MRAP vehicle armor selection and development

Secretary of Army Aberdeen rush program post-Iraq invasion. Tested titanium, steel, aluminum, glass. Glass worked best. Six pieces three-quarter-inch glass on MRAP undersides. Why-it-works classified; that-it-is-glass visible to any soldier.

Right now, one of the best armors is actually electromagnetic armor — just hanging wires off the side. The thing comes in, you set up magnetic fields. I can't remember exactly how it works. But I'll tell you the armor on the MRAPs — I can tell you what it's made out of. They have about six inches of, six pieces at three-quarter inch, glass. I can't tell you why it works — many of them can't tell you why it works — but they test it. That's an interesting story.

Secretary of the Army challenges Aberdeen materials group to solve Humvee IED vulnerability. Within eighteen months they deploy MRAPs with V-shaped underbody and six layers of glass armor. Tom can disclose this because soldiers can see it; the why-glass-works mechanism remains classified.

MRAPs. The MRAPs were these sixty-ton personnel carriers that replaced the Humvees, because of the V-shape on the bottom. And it turns out six layers of glass as the armor.