SHERPA (Suicidal High Explosive Reactive Personal Armor)

[nbk2000]

The Natural Born Killers of the 21st century are individuals who engage in high-risk 'activities' and are not adverse to dying...as long as their enemies die with them

PBA (Personal Body Armor) is an integral part of the NBK's arsenal, but that only protects against enemy projectiles in a passive mode. NBK's prefer dynamic and offensive methodologies.

Thus, the need to 'sex up' PBA from a passive defense, to an active offense.

The research being conducted on thixiotropic armor, which is kevlar PBA saturated with a viscous carrier fluid saturated with collodial particles which transfrom from a flexible to solid state under shock loading, is the key to the idea.

Rather than an inert silicone oil and particulate loading, substitute IM explosives (liquid and solid) of similiar properties (if any exist) and design suitable fusing for it to blow on command or if killed (after a short delay, anti-movement switching activates to kill the first enemy to move your body).

If suitable IM explosives don't exist to perform in a similar manner, then a layer of silicone rubber explosive, similiar to DET-FLEX, could be used as a anti-trauma backing for the armor, allowing for improved defense against blunt trauma impact, and still providing for selective a suicide attack.

As a less extreme measure, a non-lethal (to you) defense could be based on the premise of having a low weight of explosive propelling a payload, either smoke/tear gas/fragment, from your armor, towards your enemies.

Based on the assumption of wearing PBA with hard-plates (front/back), the explosive is in a thin layer on the surface of your rear hard plate, with the payload on top of that, with a switch mounted where it can be instantly reached when the piggies have you on your knees and they approach you from behind.

When they do, you press the switch or it automatically fires (after prior arming) when you are prone and on your chest (tilt+pressure) with a piggie on your neck.

The explosive is of a low velocity, since it doesn't need velocity for range, and it's very near your body. There are very low velocity explosives that would work just fine, in the 1000m/s range, since the targets are literally within spitting distance.

When it goes boom, the piggies on your back are now off your back, and the chaotic event is your chance to attack or flee.

If the piggies are further away when you trigger it, the pain and surprise of the attack provide the same opportunity.

When dealing with explosives in such close proximity to your body, total explosive weight and impulse are important factors, as it doesn't do you any good to have an explosion rupture your lungs or contuse you into unconciousness.

Distance is your friend in this case.

Create the distance by interspersing an inflatable envelope (airbag) between your hardplate and the explosive sheet. The airbag is inflated in a few dozen milliseconds, creating an airgap of an inch or two between the explosive and the vest, greatly reducing shock into your body.

Simple e-match ignited quickmatch with salvaged airbag azide pellets inline with the detonator provide the required inflation and timing.

By keeping the TEW low, and of a low VOD, blast would be low enough to be allow you to remain functional (though perhaps deafened).

The addition of titanium powder adds sufficient spark trails to blind night-adapted eyes. RP pellets, or FM absorbed on a carrier powder, creates a dense screening smoke that prevents covering piggies from getting an instant response shot off at you, since they couldn't see their comrades who were standing closer to you. :p

With either version, the armor must be able to take repeated hits and impacts without unintentional functioning, so your S&A circuits and loadings would require to fail-safe, rather than functioning.

As with anything, experimentatin would be required prior to deployment.

[Hirudinea]

and design suitable fusing for it to blow on command or if killed (after a short delay, anti-movement switching activates to kill the first enemy to move your body).


A simple pulse taking watch could probably be used as the heart of that circuit.

[defiant]

An airbag modified vest with a swiss movement...? Too complicated. Besides, what's wrong with last years fashion?

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/4401/vestis7.jpg

[nbk2000]

What's 'Swiss' about it?

A foot of quickmatch, burning at a foot every 10 milliseconds, would be ignited by a squid on one end, burn into the azide pellet, inflating the airbag as it continues to burn on into the detonator.

If a car airbag can be completely inflated in 40 milliseconds, an airbag little over 100 cubic inches should be doable in a few milliseconds using a volume of pellets only a few quarters in size.

Or use a CO2 inflator like this one:
http://www.webbikeworld.com/r3/motorcycle-air-bag/

Which, BTW, is what I got the idea of an inflatable PBA vest from.

