French “Gendarmerie Nationale” Launches Aigis Blast Protected Carrier for Primed Ammunitions

Winter 2005 – Gendarmerie Nationale

The French Military Police Force (Gendarmerie Nationale) and AIGIS Blast Protection have worked in close collaboration to create a new form of packaging (the Grenade Containment Unit), which, associated with AIGIS’s revolutionary new blast absorption material TABREshield, allows completely safe storage and transportation of primed ammunition whilst guaranteeing the complete safety of personnel travelling in the same vehicle. A first not only for the French Military Police Force, but also for the Military Worldwide. A World First!

Successful AIGIS protected detonation test

Wednesday 2 March 2005, a certain air of excitement hangs over the rifle range at the Vonges Centre d’essais pyrotechniques (pyrotechnic test centre), in the Dijon countryside. On the site, Major Galzin from the Bureau de la protection et de l’environnement (BPE) (Protection and Environment Unit), from the headquarters of the French Military Police, filled a unit with 20 primed F4 grenades. The unit was then covered with a 50 cm layer of sand to intensify pressure. The group, which also included senior riot squad officer, Patris, from the equipment section, Amod (Miscellaneous Optical Munitions) division, moved away and took shelter in the covered firing area fifty metres away. ‘Three, two, one…’ Nothing happens, or at least not much. The sand lifts up slightly and a wisp of smoke is released. Extracted from the pile of sand surrounding it the unit appears unscathed, apart from being slightly warped on the bottom and there being a strong smell of tear-gas. Inside the unit the grenade that was set off has indeed detonated, but without, however, causing sympathetic detonation. The ammunition in immediate proximity to the grenade that was detonated is cracked, but the rest has remained intact. The test has been a success. Now the fire test needs to be passed…

Fire test passed with flying colours

One more test left, the fire test. A unit containing twenty F1 grenades is plunged into the heart of the fire, the temperature of which is gradually increased to 1,000 °C. The fire is started from a distance. The flames, which are fanned by the wind, rise higher and higher into the air. Major Galzin and David Christian, AIGIS’s Chief Engineer who designed the unit that is being tested, keep one eye on the fire and the other on the stopwatch. After 23 minutes and 50 seconds an ignition device explodes … just one. Everyone waits. The crucial thirty minutes are finally over and results are promising. The next day the two men check to see whether the packaging, which has cooled down, is intact. The unit is indeed intact, as they had hoped. Not even the slightest distortion. The ideal scenario has been completed. The heat melted the plastic casing around the grenades and the explosive (TNT) simply burned off before the detonators were triggered under the effect of the heat.

The Grenade Carrier close-up

This modular ammunition storage system (MASS) is placed in the back of vehicles. The ammunition is accessible from the interior thanks to a lateral opening drawer system. The MASS is made up of seven modules, three fire-retardant plastic modules designed to hold 90 conventional tear gas grenades, two others in the same material for storing launchers and finally the two modules tested. These two modules are in the form of two different size drawers, the smaller one positioned lower down, is designed to accommodate twenty F1 grenades; above this is a larger module for twenty F4 grenades. In addition, the system is detachable so these modules can also be used to transport ammunition as well as store them outside the vehicle.

The total weight of the drawers is 285 kgs. The drawers are made of soft metal in order to allow distortion of the packaging without breakage. The four sides have a honeycomb texture thereby allowing gas and smoke to escape. A thick sheet of TABREshield, an innovative high-performance material made according to a secret formula, lines the top and bottom of the drawers. This new high-performance material absorbs and therefore neutralises the three effects brought about by the explosion, namely thermal effect, mechanical effect and pneumatic effect (neutralisation). Nothing is disturbed outside the packaging. Inside the packaging the system is such that the sympathetic activation or detonation of other grenades is not possible.

In less than three years all 130 anti-riot police squads will gradually be given eight vehicles equipped with a modular ammunition storage system. Initial deliveries started on 11 May 2005.