What is Abrams armor made of?

The M1 is mainly composed of sturdy rolled homogeneous armor (RHA) steel plates, sandwiched around thicker protective material. The core armor is a variation on the British Chobham armor — an arrangement of metal plates, ceramic blocks and open space.

What kind of armor do tanks have?

Composite armour used on modern Western and Israeli main battle tanks largely consists of non-explosive reactive armour (NERA) elements – a type of Reactive armour. These elements are often a laminate consisting of two hard plates (usually high hardness steel) with some low density interlayer material between them.

How thick is the armor on an Abrams?

For the base model M1 Abrams, Steven J. Zaloga gives a frontal armor estimate of 350 mm vs armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding-sabot (APFSDS) and 700 mm vs high-explosive anti-tank warhead (HEAT) in M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank 1982–1992 (1993).

How does a shell test for penetration?

However if the shell doesn’t ricochet and hits the hull armor, spaced armor, tracks, or other external modules, then the shell tests for penetration as normal. Lets say you hit a bit of spaced armor with an AP or APCR shell.

What happens when a shell hits the armor?

When a shell strikes an armor plate it will continue it’s flight path. In the event of a ricochet it will lose 25\% of it’s penetration potential and continue moving. However if the shell doesn’t ricochet and hits the hull armor, spaced armor, tracks, or other external modules, then the shell tests for penetration as normal.

How much damage does a ship get from shell penetration?

In the initial state, the ship will receive damage normally (x0.33 for shell penetration). The compartment starts off clean and gets darker as it takes more damage. After the first threshold is reached, the damage received is halved (x0.165 dmg for shell penetration). At this stage, the compartment of the ship is visually blackened.

How do you measure the distance a shell has penetrate armor?

You fire a projectile at an armor plate, and if it doesn’t go right through it, a ruler is used to measure the distance the shell has penetrated. It’s sometimes necessarily to cut through the plate to accurately measure.