And if that's too complicated, compressed polyethylene foam sheet with a mechanical stricker restrained by the compressed plates, the plates being released by a pull cord. In a couple of seconds, the PE sheet expands sufficiently to release the stricker into the primer of the detonator and BOOM. :)

Or just say fuck it and mount it on a slab of styrofoam on your back. :p

[Jacks Complete]

Nice idea. I'd go about it a bit differently, though. The "Dragon scales" armour, and the ball bearing vest, both of which can stop AP ammo at rifle speeds up close, are the perfect shrapnel materials. This goes over your explosive undercoat. It stops anything killing you, until you pop the fuse, or it fires due to later action.

I read that the "terrorists" in the UK subway bombing attempt were apparently using an explosive made from flour and hydrogen peroxide. The court was told it was amazing that this hadn't exploded, since the prosecution claimed that it had exploded every time the police had tried it. If this were true (which it isn't, unless a source I can truct more than a lawyer confirms it) then flour and water is thixoscopic, and would be great for an outer layer, over your dragon scales, as a smoke and explosive distraction that would leave your vest underneath in fine condition.

[FUTI]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxnDDsmRnNc
and also as a music to my ears :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A1hfdI28vY&mode=related&search=

so I guess water and flour can act funny but I consider H2O2 and flour explosive theory foolish. Can anyone estimate power of that mixture if possible?

[Jacks Complete]

According to the newspapers covering the court case, the prosecution claimed it should have destroyed the entire train carriage. I'm quite sure they were making things up. They also claimed that the mix had eaten through 3 pairs of chemical gloves, but I figure if you are dumb enough to wear latex for dodgy chemicals, even 30 layers isn't going to help.

[nbk2000]

The YouTube video 'Cornstarch Coolness', when I was watching it, I thought of the Holtzman Shield from Dune;

The slow blade penetrates the shield!

Or, in this case, the slow finger/airpuff.

The music video...if there was a way of making it so that the flid could be made to do that, but without any audible sound, than it'd be an awesome kinetic sculpture, like Lightning Globes. :)

And this is entirely OT.

[Alexires]

Or is it NBK? Instead of a body armour, why not maybe use something like the music/cornstarch experiment to create an instant barrier?

Maybe a stupid idea, but maybe not. There are other videos on there showing "Cornstarch lifeforms".

Imagine, if you will, piggies sprinting through your house, chasing you as you run. You've already fire on them, and they are out for your blood.

As you run through a door, you slap a button on the wall and behind you, a white mound rises from the seemingly solid flood. The pigs are stumped. They try blowing it away, but to no effect. Their rounds are absorbed. The sound from the mound is deafening and they can barely think. One tries to push it out of the way and finds his hands broken and mangled from the force contained there in.

While making a wall of cornstarch rise from the ground would be hard, masquerading a 5x5 metre square of cornstarch as ground by putting the right vibrations through it would be interesting and perhaps not so hard. When they step on it, you turn the vibrations off, and suddenly a 80kg piggy is stuck in the mud....ooops.

Otherwise, you might be able to use this cornstarch stuff as a kind of shrapnel. Sort of like that bouncy silly putty when hit with a hammer. cornstarch shrapnel would hurt like a mother fucker, and might eliminate problems of over penetration (if thats a problem) or perhaps bounce more than metal shrapnel would (less deformation).

[FUTI]

Well first thing that come to my mind is poor man's blow dampener made of starch-water (thixotropic?) solution inside the jacket bellow or above NBK air-bag system. Also I wanted to add something constructive in discusion related to Alexires post. Second link is just for fun :).

I'm little buffled with NBK proposal since I still can't get into my head the idea of puting HE charge that close to my body and expecting to last after detonation. OK force will diminish with distance from the body, but what about blast wounds? Also little to complex but...you never know can it be ussefull.

[nbk2000]

...I still can't get into my head the idea of putting HE charge that close to my body and expecting to last after detonation.

Hence the S in SHERPA. :D

It's for use when your enemies are about to capture you at gunpoint, so you'll be able to get in one last blow at your enemies, and either succeed and escape, or die free.

It's like the poison-gas tooth from Dune. You die, but so do your enemies.

[defiant]

OK, I'm convinved.

Lets see the demonstration video. :D:D:D

[Defendu]

As you run through a door, you slap a button on the wall and behind you, a white mound rises from the seemingly solid flood.

Or you could get a door installed.

