Field Comparison
Beyond the Earth-Filled Barrier
Earth-filled barriers have been the field standard for force protection for decades. They keep out people, bullets, and most rockets, and they ship flat. They are also open to the sky, slow to fill, and built to be temporary. Outside The Box Armor engineers the protection into the panel instead.
The field standard
Filled on site by loader, open to the sky, built to be temporary.
Portable Echo shelter
Walls and overhead in one. Shipped rated or cast in place, and permanent.
Earth-filled barrier photo: U.S. military, public domain (Wikimedia Commons). Echo shelter render and test photos: Outside The Box Armor.
Head to Head
Engineered Panel vs. Earth-Filled Barrier
The same threats, measured the same way: our engineered panel against an earth-filled barrier of the same footprint packed with sand or gravel.
Wall thickness
4 in
vs
3–5 ft
A 4-inch panel reaches protection that packed earth needs feet of base to match, and gives back the ground the fill would take.
Blast overpressure
15–100+ psi
vs
15 psi
Blast overpressure is the peak pressure spike a shock wave adds to the air. Around 1 psi shatters windows and roughly 10 psi collapses ordinary buildings. The Echo family spans Echo Lite at 20 psi, Echo Arch at 40, Echo Foam at 47, and Echo Cast past 100. Heavy-duty earth-filled barriers are rated to 15 psi.
Overhead threat
Roof + walls
vs
Open top
Panels close the top as well as the sides, the gap a drone or a mortar exploits on an open-topped barrier.
Deployment
Ship or cast
vs
Loader fill
Ship the panels rated and ready, or cast them in place with our own mix where a crane cannot reach. Either way the strength is engineered in, not shoveled as loose fill.
Lifecycle
Permanent
vs
Temporary
The panel is the structure and the armor at once, not a revetment to maintain and haul away.
Earth-filled barriers still win the rapid expeditionary perimeter. Engineered panels take the permanent, high-value site.
The blast numbers above come from the Echo blast family: Echo Lite, Echo Arch, Echo Foam, and Echo Cast, each tuned to a different overpressure.
Earth-filled barrier dimensions, its 15 psi blast rating, and its small-arms rating are from published military data. Our ratings are from independent live-fire and shock-tube testing.
Proven, Not Theoretical
The same panel, under fire and blast
.50 BMG, stopped at the face
Rounds defeated and recovered under independent live fire. The Delta Panel is validated to UL 752 UL-RF-J.
Blast, absorbed
An Echo panel takes a mortar-level overpressure in shock-tube testing, a lab rig that reproduces a blast wave, with no breach on the back face.
Hardening a permanent site?
Tell us the threat and the constraints. We will scope the panel and the rating to the site.
Discuss Your RequirementsOr explore the product lines: Delta ballistic panels and Echo blast panels.