GB2122319A

GB2122319A - Fire trench cover

Info

Publication number: GB2122319A
Application number: GB08316673A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Frederick Harold Lee; Charles Anthony Howard Knight
Original assignee: PERSONNEL ARMOURED DESIGNS LIM
Current assignee: PERSONNEL ARMOURED DESIGNS LIM
Priority date: 1982-06-19
Filing date: 1983-06-20
Publication date: 1984-01-11
Also published as: GB2122319B

Abstract

A fire trench turret or armour 30 to protect a soldier in a trench from bombardment has an hexagonal pyramidal shaped wall 32 formed of interconnected textile fabric pockets containing removable armour wall panels, and a removable roof 34 of one or more armour panels within a fabric cover. The armour wall panels and their fabric covering have holes covered by armoured flaps 52 which are displaceable for observation and weapon firing purposes. The corners between adjacent pockets are covered by armoured flaps 56 which can be detached along one edgefrom the wall of pockets to allow the latter to be folded up after the roof and wall panels have been removed so that the roof, wall panels and folded fabric can be bundled up as a transportable kit for assembly into the turret when desired. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Fire trench turret This invention relates to a fire trench turret or fire trench armour.

When soldiers come under fire from artillery or are subjected to some other bombardment one of their refuges and defences is to take cover in a trench over the top of at least part of which is a cover formed of any handy protective material for example a roof of stones and earth piled on a support of beams or branches or galvanised roof sheeting to give them protection from explosions and projectiles.

Of course making such a protective cover takes time both in finding the materials and the building thereof, during which time the soldiers are exposed.

Under battle conditions this time may not be available before bombardment starts nor may appropriate cover materials be to hand.

An object of the invention is to provide a fire trench cover in the form of a turret or armour which can be speedily errected.

According to a first aspect of the invention a fire trench turret or armour comprises a cover structure comprising a plurality of armour panels assembled into the cover structure from a kit of parts adapted to readily co-operate to form the structure.

According to a second aspect of the invention a kit of parts to form a fire trench turret or armour according to the first aspect comprises a plurality of elongate boards comprising synthetic fibre material, at least some of said boards being bendable or pre-formed into bent shapes adapted so that the shaped boards disposed in transverse overlying disposition one with another form a cover comprising roof and side wall elements.

The synthetic fibre material can be aramid fibre material and/or glass fibre material.

Though the boards can be of a size and number capable of being collectively carried in a single pack or unit by one person, the kit may be heavier and thus more conveniently transported by vehicle.

The boards can each be formed of a plurality of layers of aramid or glass fibre textile fabric bonded together by a resin or rubber adhesive material. The fabric may be woven fabric. The boards can be bendable or may be pre-moulded to shape. For example the bent shape may be that substantially of an an inverted-U in which the cross-piece of the U forms part of the roof and arms of the U form parts of side walls.

One or more other boards which need not necessarily be bent can be included in the kit to fit into the roof and/or sides of the structure formed by the bent boards to form a more complete cover which may have gaps in its sides for observation and firing of weapons by personnel in the trench.

Other armour material may also be attached to the boards, this other material may be impact resisting material, for example impact resisting plastics which may be polycarbonate sheets, ballistic ceramic tiles (known per se), and/or metal plates.

Anchoring means, for example metal pegs or pins may be provided to anchor the cover to the ground, for example by engaging lower ends of the wall parts formed by the boards.

According to a third aspect of the invention a kit of parts to form a fire trench turret or armour according to the first aspect comprises a plurality of armour panels to form roof and wall elements of a cover, the wall panels being fitted or fittable into inter-linked reception means from which a surrounding wall can be erected, and one or more armour roof panels being adapted to fit over the surrounding wall.

The inter-linked reception means may comprise a plurality of interconnected pockets disposed as a ring or tube. Wall panels are fitted orfittable into said pockets which may have closure flaps.

The pockets may be formed of a double thickness of textile fabric or other flexible web material stitched together at spaced intervals to form said pockets separated by the stitching at hinge parts of the wall so that with the wall panels in place the fabric or web material covering and panels forms a continuous erect ring structure.

Flaps comprising covers of fabric or other web material and containing armour panels may be disposed on the outside or inside of the ring structure to cover the hinges since there may be gaps at the hinges between adjacent armour wall panels in the pockets.

If desired each armour wall panel may be formed with an opening or slit to coincide with corresponding openings in the pocket walls. These openings may each be covered by armoured covering flaps which may be moved aside for observation made by someone inside the turret or for the firing of a weapon by such person through such opening.

These covering flaps may comprise covers of fabric or other web material which contain armour panels.

The roof panel or panels is/are mountable over the top of the wall and may be attached thereto, for example by fastening straps.

