Realistic Bullet Penetration Behavior and Body Armor

[Angry Mexicans]

I think there is one small, yet quite important change, that could be made to the penetration power of rounds in-game.

As it stands, heavy armor can be quite useful against more or less all ammunition in game. However, armor piercing ammunition displays extremely good effect against heavy body armor. This, in the mind of many players I have encountered, seems to render heavy armor somewhat useless, as its weight slows you down, making you an easier target for an enemy very likely boasting armor piercing ammunition. In this scenario, your expensive heavy armor got you killed more likely than it helped.

However, I did a little internet digging and came to an interesting conclusion.

If heavy armor is meant to represent modern ballistic armor with ceramic inserts, then contemporary American armor should be capable of withstanding at least one of literally every single bullet in this game, including all calibers of armor piercing rounds.

The US Army uses body armor known as an IOTV, or "Improved Outer Tactical Vest," while the US Marines use the MTV, or "Modular Tactical Vest." Both branches currently field the ESAPI (Enchanced Small Arms Protective Insert) with their ballistic vests.

Body armor fitted with ESAPI plates is rated to be able to withstand a .30-06 M-2 armor-piercing round traveling at (I think) 840 meters per second. This is equivalent to a point blank shot from an M-1 Garand loaded with armor-piercing ammunition. As well, the standards for testing armor for the DoD dictate that, in order for armor to successfully rate for a particular type of ammunition, it must withstand three impacts from the specified round at a particular velocity.

Of course, this test would need to exploit multiple impact zones on a particular ESAPI plate, as any such ceramic plate would fail very rapidly against repeat hits in a tight grouping. However, in order to rate to protect against .30-06 armor piercing ammunition, the ESAPI plate has to have defeated three rounds of ammunition impacting at 840 meters per second.

Now, you might be thinking, the Insurgents don't likely have access to equivalent body armor. They certainly can't capture it from US soldiers (once hit, body armor isn't really usable again). However, there is Russian body armor, which, to the best of my knowledge, is nearly a fair match for American body armor. So, let's be conservative and assume that our black market Soviet/Russian armor can match the previous generation of American armor.

The American SAPI (Small Arms Protective Insert) is rated to be able to defeat the 7.62x51mm M-80 FMJBT round at 840 meters per second, which is equivalent to stopping a point blank shot from an M-14 loaded with standard ball ammunition.

So, for the purpose of game balance, our Americans would likely also be wearing slightly less effective armor than that with ESAPI plating, instead using SAPI as a reference. Based on the above information, a player using heavy armor should be able to withstand at least one hit to the torso area from any ammunition in the game except for 7.62x51mm or 7.62x54mm armor piercing rounds. Subsequent hits in the same place, whether FMJ or AP, would most likely penetrate.

In-game, this could be represented by a rapidly declining probability of protection from heavy armor once it is struck, paired with significantly reduced protection around the first impact point.

This idea might make armor-piercing rounds seem pointless. However, I would disagree. Armor piercing ammunition would still retain vastly superior barrier penetration against walls and such, allowing a greater possibility of killing or wounding players taking cover.

Of course, armor would obviously only protect the torso. The arms, legs, and head would not be similarly protected.

So, bottom line, heavy armor should be made much more effective against rounds for a small number of impacts. Light armor, on the other hand should be almost universally defeated by rifles, but should have wide protection against pistols with a much higher capacity for repeat hit protection.

[11.11.11]

Originally posted by Dr.Wholian?:

The whole "shattering" line is absolutely an old wives tale repeated over and over by people who didn't do the research.

Forgive me if I'm misinformed here Wholian - never actually had any practical experience. But wouldn't successive strikes to a ceramic insert- even if they didn't compromise it - or cause penetrative wounds in the wearer - deleiver enough blunt trauma to break a rib or two - and keep you down on the ground without painkillers?

[Dr.Wholian?]

Originally posted by 11.11.11:

Originally posted by Dr.Wholian?:

The whole "shattering" line is absolutely an old wives tale repeated over and over by people who didn't do the research.

Forgive me if I'm misinformed here Wholian - never actually had any practical experience. But wouldn't successive strikes to a ceramic insert- even if they didn't compromise it - or cause penetrative wounds in the wearer - deleiver enough blunt trauma to break a rib or two - and keep you down on the ground without painkillers?

