Spinel Thin Transparent Ceramic Armor defeats Barrett .50 Cal BMG

Wow very cool .... I had always wondered whether diamond or pseudo diamond would work as armor. Now I know it won't. but I still wonder abo0ut it's uses as a strikeface.

Originally posted by roguetechie
Wow very cool .... I had always wondered whether diamond or pseudo diamond would work as armor. Now I know it won't. but I still wonder abo0ut it's uses as a strikeface.

I am not familiar as to how you apply the term "strikeface" If used as an outer "film or layer" w/other materials like synthetic sapphire If your talking about the nose of a penetrator, a bullet or cannon/artillery shell for example for cannon/artillery as far as I know they can be employed with carbide tipped penetrator's, which is usually hard enough and mass producible to go threw reinforced hardened bunkers. You have the baddest cannon in the GAU rotary 20mm barrel beast in the A-10. But those are also uranium depleted rounds, and uranium is slightly denser hence heavier then lead, which by itself lead is quite soft, but very dense. Anything that heavy moving at 2,000fps (very roughly) such as a cannon round will if hardened with something like tungsten-carbide will go through anything. The key in U-depleted rounds is a greater mass moving fast enough will go through anything like the proverbial hot knife through butter.

Though we are working on such things as cold/hot plasma shields that would surround an object to affect a incoming rounds "attitude", but I'm not cleared for that work, don't need-to-know and couldn't tell if I did. Proximity "curtains" detonate explosive rounds just before hitting say a Hummer. The later has been on the military channel.

But for obvious reasons a bullet cant have the kind of mass as an U-depleted shell, and there are concerns that exposed to these rounds, though not "radioactive" we have seen certain problems from the first Gulf war as far as our soldiers having certain rather unusual medical problems. Wether this has any connection with "Gulf War Syndrome" I doubt, as I think there may have been sub-acute exposure to certain chemical agents. I would bet on that as the symptoms were directly or indirectly presenting as neurological/neuromuscular problems. Possible neurotransmitter or axion degrading, and that is a hall mark of nerve gas. Also toxic industrial gas. I can't say.

But there are ways to reduce reactive friction from a bullet striking material, I don't know any details as I never worked on weapons but have been involved in certain defensive technology (not projectiles though) which necessitates knowing some thing you want to defend against. A bullet with synthetic-sapphire may be applied to the bullet head where you can have stuff like teflon ( teflon is OS common knowledge and does work by reducing friction in part by "boil off", as bullets can be red hot due to air friction when they hit you) and there are many ways to defeat that, teflon that is.

Originally posted by Aliensdoexist
reply to post by Patriotsrevenge

 

I was thinking the same thing, i've shot .50 bmg before and the pressure impulse coming from the muzzle brake kicks up dust and dirt on the ground even when fired 4 feet above the ground on a bench. The loads just seemed a bit weak maybe they were subsonic handloads is what i'm thinking.

As an object like a bullet or other projectile moves through the air it sends out a ice cream cone like shockwave narrow point or bottom of the cone first, and expands outwards. An acoustic "mapper"can show this and present same as a visual image. So it certainly makes sense something as big as a .50 cal round would disturb ground beneath it though I've never seen it personally. As for subsonic almost all rifle rounds are, certainly the ones (I forgot the name, sorry) of our .50 cal sniper rifle would NOT want to in many cases be subsonic so the sound hits the unfortunate target after/as he hits the ground. Then again...

There are of course reasons to use sub-sonic rounds and the main one is less of a report. Sometimes much less. I have heard of a new design (not restricted info) that incorporates a rocket that ignites after fired, a lot like a TOW or other anti tank round. For that it's just less likely to injure the person firing it though I can see several reasons to apply this to a bullet, and with or not a rifle or pistol that uses compressed air to launch the shell. We even have targeting capability that you "paint"the target and it's fire and forget, once fired you don't have to even wait for it to hit or worry about sticking around and continuously paint said target though that seems like technological over kill, no pun intended given the likely range of most rifle targets. Other ways of lock on are also possible. Amazing how small and effective robust electronics can be put in a bullet, as they have long been put in artillery, and thats 15,000 or so g's.

I forgot to mention what a fantastic thermal conductor diamond or synthetic sapphire is and that alone has many interesting applications, but thats for another discussion...

reply to post by arbiture


My error in last past. Most rifle rounds are NOT subsonic but supersonic, sorry...

My question is , will this stuff stand up to a repeated shot ? How reliable is it? Has it got the guts to stand up to the ten rounds in ten seconds that I have heard a trained shooter can manage with the Barret? If the answer to any of this is negative, then can it really be said to have "defeated" the Barret at all? Its power, and ease of use make it the awesome tool that it is, and unless the armour can stand up to a clip full of AP rounds, I do not see what its value really is. Who the hell attacks an armoured target with an inferior round anyway?

It is not a question of whether it can stop a armor piercing 50 caliber rounds it is a question of is it as good as what they already have. It seems the answer is yes. The current window armor plating cannot stand up to repeated 50 caliber rounds but it can stop a sniper. It seems this is a great improvement it will reduce the weight of the vehicles and can you imagine if they kept it the same thickness it would further increase the armor to where it may stop repeated 50 caliber rounds.

I remember when I was in the military we would by the sunglasses that would stop buckshot I would like to see them make face protection for the soldiers out of this material they could go as far as making fullface shields.

reply to post by Aliensdoexist
no he would not , his third first from his chin would catch them and throw them back twice as fast and three times harder.