The ring of pockets (which may have the hinge covering and slit covering flaps permanently attached thereto) with the armour wall and roof panels form a kit which may be light enough to be carried by a single person to the place of assembly and speedily erected initially by inserting the wall panels into the pockets or by unfolding the ring of pockets if the wall panels were already in the pockets. The adjacency of the stiff armour wall panels assists in holding the surrounding wall erected which is further stabilised by fitting the roof panel(s) into the upper opening of the surrounding wall.

The armour panels may be formed of metal plate or board formed from bonded layers of aramid fibre fabric and/or of glass fibre fabric or combinations of metal and board and may also be formed of or comprise ballistic ceramic tiles and/or impact resistant plastics, for example polycarbonate, or other synthetic sheet material.

The fabric or other web material forming the pockets and covers for armour panels may be waterproof, fire or flame proof or flame retardent, and may be in appropriate camoflage colouring.

The aramid fabric used for forming armour boards may be (a) woven from KEVLAR 29 (Trade Mark of Du Pont) and sold by Fothergill & Harvey Ltd. under their reference D235, or (b) woven from KEVLAR 49 (Trade Mark of Du Pont) and sold by Fothergill & Harvey Ltd. under their reference D208.

The aramid fabric (a) can be of plain weave weighing about 279 gm/m2 and about 0.38 mm thick woven from aramid yarn of about 1110 decitex, in which the weft ends and warp ends are each about 12.2/cm.

The aramid fabric (b) can also be of plain weave weighing about 218 gm/m2 and about 0.33 mm thick woven from aramid yarn of about 1580 decitex, in which the weft ends and warp ends are each about 6.7/cm.

The glass fibre fabric used for forming armour boards may be loosely or closely woven from glass fibre yarn and may weigh about 800 gm/m2.

Each aspect of the invention will now be further described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 is a perspective view of an embodiment of a fire trench turret formed according to the first aspect of the invention from a kit of parts according to the second aspect; Figure 2 is a perspective view of another embodi ment of fire trench turret formed according to the first aspect of the invention from a kit according to the third aspect; Figure 3 is a fragment of the turret in Figure 2, and Figure 4 shows a section of the turret in Figure 2.

In the arrangement in Figure 1, a fire trench T has a coverformed by an armourturret 2 built from at least four armour boards 4 and 6 comprising aramid fibre and/or glass fibre material. The boards can either be pre-formed or bent on site to substantially the shapes of inverted-U's with feet 8 which may be anchored to the ground. Boards 4 are disposed to underlie boards 6 extending transversely to the former.

The roof part of the turret can be augmented by additional armour boards 10 inserted into the structure which may have gaps as shown at 12 through which a weapon may be fired or observation may be made by someone in the trench. Means may be provided to secure the boards one to another.

The aforesaid armour elements, which may also comprise other armour material, are initially provided as a kit of parts which can be readily erected to form the structure. The other armour material may be impact resisting plastics material, for example, polycarbonate, and/or ballistic ceramic tiles, and/or metal plate.

In the arrangement in Figures 2 to 4 trench t has a cover formed by armour turret 30.

The trench armour 30 comprises a surrounding side wall 32 and a roof 34.

Side wall 32 comprises a doulbe thickness of textile or other flexible sheet material 33 in the form of a ring, stitched together at 36 at intervals along reinforcing webbing 38 to form pockets 40 rein forced along their closed upper ends by webbing 42.

Each pocket has a trapezoidal shape (substantially an isosceles trapezoidal shape) and receives a corresponding side wall armour panel 44 of similar shape so that when all the pockets are filled with armour panels, the wall 32 stands upright and is substantially self-supporting by interaction of the cover fabric 33 and the adjacency of panels 44 to one another. The panels 44 are insertable through bottom openings and the pockets 40 each closeable by a flap 46 extending from the front layer of pocket material over the lower portion of the rear layer of pocket material to which the flap can be readily detachably fastened, for example by loop pile and hook fastening means of the kind available under the Trade Mark VELCRO.

Each of the wall panels may be formed with a through opening 48 coinciding with openings 50 in the front and rear layers of cover fabric 33 at each pocket 40. The openings 50,48 through each pocket can be covered by a flap 52 comprising textile fabric or other sheet material stitched to cover fabric 33 and forming a pocket containing an armour panel 54.

Any flap 52 may be lifted to give a person inside armour turret 30 means for firing a weapon there- from or making observations.

Since each wall panel 44 cannot extend across the stitching 36 at each side of a pocket 40 at corners where the erected wail 32 bends, armoured flaps 56 are provided to cover the corners of the wall. Each flap 56 is a pocket of fabric or other sheet material containing an armour panel and stitched at 58 along one longitudinal side edge to the front ply of cover fabric 33 of one pocket 40 the adjacent pocket 40 having one part 60 of a loop pile and hook fastener corresponding with the other part 62 of the fastener on the rear of flap 56 to detachably hold the flap over the appropriate corner of wall 32.

