U.S. Army interested in sticky foam for stopping hostile vehicles
Published 27 February 2009
New Mexico company awarded a contract to develop the "foam-based vehicle arresting system," which could stop a car or a truck before it gets close enough to do real damage
A few weeks ago we wrote about Tempe, Arizona-based Engineering Science Analysis Corporation (ESA), a company which developed a device to stop fleeing cars or suicide trucks hurtling toward their target: it is a tentacle-based device that ensnares the vehicle and brings it to a halt.
The interest in nonlethal weapons may yet yield another car-stopping solution. Two trends have contributed to a growing interest in nonlethal weapons. First, the war against terrorism and insurgency often takes place in densely populated urban areas, and it is often the case that the use of more traditional weaponry would result in large number of civilian casualties. The second trend is the growing desire of law enforcement and their political bosses to find softer, less violent means to deal with rioting crowds. One such nonlethal system in the U.S. military was interested was a sticky foam that could stop rioters in their tracks. The system was supposed to cover rioters with gooey material which would it impossible for them to move about, throw things, or run. Initial experiments were disappointing, but this has not stopped the U.S. Army from trying again. Noah Shachtman writes that, this time, the goal is use the sticky material to stop hostile vehicles, not angry individuals or crowds.
There was some initial excitement over sticky foam during the Marine deployment to Somalia in 1995; troops used it to help cover a retreat. But there were problems with the weapon, too. For example, “people could move their feet faster than the sticky foam could be applied,” according to one account. “Although … if you hit a person’s thighs his legs sometimes stuck together.” Interest in the anti-personnel foam faded after that.
The interest in using sticky stuff to stop cars remained, though, and the Army recently awarded a small business contract to Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Adherent Technologies to develop the “foam-based vehicle arresting system,” which could stop a car or a truck before it gets close enough to do real damage. According to the contract description, the system would consist of “low-profile containers, each containing enough foam base to generate several cubic meters of high-strength foam.”
In theory, the foam would “instantly disable” the oncoming vehicle by clogging up the engine intakes and blocking the steering mechanism. The foam would absorb the vehicle’s kinetic energy, bringing it to a stop. “Lastly,” the company says, it “will leave the driver trapped inside an encapsulated vehicle, with no means of orientation.” The system could be tripped automatically (through pressure sensors or light barriers) or by remote control. It’s one of a bunch of new technologies being floated for stopping a runaway (or suicide) truck.
sing sticky material to stop vehicles in their tracks is not new. Back in 1993, Moishe Garflinkle of Philadelphia applied for a patent for a method of stopping armored vehicles “with a rigid polymeric foam within which is dispersed metallic flakes.”