This is the reason to have kevlar layers behind it instead of just plate carriers - to catch any residual fragments and further reduce blunt trauma. Sure, blunt trauma could be counted as some sort of factor but how badly does this guy appear to need pain killers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZDCtT1y_8k

In my mod you will go down from 6-10 rounds of M855 to the armor, even though the armor will stop 63. I think that's plenty of allowance for blunt trauma.

[11.11.11]

Originally posted by Dr.Wholian?:

In my mod you will go down from 6-10 rounds of M855 to the armor, even though the armor will stop 63. I think that's plenty of allowance for blunt trauma.

Wow. As much as that is good news for anyone going into the line of fire (though I doubt these will become standard issue for a while yet) - I must say that 6-10 rounds sounds like way too much for my own personal tastes. I don't know about you, but I really enjoy the lethality of the base game.

6-10 5.56 sounds like you'd be reliant on full auto.

[Dr.Wholian?]

Armor like that is not dissimilar from the SAPI and E-SAPI plates already issued. In the mod, because 5.56mm has such light recoil it becomes way too easy to kill if 1-2 random hits will do the trick. Consequently if you're going to use a low recoil weapon, you have to exploit its strength, which is accurate rapid fire. Getting a headshot using 5.56mm trigger spam or bursts is quite doable as a result of the low recoil.

Similarly, 7.62x39 and 7.62x51 will have perform poorly against armor as well, but due to their heavier damage against limbs (due the larger bullet diameter) you are more likely to down the enemy with stray hits around the armor - assuming you don't land a headshot first.

The vanilla game basically doesn't enforce shot placement at all - headshot or toe shot it will all take the enemy down instantly in 1-2 hits, which is something the mod aims to prevent. The end result is somewhat similar to Jballou's description where depending on circumstances a bullet can down someone in 1 hit or 6-7 hits, except instead of being purely "random" there are skill-based mechanics which determine the outcome. Aiming for non-vital areas with tiny .22 cal icepick wounds is not a recipe for success.

[11.11.11]

Originally posted by Dr.Wholian?:

snip

All very logical, and well-reasoned.

Think I'm going to have to give your mod another try, though with the issues I'm having with shots failing to register - I already find myself double-tapping a lot more than I'd like :P

Have you managed to get any servers running your theatres yet Wholian? Or should I just stick to running listen with bots?

[Dr.Wholian?]

Working on Workshop has gone back and forth so many times I lost track. If you use the non-workshop version it should work for client who already has the mod installed, but it won't auto-download to newbies. I plan on testing workshop again with the next release, just a matter of working a few bugs out of the new explosives implementation.

[Angry Mexicans]

Actually, the shattering concept is not an old wive's tale. It is, in fact, well documented. It is the reason, in fact, that the composite armor layering on the majority of Western main battle tanks, chose confined ceramic armor matrices typically use the same ceramic material as current body armor, make use of large number of tiles. The ceramics have quite poor repeat hit performance and using distinct tiles serves to localize damage, as it is well known that, while these material can allow far greater protection that steel plating for significantly less thickness and weight, steel provides much greater fracture resistance, and retains its strenght more or less linearly. That is, if a shell can penetrate 500mm of steel and strikes a 1,000mm steel plate, the thickness of the steel will be more or less cut in half. This is not the case with ceramic armors.

When the first composite armor was being developed (at least in the West; the first composite tank armor fielded in the Eastern Bloc was the Formula K style of fiberglass sandwiched between plates of RH steel) in Britain for the Chieftain tank and was later employed, first on the M-1 Abrams and subsequently on the Challenger 1, it was found that the so-called Chobham armor, then relying on alumina rather than silicon carbide, provided excellent protection against threats compared to steel, but suffered terribly from a loss in protection due to fracturing of plates, meaning that such ceramic armor would be practically useless unless set up in the tiled layout used in the Abrams and others.

In fact, the fracture resistance of ceramic inserts such as SAPI and ESAPI would be even less, because these plates, as far as I know, are bare boron carbide or silicon carbide, where ceramic matrices in tank armor are confined in steel for improved performance. However, this would also allow for at least slight prevention of the tiles being shattered into multiple, disconnected pieces.

