Composite armour
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Composite armour is a type of
HEAT had posed a serious threat to armoured vehicles since its introduction in World War II. Lightweight and small, HEAT projectiles could nevertheless penetrate hundreds of millimetres of the most resistant steel armours. The capability of most materials for defeating HEAT follows the "density law", which states that the penetration of shaped charge jets is proportional to the square root of the shaped charge liner density (typically copper) divided by the square root of the target density. On a weight basis, lighter targets are more advantageous than heavier targets, but using large quantities of lightweight materials has obvious disadvantages in terms of mechanical layout. Certain materials have an optimal compromise in terms of density that makes them particularly useful in this role.[2]
History
The earliest known composite armour for armoured vehicles was developed as part of the
The first widespread use of a composite armour appears to have been on the
Among NATO nations and allies, the most common type of
The Soviets/Russians had a similar composite armour to the West's own "NERA", with rubber sandwiches between plates of steel.[3] This armour was confirmed to be inside the T-72B's "Super Dolly Parton" armour, but is suspected to be inside the T-80A as well, since it is unlikely the Soviets would put worse armour in their "premier" tank.
Design
Chobham armour defeats HEAT warheads by disrupting the high speed jet generated by the warhead. The outer steel "burster" plate detonates the shell and protects the composite array from the blast, increasing the armour's multi hit abilities. After making it through the burster plate, the jet penetrates into the first NERA plate, and begins to compress the elastomer. The elastomer quickly reaches maximum compression and rapidly expands, pushing the two steel plates in opposite directions. It is the movement of the steel plates that disrupts the jet, both by feeding more material into the jet's path, and introducing lateral forces to break the jet apart. The effectiveness of the system was amply demonstrated in
Use
All modern third-generation main battle tanks use composite armour arrays in their construction. While many of these vehicles feature the composite armour permanently integrated with the vehicle, the Japanese
tanks use a modular composite armour, where sections of the composite armour can be easily and quickly switched out or upgraded with armour modules. The adoption of modular composite armour design facilitates far more efficient and easier upgrades and exchanges of the armour.Soviet/Russian main battle tanks such as T-90s T-80Us and the Chinese Type 96/99s use composite armour in tandem with explosive reactive armour (ERA), making it hard for shaped charge munitions such as HEAT projectiles and missile warheads to penetrate the frontal and a portion of their side armour. The most advanced versions of these armours such as the Relikt and Kontakt-5 armour provide protection not only against shaped charges but also kinetic energy penetrators by using the explosive force to shear the projectile apart.
Applique armour has also been used in conjunction with composite armour to provide increased amounts of protection and to supplant existing composite arrays on a vehicle. The German Leopard 2A5 featured distinctive arrowhead laminated armour modules that was mounted directly onto the turret composite arrays, increasing protection markedly above the previous 2A4 model.
Composite armour has since been applied to smaller vehicles, right down to
Improvised
In 2004, American
See also
- Advanced Modular Armor Protection (AMAP)
- Chobham armour
- Combination K
- Compound armour
- Kanchan armour
- MEXAS
- Plastic composite
- Pykrete
References
- ^ "Leclerc Main Battle Tank". www.tanks-encyclopedia.com. Archived from the original on 2 February 2019. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
- ^ a b Evaluation of Siliceous Cored Armor for the XM60 Tank Archived June 5, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "T-72B MBT – The First Look at Soviet Special Armor". Journal of Military Ordnance: 4–8. 12 June 2015.
- ^ "UK Ministry of Defence : Army Board of Inquiry Report" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-10-26. Retrieved 2016-07-06.