[nbk2000]

Alright, defiant, you asked, so here it is...a real-world poison gas tooth! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ylnQ-T7oiA

Watch it and check yourself. ;)

The idea of a spikey floor reminds me of a scene from the movie Aeon Flux, where needle-sharp spikes extruded out from what looked like grass.

I've seen ferro-magnetic fluids take on very sharp (looking) spike shapes, but the magnetics aren't strong enough to make the fluid rigid enough to actually penetrate skin. :(

An airbag that's designed to pop like a ballon after being overpressurized by airbag pellets could be useful. Non-lethal and very simple to design. Make it so the gas from the generator passes through an irritant powder or screening smoke composition (FM) and stirs it up for effective dispersal by the bags rupture.

[defiant]

Ha, ha.

To return the favor...:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YilPdQ2tVlE

[nbk2000]

Dude, that was such a rip-off of the human claymore scene from Swordfish.

BTW, have you checked how many dental fillings you have yet? :D

[megalomania]

Ahhhhh, crap, no wonder I am going insane... :D

[defiant]

BTW, have you checked how many dental fillings you have yet?

I had fillings, but pulled those teeth shortly after they were filled. Its through the fillings that they track you (from 12 Monkeys) ;)

Jokes aside, your vest idea actually could work with R&D. It's not dissimilar to tank armor that explodes outward when hit to minimize damage to personnel.

[FUTI]

An airbag that's designed to pop like a ballon after being overpressurized by airbag pellets could be useful. Non-lethal and very simple to design. Make it so the gas from the generator passes through an irritant powder or screening smoke composition (FM) and stirs it up for effective dispersal by the bags rupture.

If I may modify the design place some powdered clay like montmorilonite in those bags and you will get that smoke screen I guess. Use same montmorilonite mixed with water for the second layer of bags instead of starch (I think it will work the same although it is not as cheap as the previous material). On the other hand if you add some dry starch to those bags in the first layer you could get some kind of aerosolic explosion maybe.

I'm still baffled not with the idea "take someone with you on your way to eternity (wherever that is)", but with overengeneering concept of the weapon. Like someone already said the vest they made today are just sufficient for the job.

I also start to think that air-bag idea start to look like it come from the mind of someone who has trouble to accept the death and cling desperately to that feeble chance to survive the blast.

I hope you won't be insulted NBK I have read a lot of your posts to know that is not the case but this thread blocked my neural pathways with its inconsistency in logic (the way I see it).

I must say that all added idea to this concept by you NBK are good one but its like building a Mech warrior while tanks are still working to do the job. I have seen on youtube those test with Dragonskin vest and hand granade....sure it won't be penetrated but if my internal organs are turned into bloody milkshake I don't give a shit about it.

[nbk2000]

It's variations, that's all.

The first one is pure SHERPA. The airbags and such are SHERPA-Lite. ;)

First one is guaranteed to kill you and everyone near you. The others might kill you, might not. Same with those around you.

Depends on how good an engineer you are.

First one, very simple...BOOM! Not much can go wrong there.

Others, more so, if you want a second chance at things.

Choose your flavor according to taste.

[defiant]

I'm not enthralled by the idea either Futi.

What the hells wrong with death (if you can take more of them than they take you)?

On the other hand, I'll take a dozen units if this item can be produced at a reasonable cost. :D

[tiac03]

This Is still the better of the Cornstarch experiments (getting back to NBK's sculpture Idea).
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vCHPo3EA7oE


As for The airbag Ideas. Is there sufficient pressure formed to sling out metal pieces using the modified airbag itsself? Same Idea as placing shrapnel over the airbag in the car is and then ramming the intended victim causing the airbag to go off and deliver a face full of pointy metal objects.

If you could get an Airbag to fill up on your back quickly enough you can get metal projectiles "flung" as high enough speeds to be deadly for those on the recieving end but give you more of a chance than strapping C4 to yourself no?

(Sure might not have the same radius but anything within 10 feet would be unhappy.)

[Gerbil]

In regard to the H2O2 and flour "explosive", they were apparently using 6% hydrogen peroxide concentration :rolleyes: . I'm not entirely sure what they intended to happen. Ironically, with the H2SO4 from the AP synthesis, they could have distilled to nitric acid, made RDX and actually done some damage. Still, I'm not complaining...

As for the vest, I can't help but feel that even if the airbag version worked, it'd be likely to injure the user (shrapnel in legs, etc) and cause their capture.