The poor fracture resistance of these ceramic materials is also one reason for the scaled design of Pinnacle Armor's Dragon Skin. Dragon Skin provides more or less the same protection as ESAPI-equipped armor. It has alleged greater protection, but this would not be due to the scales, necessarily, and instead due to the nature of the ceramics used.

Rather, the real benefit to Dragon Skin is in the fact that these scales localize the damage, and while repeat hits to one location WILL STILL PENETRATE, the scales allow the vest to withstand a vastly larger number of hits.

Not only is the poor repeat-hit performance of ceramics not an old wive's tale, it is an extremely well-documented fact of engineering.

[Dr.Wholian?]

We are not talking about tank armor, nor Dragon Skin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abd9bpvd6zY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pfoP04bO0w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwyS-7vZYgI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLHU-_OhT8g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsqVhKfm8Nw#t=99

None of these ceramic plates shattered, despite being hit many times. From the quoted from the official specifications:

http://www.bulletproofme.com/Body_Armor_Accessories_Rifle_Protection.shtml

"Level III - Tested to stop 6 rounds of .308 Winchester Full Metal Jacket (FMJ) = NATO 7.62 X 51 mm, and, of course it can easily handle lesser threats, such as AK-47 / Kalashnikov 7.62 X 39 mm Full Metal Jacket (FMJ).

Level IV - Tested to stop ONE round of .3006 Armor-Piercing (AP) at 868 mps and lesser threats. Though just tested for one hit of .3006 AP, will also stop multiple hits of lesser threats such as 308 FMJ, AK-47 M-16 - M855 or SS-109, etc."

.....

The E-SAPI test is very similar to the NIJ Level IV test, but just a little bit tougher. The mil-spec calls for the plate - with an Interceptor vest supporting - to stop one round of .3006 AP, just like Level IV.

But it must also stop a second round, 60% of the time (not 100% of the time - too much of a weight penalty)."

The myth that ceramic or NIJ IV shatters after a few hits gets repeated over and over by people who simply haven't bothered to do the research. These tend to be the same people who bring up Dragon Skin every time the subject comes up, despite the fact that no one uses it and it's not particularly relevant.

Testing specifications for NIJ III, IV, SAPI, and ESAPI anticipate and proof against the tendency for ceramic to shatter, and it's been proven over and over that such plates can withstand dozens of rounds without shattering.

[Angry Mexicans]

Originally posted by Dr.Wholian?:

We are not talking about tank armor, nor Dragon Skin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abd9bpvd6zY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pfoP04bO0w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwyS-7vZYgI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLHU-_OhT8g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsqVhKfm8Nw#t=99

None of these ceramic plates shattered, despite being hit many times. From the quoted from the official specifications:

http://www.bulletproofme.com/Body_Armor_Accessories_Rifle_Protection.shtml

"Level III - Tested to stop 6 rounds of .308 Winchester Full Metal Jacket (FMJ) = NATO 7.62 X 51 mm, and, of course it can easily handle lesser threats, such as AK-47 / Kalashnikov 7.62 X 39 mm Full Metal Jacket (FMJ).

Level IV - Tested to stop ONE round of .3006 Armor-Piercing (AP) at 868 mps and lesser threats. Though just tested for one hit of .3006 AP, will also stop multiple hits of lesser threats such as 308 FMJ, AK-47 M-16 - M855 or SS-109, etc."

.....

The E-SAPI test is very similar to the NIJ Level IV test, but just a little bit tougher. The mil-spec calls for the plate - with an Interceptor vest supporting - to stop one round of .3006 AP, just like Level IV.

But it must also stop a second round, 60% of the time (not 100% of the time - too much of a weight penalty)."

The myth that ceramic or NIJ IV shatters after a few hits gets repeated over and over by people who simply haven't bothered to do the research. These tend to be the same people who bring up Dragon Skin every time the subject comes up, despite the fact that no one uses it and it's not particularly relevant.

Testing specifications for NIJ III, IV, SAPI, and ESAPI anticipate and proof against the tendency for ceramic to shatter, and it's been proven over and over that such plates can withstand dozens of rounds without shattering.

