Ergonomic Military Seats: Ensuring the Mental and Physical Wellbeing of Troops
28/10/20
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Troop Seats Design Key Advantages | MOBIUS Protection Systems
Whether it’s a Main Battle Tank, an Armored Personnel Carrier, an Infantry Combat Vehicle or a Light Tactical Vehicle, each runs the risk of being placed in harm’s way on the battlefield. Today, more so than ever, military vehicles carrying troops onboard face a wide range of threats in active service. These include new types of artillery bombardment from high explosive projectiles along with lower-tech, but no less devastating, attacks from improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Modern military vehicles are threatened in several ways, with the primary risk coming from direct blasts. When a bomb or other explosive device detonates, the surrounding area becomes overpressurized, accelerating air particles faster than the speed of sound. This blast wave can cause immense damage to buildings, vehicles, and, crucially, people. It can also trigger immense fire and heat in the blast radius, along with the so-called “blast winds,” which refer to the high-intensity pull that draws in fragmented objects such as glass and debris toward an explosion’s source.
But there are plenty of secondary risks that come from explosive blasts as well. These can be immensely damaging, and reach significantly further than the initial explosion itself. For instance, secondary fragmentation from damage to buildings, concrete, glass, and masonry can cause major damage. Shockwaves from explosions can be devastating, too. These supersonic waves, which carry significantly more energy than sound waves, may inflict high velocity damage on organs and tissue that they travel through. Parts of the body particularly susceptible to damage include the auditory, respiratory and gastrointestinal systems, meaning that the hearing, breathing and even parts of the body such as liver and bladder can be harmed by such shockwaves.
In the civilian world, seating solutions — including both the seat and their protective seat belt — should protect against car crashes, which remains a leading cause of death. However, likelihood of a crash is considerably lower than the chance of a vehicle being attacked or subject to an incident on the battlefield. As a result, special troop seats solutions must be developed that emphasize bespoke safety features, while also demonstrating outstanding ergonomics, installation flexibility, and more.
While seating solutions represent just one part of the overall vehicular platform, they are a crucial one. Proper troops seats can — and frequently do — save lives on the battlefield.
Mobius Protection Systems designs and builds lifesaving, blast-protecting seating solutions for military vehicles. Using our deep understanding of military seating solution requirements, we have created top-of-the-range troop seats used in 13,000 vehicles, on more than 45 different vehicular platforms, in 26 countries. Every aspect of the requirements for modern military vehicle seats are addressed by our design, ranging from ergonomics to safety. We use only the highest quality materials and components available.
Our shock-absorbing seats work by separating troops from the body of the vehicle. The key to this performance is our uniquely innovative SPIRAL technology, which allows our seats to score outstandingly on Dynamic Response Index (DRI) testing. This measures the likelihood that spinal damage will result from a vertical shock load in a military environment such as during an underbody mine blast. Our troop seats score these low DRI numbers even when the vehicles that the seats are installed in are subjected to multi-hit assaults and drastic deformations.
The seats also take into account the different roles that troops will be carrying out, which is why we offer commander, driver, gunner and troop position seats; each of which boast easy adjustment options, straightforward and intuitive ingress and egress, and capabilities for emergency operation. Depending on the type of seat and where it will be installed, our troop seats can be fitted using mounting options on the wall, roof, or floor of a vehicle. They can also be compacted with features including folding back, folding pan, and adjustable headrest.
It is this versatility that has helped Mobius PS to carve out a name for itself as a market leader in the world of troop seats. Our seats are uniquely protective, but they are also highly customizable. They will fit everyone from the lightest 5th percentile female to heavyset 95th percentile troops. They can be installed in a wide range of vehicles without you having to make changes to the vehicular platforms themselves to accommodate the seats. They are as useful and comfortable whether they are fitted in a Main Battle Tank, an Armored Personnel Carrier, an Infantry Combat Vehicle, Light Tactical Vehicles or more.
We also understand time constraints and budgetary requirements, and will do our absolute best to ensure that we can provide seating solution packages that will fit both. With many satisfied customers to attest to this, we have no shortage of evidence to back up our confidence.
If you want to learn more about our seating solutions and the considerations we take so as to give troops the best possible protection — or have any questions about how Mobius can implement its seats in your military vehicles — make sure to contact us.
