New Transparent Armor

I was led to this by an entry at SayUncle.

ALONtm is a ceramic compound with a high compressive strength and durability. When polished, it is the premier transparent armor for use in armored vehicles, said. 1st Lt. Joseph La Monica, transparent armor sub-direction lead

"The substance itself is light years ahead of glass," he said, adding that it offers "higher performance and lighter weight."

Traditional transparent armor is thick layers of bonded glass. The new armor combines the transparent ALONtm piece as a strike plate, a middle section of glass and a polymer backing. Each layer is visibly thinner than the traditional layers.

ALONtm is virtually scratch resistant, offers substantial impact resistance, and provides better durability and protection against armor piercing threats, at roughly half the weight and half the thickness of traditional glass transparent armor, said the lieutenant.

In a June 2004 demonstration, an ALONtm test pieces held up to both a .30 caliber Russian M-44 sniper rifle and a .50 caliber Browning Sniper Rifle with armor piercing bullets. While the bullets pierced the glass samples, the armor withstood the impact with no penetration.

Its aluminum oxynitride.

Wonder what it costs? Remember that bit from Batman Begins about the $300,000 body armor for the military.

While some see the possibilities of this material as limitless, manufacturability, size and cost are issues the lab is dealing with before the armor can transition to the field, the lieutenant said.

"Traditional transparent armor costs a little over $3 per square inch. The ALONtm Transparent Armor cost is $10 to $15 per square inch," Lieutenant La Monica said. "The difficulties arise with heating and polishing processes, which lead to higher costs. But we are looking at more cost effective alternatives."

So just doing the math, assuming a 6'x2' windshield. (That's 1728 sq.in.) I hope that is conservative.
That's $25,920 for the windshield.

Currently, size is also limited because equipment needed to heat larger pieces is expensive. To help lower costs, the lieutenant said researchers are looking at design variations that use smaller pieces of the armor tiled together to form larger windows.

Lowering cost by using a commercial grade material is also an option, and the results have been promising.

Very interesting though. Like all things at their start, they cost a lot to develop, and once they can be mass produced and sold, the price comes down. Very cool.