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Military Vehicle s are commonly armoured to withstand the impact of Shrapnel , Bullet s, Missile s or Shell s, protecting the personnel inside from enemy fire. Such vehicles include Tank s, Aircraft , and Ships . Civilian vehicles may also be armoured. These vehicles include cars used by Reporters , Official s and others in conflict zones or where violent crime is common, and Presidential Limousine s. Armoured Car s are also routinely used by security firms to carry money or valuables to reduce the risk of Highway Robbery or the Hijacking of the cargo. Armour may also be used in vehicles from threats other than deliberate attack. Some Spacecraft are equipped with specialised armour to protect them against impacts from tiny Meteor s or fragments of Space Junk . Even normal civilian aircraft may carry armour in the form of debris containment walls built into the casing of their Gas Turbines to prevent injuries or Airframe damage should the compressor wheel disintegrate. {Link without Title} The Design and purpose of the vehicle determines the amount of armour plating carried, as the plating is often very heavy and excessive amounts of armour restrict mobility. Vehicle armour is sometimes improvised in the midst of an armed conflict, most notably during the Iraqi Insurgency when US troops reinforced their vehicles with " Hillbilly Armour " fashioned from scrap materials. ARMOURED FIGHTING VEHICLES The most heavily armoured vehicles today are the Main Battle Tank s, which are the spearhead of the ground forces, and are designed to withstand Anti-tank missiles, Kinetic Energy Penetrator s, NBC threats and in some tanks even steep-trajectory shells. The Israel i Merkava tanks were designed in a way that each tank component functions as additional back-up armour to protect the crew. Outer armour is modular and enables quick replacement of damaged armour. Technologies For efficiency, the heaviest armour on an AFV is placed on its front: on the Gun Mantlet and Glacis Plate . Tank tactics require the vehicle to always face the likely direction of enemy fire as much as possible, even in Defence or Withdrawal operations. Sloping and curving armour both increase its protection. Given a fixed thickness of armour plate, a projectile striking at an Angle must penetrate more armour than one impacting Perpendicular ly. An angled surface also increases the chance of deflecting a projectile. ''Appliqué armour'' screens have sometimes been bolted or welded onto armoured vehicles to increase protection. Beginning during the Cold War, many AFVs have '' Spall Liner s'' inside of the armour, designed to protect crew and equipment inside from fragmentation (spallation) released from the impact of enemy shells, especially High Explosive Squash Head warheads. Spall liners are made of Kevlar , Dyneema or similar materials. Spaced armour with spaced armour skirts (''Schürzen'') and turret wrap-around]] Spaced armour can cause bullets and solid shot to tumble and deflect, reducing their penetrating ability—for which effect spaced armour was used as early as the First World War, on the Schneider CA1 and St Chamond tanks. Many early-WWII German tanks also had armoured skirts installed, to help protect their thinner side armour from Antitank Rifle s and antitank guns. with anti-Panzerfaust screens improvised from sprung bed frames, protecting side and top armour during street fighting, Berlin , May 1945.]] Spaced armour also takes advantage of the principle that a High Explosive Anti-tank (HEAT) warhead creates a focussed jet of plasticised metal, which dissipates with distance. The innovation of the Bazooka , Panzerfaust , and other HEAT weapons in the Second World War prompted the employment of factory-made and improvised stand-off armour. Relatively thin armour plates or even metal mesh were attached as side skirts or turret skirts on tanks and other armoured vehicles. Even today, light armoured vehicles mount panels of metal mesh, or "slat armour", and some main battle tanks carry rubber skirts to protect their relatively fragile suspension and front belly armour. In response to very heavy HEAT warheads, integral spaced armour was reintroduced in the 1960s on the German Leopard 1 . There are hollow spaces inside this type of armour, increasing the length of travel from the exterior of the vehicle to the interior, in hopes of reducing the shaped charge's penetrating power; in some cases the interior surfaces of these hollow cavities are sloped, presenting angles to the anticipated path of the shaped charge's jet in order to further dissipate its power. Thus instead of having a single thirty-centimetre layer of steel armour, it is possible to have two fifteen-centimetre layers half a metre or more apart, giving far greater protection against shaped charges at no penalty in weight. The Whipple Shield uses the principle of spaced armour to protect spacecraft from the impacts of very fast Micrometeoroid s. The impact with the first wall melts or breaks up the incoming particle, causing fragments to be spread over a wider area when striking the subsequent walls. Composite armour Composite armour (including Chobham Armour ) was developed in the 1960s by the British and first used on the American M1 Abrams but not, as is often presumed, on the German Leopard 2 . It consists of layers of Steel , Ceramic , and Plastic Honeycomb , sometimes with layers of Depleted Uranium added. Composite is effective against both Kinetic and Shaped Charge Munition s. Against kinetic penetrators, the brittle ceramic blunts the Projectile while the softer steel layers absorb its Kinetic Energy . Still, it is significantly less effective against KE-munitions, so sometimes Depleted Uranium layers are added to provide extra protection against these warheads. An alternate description of Chobham armour is that it combines spaced armour with composites. Supposedly the deeper interior heavy metal layer is a cast aluminium slab with rods of Tungsten (encased in Titanium ) or Depleted Uranium running perpendicularly through it, intended to cause the points of high-velocity long-rod penetrator armour-piercing projectiles to deform, which sometimes causes the projectile to tip and strike the armour at an angle, presenting far greater surface area to the armour and therefore greatly increasing the resistance. Another type is perforated steel—armour with hollow perpendicular spaces serving the same function that they do in spaced armour, often filled with Ceramic Foam and backed by layers of Kevlar , Dyneema or similar material to trap and reduce fragmentation. This is the type used in the original version of the Leopard 2 . Reactive armour ''Explosive reactive armour'', initially developed by Israel , uses layers of high Explosive sandwiched between steel plates. When a shaped-charge warhead hits, the explosive Detonates and pushes the steel plates into the warhead, disrupting the flow of the charge's liquid (usually copper at around 500 degrees; it can be made to flow like water by sufficiently immense pressure) metal penetrator. It is less effective against kinetic penetrators. Reactive armour poses a threat to friendly troops in the area of the vehicle. ''Non-explosive reactive armour'' is an advanced sort of spaced armour, using the changing geometry of materials under stress to increase its protection. '' Active Protection System s'' use a sensor to detect an incoming projectile and explosively launch a counter-projectile into its path. Electrically charged armour Electrically charged armour is a recent development in the UK . A vehicle is fitted with two thin shells, separated by insulating material. The outer shell holds an enormous electrical charge, while the inner shell is a ground. If an incoming HEAT plasma-jet penetrates the outer shell and forms a bridge between the shells, the electrical energy discharges through the jet, disrupting it. Trials have so far been extremely promising, and it is hoped that improved systems could protect against KE penetrators. Developers of the Future Combat Systems series of armoured vehicles are considering this technology. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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