Overhead Threat Protection (OTP)

In expeditionary environments, shelters such as the Tent Expandable Modular PERsonnel (TEMPER) tent continue to be the primary means of housing command, communications and administrative functions and for the"hotel"accommodation of our soldiers. In this same environment the increased occurrence of mortar and rocket attacks has significantly raised the threat to our troops from blast and fragmentation. Although sandbags, concrete barriers, and other defense walls have traditionally provided added ballistic protection for our troops, overhead protection from indirect fire for these"soft"shelters has always been lacking. The army is now pursuing is a method to provide this additional overhead protection plus offer the stand-off initiation of RPGs in a configuration applicable to soft shelters. At the completion of the Phase I effort, TPI will have designed an Overheard Threat Protection (OTP) frame structural system to meet the U.S. Army requirements to provide force protection to a wide range of soft walled shelter systems. We will have completed Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and provided analysis of the overpressure impulse loading and static loading of the OTP system. In addition, we will have fabricated a 1:3 scale proof-of-concept model of the OTP system demonstrating the protection/coverage possibilities and deployability characteristics.