Actually, both tank armor and Dragon Skin are 100% relevant. They use the same materials, therefore the same pnysical properties are relevant, and, again, very well documented. Just because boron carbide or silicon carbide are cast into chest plates rather than tiles for tank armor does not mean the ceramics function differently. Again, it IS a fact that these ceramics demonstrate poor fracture resistance. They will only stop multiple rounds if those rounds strike areas farther away from the impact point. Nearer to the impact point it is VERY unlikely. That is, again, why the ceramic tiles in Chobham (borad temr, but whatever) armor are in many small plates, because, and this is a FACT, the armor suffered a drastic drop in ability to withstand follow-up hits. This was true for both HEAT warheads and kinetic energy penetrators, both of which rely on the same mechanics, more or less, for penetration as bullets; ie, kinetic energy and impact.

The testing for body armor for the Military requires armor to defeat three rounds to rate for protection against that round. This does not mean 3 rounds to the same place.

I noted that only one of those videos you posted claimed to be a SAPI plate in a direct test. Based on the amount of information that, say, determined the design trends of entire lines of protection systems (ie, the tiling of ceramic material on tanks), that video was improperly labeled, because actual SAPI do not withstand 63 direct rounds. Note that NIJ III and SAPI plates are two distinct things. NIJ III is a classification standard. SAPI is a specific kind of plate with specific physical properties.

You claim that SAPI and ESAPI "proof" against this tendency to shatter. They may try, but they can't get around their own inherent properties. The idea of getting around the fracture resistance issue is something that still is big in the armor industry, and which causes certain buzz words like "nano" to fly around, evne though nano doesn't really mean anything in that kind of context, and where the proposed benefit was largely improved fracture resistance.

The fact is, steel plates can also be NIJ III compliant, and steel, as I said above, retains its strength quite well and effectively localizes damage. Carbon ceramics do NOT.

The only video you posted which would suggest otherwise is the US soldier survivng many hits, but to be honest that is very likely an unlikely case of many lucky, glancing hits failing to properly fracture the material. It would be the same sort of case of contradicting testing that the M-855's failure to kill at close range would represent. That AR500 armor, for instance, which survived those 63 rounds, was made of high grade steel. That is not at all analogous to SAPI or ESAPI plates.

At the end of the day, actual SAPI and ESAPI plates are made of material which allows good protection against high penetration rounds for a much lighter weight than with a steel plate, or other metal plate. However, these materials DO NOT hold up well against repeated impacts. "Proofing" bare boron carbide or silicon carbide isn't a thing. You can't just magically make the crystals do things that drastically different.

Again, that is specifically where Dragon Skin's benefit comes from. It helps localize damage.

The proof is in the basic physics of the ceramics used in SAPI/ESAPI plates, which is, again, literally identical to the boron carbide (in the case of SAPI) or silicon carbide (in the case of ESAPI) used in Dragon Skin (which is, if I recall, boron carbide) and that used in multiple main battle tanks (both boron carbide and silicon carbide are quite common in modern tank armor.

[Dr.Wholian?]

We have countless examples of ceramic plates withstanding repeated hits in space of only a few inches - if that does not shatter the plate then what will? If a trained shooter running repeated bursts of rifle fire on the plate does not shatter it, then why should we expect players spraying and praying in-game to do the same?

It appears what's required is to "drive tacks", placing bullets upon the same 0.5 or 0.3 inch circle over and over. The likelyhood of that happening in combat, either in-game or IRL is clearly very low. If it were possible to implement hit detection to that level of accuracy, then I wouldn't have a problem with implementing a shatter effect, but it makes no sense to portray shatters in every instance when the shot placement required to do so IRL obviously almost never happens. Bullets are not curving in mid-flight to hit the same place every time.

BTW some more ESAPI and NIJ IV examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIarVbfERq4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE-Yu8zLtBE
http://youtu.be/J7R5bEvjOwM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trY2ABBdgLY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3psMtQs7iH4

In the least favorable example it took 8 hits of .223 and .308 to produce 3 penetrations in an E-SAPI plate. In the first video, the E-SAPI takes 6 rounds of AK fire, 5 rounds of 9mm, and 1 .308 with no penetrations. A video in the previous post shows a ceramic SAPI plate withstand dozens upon dozens of rounds of rifle fire. If the urban legend that ceramics always shatter after 2-3 hits were true, this wouldn't be possible.

