Navistar contracted for rocket-propelled grenade netting

Aug. 7 (UPI) -- Navistar Defense has received a $29.6 million contract from the U.S. Army for rocket-propelled grenade netting kits.

The deal, announced Monday by the Department of Defense, comes under a three-year contract set to run through August 2021. Work will be performed in Illinois, and Army fiscal 2018 through 2021 capital funds will be used for the program.

Rocket propelled grenades are a series of shoulder-launched anti-armor, anti-fortification and anti-personnel weapons that have been widely used by insurgent forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and other combat zones. They are standard weapons in many countries across the world.

RPG netting is a metal cage bolted onto vehicles that are meant to cause the warhead to explode before it impacts directly on the vehicle's armor. Anti-tank rounds are designed to blow a hole in the armor and send fragmentation called spalling into the crew compartment, starting fires and injuring or killing the vehicle's occupants.