SOTECH 2010 Volume: 8 Issue: 1 (February)

SPV 400

The first running prototype of the Supacat protected vehicle (SPV) 400 was recently revealed by Supacat Ltd. The vehicle is currently being subjected to a detailed trials program. A second SPV400 prototype is being completed at the company’s Devon, U.K., facility. The vehicle was subjected to blast testing in December 2009. The SPV series is the next generation design from Supacat to enhance the company’s successful range of high mobility vehicles, which includes its HMT (high mobility transport) vehicles Jackal and Coyote, which are in service with the U.K. armed forces in Afghanistan.

“The SPV400 is a superb achievement by Supacat’s innovative engineering team here in the U.K.,” said Nick Ames, managing director of Supacat. “Its clean sheet design offers an upgradeable solution for 21st century operations and takes the performance of lightweight protected mobility platforms to new levels, making it the vehicle to beat in the international markets we see for this class of vehicle.”

Minefield Clearance

Moskovskij Gosudarstvennyj Tekhnicheskij Universitet imeni N.Eh. Baumana of Russia has released information on a system clearing detected minefields. The system appears to work in two stages once the clearance line has been launched out into the minefield and is lying on the ground. The deployment of the line is via a jet booster from a fixed and anchored box out into and/or over a known minefield. The first stage of the clearance process appears to be driven by an electromagnetic pulse sent through the line at specific frequencies to neutralize mines with electronic fuses. The second phase is the actual detonation of the line, with significant force to trigger the remaining mines with proximity or pressure fuses.

Ballistic Vest with Anesthetic

A new Russian project from the Institut prikladnoj mekhaniki UrO RAN centers on projectile protection with individual body armor.

The obvious—and declared—intent is to “reduce pain sensation, prevention of traumatic shock and improvement of fighting efficiency.” The bulletproof vest consists of chest and back sections, including the case to hold the armor panels, armored panels or set of plates in the form of scales, and undervest arranged between body and armored panels. The undervest has cavities arranged in staggered order at the distance of 50 mm from each other; in each panel there is a tube syringe installed—removable and replaceable if necessary.

Each syringe is connected to a 2-3mm needle directed perpendicularly to the side of internal surface of the vest. The needle is enclosed in a plastic cap. The syringe itself is filled with a topical anesthetic under positive pressure. In the case of significant impact and/or deformation of an armored panel that causes human body injury, the needle is pierced into body, thus providing for injection of topical anesthetic solution.

Impact Protection

From Australia comes a compressible liner for impact protection, which may be installed in a helmet or applied to other impact protection situations, as well as offering customized zones of impact protection. The compressible liner may have a relatively low density foam inner layer fused to a relatively high density foam outer layer. The inner layer may have many cone shaped protuberances that project into matching recesses of the outer layer. The compressible liner provides an initial low resistance to impact for the desired part of the human body. As the impact progresses, the level of resistance provided by the compressible liner increases in a controlled manner, so that controlled deceleration of the part of the body covered by the liner’s impact protection zone occurs throughout the impact. ♦

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