[Angry Mexicans]

Just FYI I edited my post seconds after I think you posted.

I mention that the ceramics are identical in armor for people and tanks, and that the AR500 plate, as I thought, is made of steel, not ceramic.

Again, the proof is in the physics of ceramics.

[Angry Mexicans]

The fact is, none of those videos that actually involve ceramic plates analogous to SAPI or ESAPI dispute what I said. You CAN squeeze out maybe ten non armor piercing rounds of a significantly lower if you use as much of the vest as you possibly can.

Practically speaking, you won't be able to expect that in a combat zone.

Compare that 10 hit figure to the 63 you got with the AR500 steel plate. That was an ESAPI-level plate. That means it can withstand up to .30-06 armor piercing. Moreover, it must take three hits to rate for that level of protection.

So, in very general terms, yes, it can take SOME greater value of smaller, less penetrating rounds. So, let's say the plate can take no more than 3-4 of those .30-06 rounds if you really push it and place them far apart, then it might not be far fetched to suppose that, if you tried, you could get it to withstand roughly double that in smaller, less potent rounds.

However, that requires that you place rounds to avoid exploiting the fractured zones around the impact point, which are practically nonexistent on a steel plate. However, to say something CAN withstand something does not necessarily mean it will in practice.

Take, for example, situations where people have taken dozens of rounds in combat (not wearing any armor) and survived. One cannot them assume that is something you can expect to happen frequently. Normally, you think of one bullet, maybe two, being enough to render a man incapable of fighting if not killing him outright.

Now, people are not precision engineered, so it is not a perfect comparison. However, the principle can still be applied to armor. Under some circumstances you might get a freak event where a vest does withstand a fair number of hits. However, in all likelihood, it will not.

See, you suggest that a player firing without precision is less likely to hit those exploited areas. Technically, he would be more likely. It would take a very accurate, calculated shooter to constantly exploit any areas still retaining strength. Since bullet impacts would compromise larger areas of a ceramic plate, subsequent hits continue to eliminate viable space on the plate for a defeated impact. This is increasingly the case when you consider that you are not just adding the rough area of a fractured circle around the impact. Rather, subsequent fractures will continue to exacerbate those areas of a coherent plate which have not yet necessarily broken but might have been weakened.

That is, the increase in non-usable armor surface will not be linear. Therefore, with each subsequent impact on an armor plate, it will be increasingly unlikely that the next hit, if randomly placed, will be defeated. As such, a proper game implementation would take into account the low probability of a repeat hit defeat, especially considering the fact that super precise hti detection simply isn't practical. In all likelihood, repeat hits will strike those regions of the plate already compromised.

This is easy to see when you compare the 10 rounds which were necessarily placed deliberately with the 63 rounds withstood by the AR500 plate. Steel, like I said, is known to retain its strength very well. For all intents and purposes, the armor thickness is only compromised on the point of impact, and the vast majority of the armor surface will remain functionally uninhibited. As such, it makes sense that it would require as many as 63 impacts to cover enough of the plate to then start to make a difference in its integrity.

Such a steel plate, in game terms, could be considered impervious to any appropriate ammunition based on the notion that a number as great as 63 hits to any one plate is so very unlikely that it would be simpler to just program that surface of the plate to completely defeat rounds and take no real consideration of degrading protection. It would be very likely that such a detail would go completely unnoticed in gameplay.

However, the AR500 is not relevant to a discussion on military body armor, since fielded models use ceramic inserts which, as discussed above, degrade very rapidly.

[Dr.Wholian?]

Out of the videos above, only one is an AR500 plate. Aside from that we have 3 ceramic ESAPI plates, 1 ceramic SAPI plate, and 4 NIJ IV ceramic plate withstanding multiple hits without shattering. In some cases the shooter deliberately hit different locations, in others shot placement was constant to the same general area. In some cases these plates were already damaged, yet withstood multiple additional hits regardless.

If it would take such a skilled shooter to repeatedly avoid damaged zones, then why do we have record of shooters firing willy-nilly for 6-10 rounds without scoring a penetration?

Due to recoil, the only time it's reasonable to expect a hit to the exact same location every time is at point-blank range. At this same range even if it takes a minimum of 10 rounds to penetrate the armor, that only makes a difference of 0.1 seconds or less for any assault rifle shooting in full-auto.

