Innovative Lego-like Armor Is Replacing Sandbags

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September 26, 2016 | Originally published by Date Line: September 26 on

Blast and bullet resistant, giant Lego-like blocks are making the old-fashioned sandbag a thing of the past.

For hundreds of years, sandbags have been the standard for rapidly building fortifications— but now there’s a smarter and superior solution. It’s called McCurdy’s Armor. You can use them to build walls, guard posts and more, or even build a shed in your backyard to withstand a zombie apocalypse.

Made by Dynamic Defense Materials, the product is named after Ryan McCurdy. McCurdy was a Marine who was killed by a sniper while trying to save another Marine.

Joe Dimon, general manager of Dynamic Defense Materials, explained that he served with McCurdy in Fallujah. “He is someone that I feel would still be alive today if we had this technology when we were serving in Iraq,” he said.

McCurdy’s Armor can withstand RPGs, Molotov Cocktails, small arms fire and even serious explosive blasts including 32 pounds of TNT – that’s about the equivalent of two 155 artillery shells.

There are transparent gun ports to provide soldiers with situational awareness while completely protected. When soldiers need to return fire, the ports can quickly open into firing position.