Raytheon's Quick Kill System for RPG's
Raytheon has now developed an "Anti-RPG" weapon and has successfully demonstrated it's ability on an incoming RPG.Here's some excerpts from Raytheon's Press Release:
MCKINNEY, Texas, Feb. 8, 2006 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Raytheon Company's new Quick Kill System is the first active protection system (APS) to destroy a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) at close range, using a precision launched warhead with a focused blast.This could change the rules, so to speak, and the bad guys with RPG's are going to start disappearing in large numbers. Too Bad, HUH!
Quick Kill is a new "hit avoidance" system designed by Raytheon to protect combat vehicles and their warfighters from enemy fire. It destroys enemy weapons with speed, surgical accuracy and minimal collateral damage. The system is capable of instantly engaging projectiles fired from any location around or above the vehicle.
The test featured an RPG launched at close range, simulating an engagement of a Stryker combat vehicle equipped with Raytheon's Quick Kill system. The Quick Kill's active electronically scanned array radar detected and tracked the RPG and -- after computing its speed, trajectory and intercept point -- cued the precision-launched weapon to counterattack and destroy the RPG with its focused blast warhead. The weapon performed a vertical "soft launch," pitched over, accelerated to the point of intercept, fired its warhead and destroyed the RPG in mid-air.
For the whole press release and more fun stuff, here's Raytheon's main website.
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9 Comments:
That is too cool. My buddy is heading to Iraq for the third time in a few months, it'd be nice if they had it deployed by then.
There's already a way to stop RPGs a lot easier than that. The Army used it in Vietnam.
The old RPG-7 grenade had a piezoelectric fuze, and could be prevented from detonating just by stringing wire mesh a foot or two from the surface of the vehicle. This usually shorted out the fuze and rendered it inert.
In fact you could often see unexploded RPG-7 grenades hanging by their fins in the barbed wire around US firebases.
The later Russian grenades had a way around this, but I'll bet 90% of the ones in Iraq are the old type with the earlier VP-7M fuze.
Of course the great disadvantage of chicken wire is:
A) It doesn't look cool, sexy and high-tech, and
B) it doesn't help Raytheon executives who want to get rich.
Damn, Hammer's Slammers is coming to life.
Gotta agree with OD, the Tangos and other heavies of the River Patrol Force/Riverine Forces used bar armor to pre detonate RPGs. Not Sexy not high speed low drag but it worked and a bunch of squids couldn't break it! Of course us PBR sailors just went fast and looked way cool,"Bar armor we don't need no stinking bar armor!"
If one can reliably take out an RPG within half a second or so of detection, think what such a system could do for city-wide missle defense...
Hopefully this will get to the troops a little bit faster than better armor plating for Humvees and personal body armor upgrades. Maby we could just send the xtra lawyers over with Baseball bats and they could walk along side knocking those RPG's out of the air. Lets see...that would be one lawyer per RPG, sounds to me like a fair trade!
No, no, Ted. Lawyers are for stopping birdshot, not RPGs.
Please note that the slat armor in use on Strykers now is serving basically the same purpose as that chicken wire and to good effect, with many vehicles taking multiple hits with no real damage.
However, this system is 10% of the weight of the slat armor and covers angles that the slat armor does not.
There is a much better system available than this Raytheon system. In fact, it was demo'd on March 30, 2006. It's called Trophy. People should really get their facts straight before jumping on the band wagon of a system that won't be deployable for at least another four to five years!
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