I invite you to stop take a look at your dead victims next time you play co-op. How often in combat do you actually place multiple bullets in the same hole? Over 9 in 10 times, even if you put every shot in center mass, each shot will be skewed by an inch or more. The videos above show that merely putting bullets in a 6" group is not enough to shatter ceramic plates.

Would it be nice to have a special feature where putting 2 bullets in the same 0.5" spot penetrates armor early? Sure. But how often would that feature actually be utilized? For that matter, I would love to have per-organ hit detection or even just a single heart hitbox.

Here's a great example of a ceramic plate being intentionally hit in the same two spots repeatedly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOxX8SmfQ0c

The tendency of ceramic to instantly fall as soon as lightning strikes twice is obviously exaggerated because he hits puts 3 rounds each into two locations 2" wide without any penetration. He even cites this capability as more reliable than the AR500 steel plates.

Here's an example of a standard SAPI stopping 11 consequtive hits to a fist-sized area:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9nsT05SsFU

Where is this fabled crumbling action which lets rounds through after one or two hits?

[SwagHauler]

I have a set of Mass 3 Dyneema cored soft backed hard plates from Midwest Armored Solutions that I bought from a friend at the state. This (semi-soft) NIJ level 3, THREE POUND plate sustains multiple rifle hits in a test video Tim did on The Military Arms Channel (the reason I bought it). The armor in video games is very under rated.

[Angry Mexicans]

I'm not even going to bother watching through yet another round of irrelevant videos and more than likely mislabeled videos. (It isn't as though Youtube even makes sense as a reliable source, but whatever)

If what you say is true, then tanks would not be built the way they are. The fact is, the design patterns of AN ENTIRE INDUSTRY are enough to prove you wrong on the grounds that the reason this trend exists is contrary to your entire point. Youtube videos can show all sorts of wonderful things. The design trends which you cannot deny are far too important for you to just blithely ignore as you have decided to.

In fact, I can even go so far as to say that there have been attempts to improve the whole fracture resistance issue in the past (because, you know, it IS an issue which has played a decisive role in design since the 1970s), some by adding rubber materials or plastics to carbon ceramic ballistic plates to keep material from fragmenting and coming apart but these tests failed to effectively mitigate the repeat hit problem.

Again, if you were right, then a lot of design details in vehicles and personal body armor, Dragon Skin included (and despite what your pride wants you to think, very, VERY relevant using literally the exact same ceramic material), would not be included as notable features.

Unless you'd like to go and show your videos to the professional engineers and manufacturers responsible for working with the damn stuff, you should probably stop trying to use youtube videos of more than likely mislabeled materials and pictures from google to try and argue points settled by actual experimental trials and papers on the subject of how ceramics function.

Seriously, stop trying to act like you have compiled enough information to prove the damn professionals wrong. Your entire manner, behaving as if no one else has anything useful to provide except you and your all-knowing, infallible knowledge is downright offensive. It's not like I haven't given anything with any similar amount of research, but what the hell do I know? The only useful research is clearly yours, obviously. Nothing that I've read of what is, again, the DESIGN PATTERNS AND TRENDS OF AN ENTIRE INDUSTRY, is apparently relevant because you have already decided that all NIJ III and IV level vests function fundamentally the same way. No other researched data is relevant because obviously the great Whovian knows better than everyone on this forum, no matter how much useful knowledge the other person can put forth.

No single person is as abrasive as you with your manner. Realism is only as you view it, everyone else can bugger off. Counterevidence? Bah! It's obviously false if it disagrees with you. Never once even the consideration that the counterexample might even make sense in the context of what you've said, which you'll notice I did with the ten impact example, noting that the plate clearly withstood the impacts but giving reasons why that might have happened.

Then of course the example of the very significant vehicle armor design and Dragon Skin is irrelevant, presumably because Dragon Skin disagrees with your analysis and you haven't the information regarding tank armor that I have to put forward (or you may have said something on the subject). Nevermind their inherent relevance in the same damn ceramics and the HUGE implications their designs have regarding your point, but nope. Discarded, because Wholian said so, and who knows better than Wholian? Obviously not even professional designers.