NationStates Jolt Archive

I've been reading up on armor and have ocme to the conclusion that a lot of NS armor is wrong. KE projectiles are stoped by the first 10-20mm of armor. After a KE projectile gets past that 10-20mm's it will overcome the rest. What happenes is if you fire a KE projectile at an DU or Tunsten plated surface, it either vaporizes on contact or goes through all the armor.

HEAT round relie on pressure, not heat as a lot of people on NS think. There are 3 ways to deafeat HEAT. A) Leave open spaces for the hot gasses to spil out into; B) have ERA which fires out and negates the presure of the hot gases; and C) have a ceramic armor. The ceramic armor works like this: When hit with HEAT warheads, the armor typically crushes under the jet. This pulverizes the ceramic layers and turns the ceramic into a high modulus cloud of pulverized ceramic. This dense ceramic dust, under tremendous pressure, is almost like a fluid. As it gushes out in the face of the HEAT jet and neutralizes its energy.

So ERA works only against HEAT warheads.

Another type of round of a HESH – High Explosive Squash Head type warhead. What it does it flatten itself out against the armor and attempts to fracture on the inside, throwing scrapnel around and killing the crew. This type of warhead works best when there are no gaps in the armor.


Using this information I have come up with a new armor scheme for all USSNA vehicles. (Note: All the thicknesses are for tank armor and can be scaled up or down)

Layer 1: 25mm's of Tungsten armor to defeat KE projectiles.
Layer 2: 15mm's of Ceramic armor to defeat HEAT type warheads.
Layer 3: a 10mm open space supported by titanium I beams. This stops HESH rounds and allows the pressure of HEAT rounds to spread out harmlessly.
Layer 4: 10mm's Ceramic armor as a third line of defense.
Layer 5: 5mm's Vectran Plastic to protect against fracturing.
Layer 6: Perforated Titanim Frame.
Layer 7: Lead-based polymer to protect agaist EMP and Radiation.
Layer 8: 5mm's of Vectran Plastic to further help agaist fracturing and to protect the crew from the lead.


This armor scheme allows a great deal of protection at a very low weight. Using this scheme, you could get NS protection from HEAT, HESH, and KE weapons.

Quite right from what I am looking at; if the figures match. This layering however is only mm so its overall protection is very weak. This would provide suitable protection for light vehicles, but with tanks you need to be able to survive RPGs and tank fire, gatling guns and missiles. These will not be stopped by mere mm of armor.

Actually, this would protect a tank from NS grade weaponry. The whole point of the armor is that it can deafeat any type of anti-tank weaponry. If you armor is inches thick it would be heavy even by NS standards. The armor is about 3 and 3/4s inches thick BTW.

Actually, he's right. Even well sloped, this armor isn't going to be enough to stop a RL APFSDS round or heavy HEAT warhead, let alone some of the NS stuff. If you double it, it would work better, but even then, it's not going to be that far above modern armor. The primary HEAT and APFSDS protection is too light, and even with secondary protection, it's just not that heavy.


btw: most tank armor is about 4-10 inches thick, depending on the area protected and the nature of the armor. 6-8 inches is the norm these days, sloping is used to increase protection beyond that, at least in the frontal arc.

Well than, as I said before, the numbers are scaleable.