.;

2. Device according to [Claim 1 characterized in that the device according to the invention can also be installed on the lateral sides of the armored vehicle and induce, by delayed explosive coordination effect, an additional right / left directional effect to the front or rear horizontal explosive movement of the armored vehicle.

3. Device according to [Claim 1 and the [Claim 2 characterized in that the device according to the invention can be triggered manually by the crew of the armored vehicle.

4. Device according to

1. , the

2. , the

3. , characterized in that the device according to the invention can be adapted, for the same purpose, to aircraft of all types, drones, helicopters, airplanes.

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