What happened to electromagnetic tank armor? Imagine if an incoming RPG could be vaporized right when it touched your armor? This type of space-age star wars like force field has actually been in the works for over 20 years at various defense companies. In the early 2000’s the US military spent nearly $200 million dollars across several years on the technology. Conventional armor offers only limited protection against RPGs and shape chargers that shoot out a jet of hot copper at 5,000 mph. It can penetrate around 600 mm of your tank armor which means you need heavy thick armor everywhere . Meanwhile Electromagnetic armor would reduce your tanks total weight and give you the ability to stop multiple hits. So how far away is this technology from being adopted? Is electromagnetic armor practical and what are it’s limitations? Written by: Chris CappyEdited by: MaksymHere’s how electric armor works according to the research paper “DEFEATING THE RPG7 THREAT BY USING ELECTRIC POWER IN REACTIVE ARMOR APPLICATIONS” trigger warning some science talk is incoming time now: quote “ELRA consists of two parallel conducting plates connected to opposite poles of a charged high energy capacitor. They have a high voltage difference and are connected to an energy source between them. These plates are mounted on the basic armor. When the tip of the shaped charge jet hits the second plate (the inner plate) after having penetrated the first plate (the outer plate), it triggers an electric current that starts to flow through it.” If you think I can’t dumb it down then you sir have underestimated how dumb I can get. So the incoming munition acts as the electric switch to trigger the armor causing large electric currents to flow into it. Basically the whole concept is when you’re out there driving around in your tank During normal operation, your high voltage power supply is charging your armor plates. This generates an extremely high voltage between the outer and inner armor plates. When someone fires off an RPG at you the munition hits your electric armor and completes the circuit which discharges the incredible amount of stored energy which is dumped into the munition and essentially vaporizes or liquifies it by causing it to expand 5 to 10 times its normal size.