Re:Primer: Statistical Armour
by jiggawatts on Friday April 15, 2022 @08:15PM
(#31047617)
You basically invented composite armour, which is a thing already, and actually somewhat outdated.
The problem is that at such high velocities, during the impact everything acts like a fluid. Tensile strength and shape is almost irrelevant. You can think of the atoms in the armour not as a solid but as individual particles just hanging in space. Their mass — and hence inertia — is more important than anything else!
Modern armour design is about trying to have moving components that present “fresh” volume/mass to increase the effective thickness. Either via rubber layers that can distort, moving steel plates, or explosive reactive armour that do the same thing but faster.
Why not stack a few layers of corrugated steel/ceramic plates to try to split the jet apart?
Basic theory would be to present the projectile with a surface that has drastically different amounts of resistance across the front of the projectile, in the hope of destabilizing it & the jet it creates.
I guess it would make the armor quite thick, but with varying density/composition it may not end up that much heavier?
(And maybe it just wouldn't work ;)