The roof panel 34 comprising a fabric or other sheet material cover 64 containing armour panel 66 shaped to fit into the upper opening of wall 32 can have straps 68 to which straps 70 on the wall 32 can be attached to hold the roof in place.

Through the turret of the drawing is shown as a truncated pyramid of hexagonal section, it may be of any other desired shape.

In use the turret armour 30 can initially be provided as a kit in which the cover 33 stitched with the pockets 40 and provided with the armoured flaps 52 and 56 is folded up and made into a bundle with the side panels 44 and roof 34 so the combination can be manually carried (using a carrying strap, for example) or otherwise transported and easily assembled into the armour turret.

Claims

1. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour comprising a cover structure comprising a plurality of armour panels assembled into the cover structure from a kit of parts adapted to readily co-operate to form the structure.

2. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in claim 1, comprising a plurality of boards comprising synthetic fibre material, at least some of said boards being bent and the boards being disposed in transverse overlying disposition one with another so as to form the cover structure comprising roof and side wall elements.

3. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour in which the bent boards each have substantially the shape of an inverted U in which the arms of the U stand on the ground and form side wall elements and the cross-piece of a said U-shaped board overlies the cross-piece of another U-shaped board to form roof elements.

4. A fire trench turret as claimed in claim 4, in which an interstice between aforesaid cross-pieces is covered by a substantially straight board of the synthetic fibre material and forms a said roof element.

5. Afire trench turret orfire trench armour as claimed in any one of claims 2 to 4 in which said boards comprise aramid fibre and/or glass fibre material in combination with bonding material.

6. A kit of parts to form a fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in any one of claims 2 to 4 comprising a plurality of elongate boards comprising synthetic fibre material, at least some of said boards being bendable or pre-formed into bent shapes adapted so that the shaped boards disposed in transverse overlying disposition one with another form a cover comprising roof and side wall elements.

7. A kit as claimed in claim 6 to form a fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in claim 5, in which the boards comprise aramid fibre and/or glass fibre material in combination with bonding material.

8. A kit as claimed in claim 6 or claim 7, in which securing means is provided to connect together boards which overlie or cross one another and/or is provided to anchor aforesaid side wall to the ground.

9. A kit as claimed in any one of claims 6 to 8 including additional armour to be mounted on the fire trench turret, said additional armour comprising at least one metal plate and/or at least one sheet of impact absorbing plastics and/or at least one ballistic ceramic tile.

10. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour substantially as hereinbefore described with referpence to Figure 1 of the accompanying drawing.

11. A kit of parts to form the fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in claim 10.

12. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in claim 1, the cover structure comprising a surrounding wall comprising inter-linked reception means holding a plurality of armour wall panels, and one or more armour roof panels over the surrounding wall.

13. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in claim 12, in which the inter-linked reception means comprises pockets of web material.

14. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in claim 13, in which the inter-linked reception means is ring of said pockets.

15. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in claim 13 or claim 14, in which the or each roof panel is in a cover of web material.

16. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in any one of claims 12 to 15 in which the surrounding wall has one or more through openings each covered by a displaceable third armour panel.

17. Afire trench turret orfire trench armour as claimed in claim 16, in which the or each third armour panel is in a cover of web material hingedly attached to said surrounding wall.

18. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in any one of claims 12 to 17, in which gaps in armour between adjacent side wall armour panels are covered by external or internal fourth armour panels.

19. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in claim 18 when appended to claim 13, in which each fourth armour panel is in a cover of web material hingedly attached to a said pocket and detachably attachable to an adjacent pocket.

20. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in any one of claims 12 to 19, in which the armour panels comprise metal plate, and/or board of bonded layers of aramid fibre and/or glass fibre fabric, and/or ballistic ceramic tile, and/or impact resistant plastics.

21. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in any one of claims 13,14,15, 17, or 19, or as claimed in claim 20 when appended to claim 13, in which the web material is flame-proof or flame resistant and/or is water-proof.

22. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in any one of claims 13,14,15,17, or 21, or as claimed in claim 20 when appended to claim 13, in which the web material is formed of textile fabric.

23. A fire trench turret as claimed in any one of claims 12 to 22, in which the roof panel(s) is/are removable from the said wall and the armour wall panels are removably disposed in said reception means.

24. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in any one of claims 12 to 23, having a truncated pyramidal shape.

25. A kit of parts to form a fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in claim 12, comprising a plurality of armour panels to form roof and wall elements of the cover structure, the wall panels being fitted or removably fittable into inter-linked reception means from which the surrounding wall can be erected, and one more armour roof panels being adapted to fit over said surrounding wall.

26. A kit of parts as claimed in claim 25 to form the fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in claim 13, in which the web material is flexible.

27. A kit of parts as claimed in claim 25 or claim 26 to form a fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in any one of claims 12 to 24.

28. A fire trench turret or fire trench armour substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to Figures 2 to 4 of the accompanying drawings.

29. A kit of parts to form the fire trench turret or fire trench armour as claimed in claim 28.