by Steve » Wed May 18, 2011 1:33 pm
I tried designing something similar to this years ago, but not for airsoft.
The design was a small pouch worn between the shoulder blades that, when activated, popped a small kevlar bunker around the wearer.
I saw some of the self-erecting tents the army was testing. They basically looked like camoflage donuts. When you hit the center of them, they popped out into little pup tents. I figured I could make one out of Kevlar.
I ran into a bunch of problems, though. First, Kevlar is heavy. And to get it to stop rifle fire, it's REALLY heavy. Carrying that much weight every day for something you aren't likely to use is a pain in the a$$. Second, in order to get something like that to pop quickly, it's probably going to be a stone-cold phony pony to fold back up. This means that you are probably going to have to abandon it in place and recover it later. Which is full of fail in fluid warfare.
The best I could come up with was using an airbag initiator to get the pop (but that's a bad idea, since those things are basically bombs). Build the bunker out of Kevlar sort of like an inflatable play structure. Have an overflow vent to allow it to puff out excess pressure, both when it first pops and then when it gets hit, so that it can use air pressure to allow rounds to slow.. And a couple of CO2 cartridges and a pressure sensor to reinflate it after it starts taking strikes.
Weight looked like upwards of 80 pounds, and that is just not going to happen. I guess if you could build something like this, film it stopping RIFLE strikes successfully, then you might have an argument for using it in airsoft. Maybe. Assuming you are using the same system that you used for testing, anyway.
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