Ballistic protection against heavy KE threats

Ballistic protection is of increasing interest to the Swedish Defence and is now singled out as a competence area of strategic importance. Within the project "Armour and projectiles", heavy KE penetrators and armour against this type of threat is studied. In this report, different types of armour against heavy KE threats are reviewed and an attempt is made to predict the development within this field in a 10- to 20-years perspective. The objects to be protected mainly discussed in this report are armoured vehicles. Today only the front of main battle tanks can Withstand heavy KE-threats, but in the future other attitudes and types of vehicles could well have to be protected against these threats. Also, other types of weapon carriers and stationary installations could use armours of the type discussed here. The main heavy threat warheads in armour / anti-armour warfare are long rod KE-penetrators and shaped charge warheads. This report is focused on armour against long rod penetrators but is in part also applicable to armour against shaped charge jets. The effectiveness of different protection principles is discussed and, if possible, quantified against todays and tomorrows heavy threats represented here by ordnance (1500 m/s) and hypervelocity (2500 m/s) long rod penetrators.