Air Purifiers and the Armored Vehicle Protective Mask-3

When it comes to war, one of the first things that people usually thing about is the threat of chemical warfare. This type of thinking is what brought about the creation of the armored vehicle protective gas mask-3. Gas masks were designed to protect the military personnel from the hazardous chemicals that they could breathe in while in combat, either on land or air purifiers inside of their armored tanks.

The first efforts of creating the gas mask was by the CWS in the 1920's, for the United States Navy to use with their optical instruments. It was named the Navy Diaphragm Optical (NDO) Mark I and was completely experimental. The NDO Mark I was designed with air purifiers that went behind the crew members head and the diaphragm went in front to allow speech transmission more clearly. This mask helped to protect the soldiers from any harmful chemicals that they may breathe in while in combat inside of the tank. While this creation was great in theory, it was very unsuccessful for the Navy's use.

Their second try at creating an optical gas mask that could purify the air inside the tank was a much better success. It was called the NDO M-2 and was designed to be much easier to maneuver while inside of the tank gun turret than the NDO Mark I.

There was lots of consideration given in protecting the soldiers who were manning the gun turret inside of those cramped and stuffy tanks. The soldiers really needed a breath of fresh air and since it was very unwise to step out of the tank while engaging enemies, there was a strict requirement that was established in 1943. It was the CWS D4.1-11air purifiers, collective protectors for tanks. All new tanks that were being built were designed to be fully over pressurized. The ones that were already in use had ventilated face pieces installed to supply fresh air to them. The ventilated face piece turned out to be a much more successful system than over pressurized one due to not being able to completely seal up the tank.

The success of the ventilated face piece from led to the E-21 series collective protector. This was simply central air purifiers that took in air from outside the tank and delivered it to two or three different face pieces that were connected.

As the years passed, by 1945, there was the E-21-R2, E-21-R3, and the E-21-R4 air purifiers designed for military tanks. The M4A3 Sherman Tank had a requirement for two of the E-21-R2 units, or at least one of the E-21-R3 or E-21-R4 air purifiers. The E-21-R2 was considered to very successful in the war with Japan, but it was not adopted by the army ground forces due to its lack of not being a detachable mask.

Once the war had passed, the development and research teams made continual attempts to develop more practical air purification devices for their tank crews. The new development included detachable face mask to be used not only inside the tank, but outside of it as well. All of this research soon brought about the E-25 series protector that included two air purifiers and six masks. The fan used for air intake used the tanks 24 volt electrical system and could deliver 3.5 cubic feet of purified air to each crew member inside of the tank. Each mask could also be detached and used outside of the tank as well. While these air purifiers worked very well, it could not fit within most armored tanks, so this made reason for the E-26 series to originate. Unlike the E-25 series that could protect up to six crewmembers inside or outside of the tank, the E-26 could only protect three crew members and most tanks required two E26 air purifiers instead of just one like the E-25 series.

In 1954, there was a revision to the E-26 series. It was the M8, three man tank collective protector. The M-8 included an M-2 air purifier, a nine foot long M-6 hose, and three M-14 (E-56) protective masks. The air purifiers were designed to clean the air in a cyclone pre cleaner. It then filtered out the remaining particles with a simple filter made of paper, and the last phase it removed the harmful chemical through a basic charcoal filter. It could be used either in a chemical or non chemical environment.

Through the years air purifiers for armored vehicles keeps improving and being more reliable for military personnel and it will continue to improve, making combat safer each and every year.