Hummer shield to protect gunners.

Unfortunately i can't find a link, but i've just seen a great clip on Fox News about a US soldier who has just invented a protective shield to go on top of his hummer which protects the gunner from sniper fire.

The shield was crudely made from old hummer windows which although damaged already, were still enough to form a bulletproof shield around the soldier. The protective device is known as the "Shwanson Shield" (rough guess at the spelling there) after the soldier who thought of it.

I really hope this guy gets all the cash that is made from this thing if it is picked up by the military bosses and produced officialy, i'd love to see on of the troops getting something good out of this war for a change.

CX.

That sounds pretty neat, will be waiting in anticipation to see what this shield looks like. Personally I am a supporter of the CROWS system. But the Humvee being used incorrectly does need more armor, or beef so to say. I'm glad that trooper if Cav or soldier any how, found a use for the extra material. Tt pains me though aslo, to know they have to go to such lengths.

Other than that, I don't want to derail this thread by going off topic. The only good thing the troops could be "getting" from the war, is "out of there".

Excellant.

I remeber watching the video made by the iraqi sniper awhile back, and feeling so bad for those guys he nailed, the gunners. My roomate was a gunner in the army, according to him its the worst place to be in any sort of combat. The first place the enemy aims is for the guy on the 50.

Hopefully this works. Give the guys over there some sort of extra sense of security.

Dunno if it's the same one or not......

Dlubak Corp. has developed a new glass turret, "transparent armor" it hopes will one day save lives. Made of multiple layers of glass and polycarbonate, the turret is 22 inches in height and forms a 270-degree protective curve around the gunner without blocking his or her vision.

Company officials say the turret can withstand successive firings of .243 or .762 rounds in the same spot, and that its curvature helps to deflect blasts of shrapnel from improvised explosive devices. The turret is designed to be removed and replaced in the field in 12 minutes.

Company officials said they did not have a cost estimate for the turrets.

www.post-gazette.com...

Nice one Zaphod. I wonder how long they've been working on that?

I was kinda hoping that the big companies would approach the soldier i mentioned, might have given him a few pennies to compensate him for the crap he's putting up with at the moment. Not sure if it would be that easy to patent a design from the middle of a war!
Then again, i find it hard to believe that this soldier is the first to think of turret defence. Surely the guys who design a vehicle that you have to stick your head out of have to think of protection?

Oh well, at the end of the day it's just good that someone is thinking about the troops.

CX.

I saw what you are refering to on HDNet a couple months ago...heres a picture of it.

(BTW, this pic shows perfect windshields...but from what I saw on tv they mainly used broken ones...ones that have been hit by shrapnel or bullets, but are still plenty strong enough to stop more bullets & shrapnel...they just dont want cracked ones to have to see out of (in the humvee), I like this...since its basically recycling bulletproof windshields.)

Also...This has caught Darpa's eye, and thye have issued a
Dapra Armor Challenge.



[edit on 22-5-2006 by Murcielago]

That just worries me though, first thing that pops into my mind is RPG 7. These turrets better be tested for more than small arms fire. I say they need blast proofing. Not trying to steal the shields light, but getting the gunner out of that danger position, is the best preventive idea.


No on second thought, I'm totally against the shield. It raises the silhouette of the humvee, and that is not good. Plus it creates more drag on the wind resistance, that is really going to help the miles per gallon.

[edit on 22-5-2006 by ADVISOR]

Well, I think its a good idea...its something they can make their, and protect them now. I like CROWS as well, but that is more in its testing & evaluation phase...with only a few hundred in Iraq, while this fills the gap. I think all the humvee's that havn't been modded for CROWS should have this setup.

A bit of a tree hugger are we??? Come on...So you think the army has one inkling of interest in how aerodynamic the hummer is? no.
It weighs nearly 4 tons...this little add-on wont do anything to its already sluggish performance...its a pretty hefty military machine...not an Indy car.

Well, as a temporary solution it should work great, but I don't see why they can't just as easily rig up a makeshift CROWS with a couple of solenoids and some wire.

Forget 270 degrees of protection, stay in the Humvee for 360 degrees of protection.

As far as I'm concerned, the troops can do whatever they need to do to stay alive in the short term, but in planning for the future, ADVISOR is absolutely right - decreasing the profile of the vehicle will greatly increase its chances against rockets - and gas mileage in the context of military strategy has nothing whatsoever to do with hugging trees.

Modern war is fought with war machines. Machines run on fuel. The more fuel used by each machine, the fewer you can field. It's a very real concern right now, in Iraq moreso than Afghanistan.

I don't know about sluggish, fuel hog yes, but not sluggish. I wouldn't even call the Bradley sluggish, not fast either, more of a delayed reaction. The thing is, a humvee is a thin skinned vehicle, and not designed originally for a turret, nor intended for one. It is a jeep for crying out loud, the TOW or MLRS was the most it should of had.

For on the spot jacked up as it is improvising, so be it. But damned if this could be avoided, by proper use of armored units.

Thats a pretty cool idea, and is certainly better than noting or the huge and bulky not to mention extremly hot armor suit gunners have been using (i forget what its called).



I think they just need to make the shield on more of an angle like 45 degrees or so to the roof of the hummer (like the front of the M1 abrahams turret) so rpg rounds just deflect off of it.

I think the designer should expierment with a pyramid design to delfect rpg rounds. Only issues I see with making a pyramid are cutting the windshields into triangluar shapes which might be difficult especially if they dont have the tools over there. And conspiracy theorists will say the pyramid design shows the US high command are occultists and have ties to egyptian aliens


The other idea (althought not really practical over the windows) would be some reactive armor on it to defeat rpg rounds.

[edit on 27-5-2006 by warpboost]