Composite Armour Technology Innovation – MST Magazine Article

Soldiers and Vehicles on Beach

Military Systems and Technology, Edition 1, 2022.

For over 40 years NP aerospace has been at the front line, pioneering the technology of composites for the defence industry. Today, with rapid progress in armour systems and materials, we are helping governments and security services around the globe to keep up with the speed of change. We are an independent UK and Canadian based company, employing 160 experts in research, manufacturing, testing and fabrication at our facilities in Coventry and London, Ontario.

And our size is our strength. As a medium sized, nimble, specialist company we are capable of adapting to the unique demands of our clients, providing bespoke solutions and partnering with a select group of global suppliers who share our passion for excellence.

As to the materials we use within our composite armour, we purchase only from high quality original equipment manufacturers and not from distributors. In an industry where safety is paramount, we deploy stringent measures to ensure that quality is never compromised.

We have carefully established a prominent position in the field of advanced, lightweight, high performance armour systems for military and law enforcement personnel and land and marine platforms. We also lead the way in the integration of military vehicle systems, delivering complete turnkey services in engineering, driven in part due to our role as engineering authority for the UK MOD protected mobility fleet.

Let us help you protect your people and vehicles with the safest and most cost-efficient systems for ensuring your essential assets are suitably secure.

Personal Armour – Helmets, Plates & Shields

British and Canadian designed, tested and manufactured, life saving protective equipment from NP Aerospace is used by military and security personnel around the world. Our cutting-edge technology offers clients the ideal coefficient of high threat protection with minimal weight, making our equipment safe against the rigours of modern conflict while providing ease of use and durability within the harshest of environments.

To date we have supplied more than one million ballistic helmets to forces in the UK, Canada, Italy and NATO allies. Since the 1990s we have provided more some 200,000 body armour plates to world leading defence organisations including the UK MOD and Canadian DND. We are at the forefront of developing the latest range of lightweight, ergonomic ballistic shields for protection against bullets and blast fragments.

Our equipment meets many international performance standards, including the US National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Standard for Police Body Armour and product-specific STANAG and MIL standards. Our products benefit from significant user feedback and include a range of features that make them as comfortable and safe as possible.

Our manufacturing facility has the flexibility and capacity to meet your needs whether it is small quantities of a niche product or a large order of military combat equipment and is supported by a fully accredited testing department and developmental lab.

Bomb Disposal Suits

We are proud to launch to the market our next generation 4030 ELITE bomb disposal suit certified to NIJ 0117.01 – the culmination of more than 15 years’ experience selling to armed forces all over the world. NP Aerospace is one of only two manufacturers in the world to have achieved this level of accreditation. The 4030 ELITE goes beyond NIJ 0117.01, with extensive blast testing against four internationally recognised scenarios and offers a range of features and benefits which place it truly at the cutting-edge in its class.

Features include:

All these combine to create a suit which provides the pinnacle of protection against flame, fragmentation, blunt trauma from impact and blast pressure wave. The 4030 ELITE is available with a range of communications, cooling and biometric systems to make what we believe is the most user configurable and most comfortable high performance bomb disposal suit in the world today. We’re rightly proud of it. We also offer the 4020 ELITE, a higher performing, commercially available version of the MKVI Suit currently in service with the UK MOD. Meanwhile the 3020 ELITE Tactical Suit offers a lightweight solution to enable extended wear in search and breaching missions. Blast tested against the NIJ 0117.01 standard, it is in service with diverse global agencies including the Tokyo Fire Department and the Japanese Defence Force.

Platform Armour & Integration
Our world leading CAMAC composite armour system weighs 50% less than the equivalent armoured steel products. Our capabilities include:

Working primarily with vehicle/system OEMs or government departments, our armour systems are a central component within the development of new platforms and systems across the world. They provide sector-leading levels of protection at minimal mass at competitive prices.

Alternatively, NP Aerospace’s composite armour systems can be used to significantly upgrade the protection offered by legacy fleets allowing the end user to extend the life of the platform and improve specific capabilities. Ultimately increasing survivability against modern threat scenarios and providing the user greater operating freedom with minimal increased platform weight. NP Aerospace’s armour systems are capable of defeating threats up to and including STANAG 6 and with partners across the defence industry and academia, NP Aerospace is continuing to develop new materials and armour systems to defeat an everwider ranges of threats.

Our platform integration portfolio includes significant upgrades to the UK MOD’s mine protected patrol vehicle fleet including the on-going provision of engineering services to a fleet of over 2,000 vehicles deployed throughout the world.