Editing Tank (section)

===Defense===

In general, tanks are designed to maximize their protection for a given weight. Initially, the only criteria during World War I was that tanks should be bulletproof... which they were, to some extent. While their armour might have been thick enough to deflect most bullets, poor quality steel and riveted construction meant that tank crew tended to get injured anyways by pieces of steel breaking off from repeated impacts. They also did jack squat against artillery, large bundles of grenades, poison gas, and flamethrowers; later in the war, the Germans developed special armour-piercing bullets and anti-tank rifles that could punch straight through. 

Fast forward to the Second World War. Early on, you still had tanks that were so poorly armoured that they could be easily pierced in several places by heavy machine gun fire or special anti-tank rifles. As tanks got bigger and more capable however, they started to incorporate not only thicker, welded armour, but also a technique known as sloping. Basically, what this involved is the angling of armour plates to increase their line of sight thickness, so a 45mm plate angled at 45 degrees relative to an incoming shot would effectively have a thickness of 90mm; slanting the outer surface such that the anticipated trajectory of incoming projectiles will not hit it perpendicularly also increases the likelihood that they will deflect and only deal a glancing blow, instead of penetrating the hull before detonating. This technique was not unknown before the war, but the size limitations of earlier tanks made it difficult to implement, as sloped armour ate into usable interior space; it was also a little harder to build than just slapping everything together at right angles. Of course, then the T-34 came along and showed that sloping could make plates of even modest thickness repel any early or pre-war anti-tank weapon, and then on sloping became an integral feature for almost all tanks.

All seemed fine and dandy until some assholes started knocking together something called a shaped charge onto lightweight launchers that [[Tankbustas|a complete bunch of nutters could use to take out a tank]], creating weapons like the American M1 Bazooka or the German Panzerfaust. At some point during the Cold War, the increasing effectiveness of shaped charge weaponry made some designers throw up their hands and give up on providing maximum protection to their tanks. If the thickest armor you can put on a tank is going to get penetrated anyway then your best bet is not to armor it at all and focus on maximizing speed and minimizing profile to make sure you don't get hit to begin with. The German [[Leopard 1]] and French [[AMX-30]] were designed according to this principle, when it seemed like it would be impossible to defend against new HEAT shells. Others kept experimenting, and by the 1970s, people developed measures to deal with them, starting with the well-known principle of spaced armour, and then moving on to quartz and ceramic plates.

Nowadays, most modern tanks have good protection all around from most weapons, with a particularly heavily-armoured turret and front to resist dedicated anti-armor weapons. Most modern tanks have some form or another of composite armour, which consists of layers upon layers of spaced steel plates, ceramic tiles, kevlar liners, and so forth. The idea is that by putting these various materials together, you can achieve greater protection against most things for far less weight than an equivalent protection level of steel, though it does become quite bulky. How these materials exactly work together is not entirely known to even the most pretentious armchair generals. What can be said, however is that there are two big ways to defeat armour: punch through it with enough force (and, for an added treat, explode inside after that) or smash it with sufficient force it shatters and the debris ravage what is behind (somthing called 'spalling'). Thus, modern composites deflect brute-force projectiles away and have spall liners woven throughout to prevent spalling from killing the crew. 

Below are a few devices and techniques utilized for defensive purposes:

*'''Smoke Dischargers:''' The little pipes or beehive-like clusters you see on the turrets and hull of the tank are smoke launchers, which fire a single salvo of smoke grenades upon activation. You may find the idea of trying to [[Creed|hide a tank]] ridiculous, but a good tank commander will know how to use smoke to mask their movements in case they need to make a hasty retreat, or to cover an advance into a more favourable position. However, they're also really, really good at fouling up enemy sensors (anywhere from optical to infrared) and guidance systems. Even a few moments of obscuration to the enemy tank's gunner can mean the difference between life and death.

*'''Camouflage:''' Because the best defence is often not getting spotted until it is too late. Visual camouflage in the Second World War was extensively employed to either make them more difficult to spot or to obfuscate their silhouette. For the former, tanks would be painted in colours that helped blend in with their background;  netting, foliage, and/or debris may be incorporated to complete the look. The latter works by deceiving the enemy into thinking that the tank they're seeing from aerial reconnaissance is actually a truck, or that the tank over there does not have a gun capable of turning your tank inside out. Dealing with non-visual spectrums such as infrared or radar detection require the use of special materials or paints that make tanks harder to pick out of the background.

*'''Reactive Armor:''' As per the name, they are designed to react to incoming projectiles. The most common form is what is known as Explosive Reactive Armor or ERA: essentially metal boxes with a small explosive charge sandwiched between two metal plates. When a sufficiently large projectile hits an ERA tile, it detonates, forcing the metal plates apart; this can disrupt a shaped charge jet before it has time to form. Later versions like the Russian Kontakt-5 and Relikt are capable of defending against APFSDS munitions by forcing the penetrator off course, dissipating its kinetic energy. In addition, there is also what is known as Non-Explosive Reactive Armour or NERA. Instead of an explosive charge, NERA incorporates an elastic material that is wedged between the two metal plates. Like ERA, it will react to attacks; however, instead of exploding, the sandwiched layer will expand, with similar effects on incoming projectiles to ERA. Compared to ERA, they have the distinct advantage of not exploding, which makes them safe to use around infantry, so they tend to be more like easily-replaceable armour tiles; modern-day composite armours may also incorporate them into their defence arrays to varying extent.

*'''Slat Armor:''' Due to how shaped-charge rounds work, they need to detonate at the right distance of the armor to punch through it. Something as simple as a metal cage surrounding you can prevent the shaped charge from doing much damage by just making it go off early or warping the detonator upon impact, rendering it useless. 

*'''Improvised Armor:''' Just like its name says. During the Second World War, tank crew tried to bulk up armour with whatever they could find in the field. These can take the form of salvaged armor plates from other tanks and bedspring mattresses, or nothing more than basic materials like sandbags, wooden logs, or ooncrete. Ironically, many of these materials were probably ''worse'' than nothing: the added weight overstressed components and slowed down whatever tank they were mounted on. Moreover, due to defects in HEAT design at the time, they may have actually ''enhanced'' the effect of the warheads by causing them to detonate at the optimal distance, away from the tank's main hull.

*'''Active Protection System:''' An active protection system is a device that shoots down or deflects incoming anti-armor projectiles. It takes two forms. The first is an electronics countermeasure system that detects incoming guided missiles and attempts to trick them into ''not'' hitting the tank, usually by messing with their guidance systems. The other type involves an active radar scanner linked together with a launcher or projectile weapon of some sort; when it detects an incoming projectile larger than a bullet, it calculates its incoming trajectory and then fires a projectile which destroys it mid-flight. Like reactive armor, it’s usage is restricted from general deployment due to costs or concerns on the risk of collateral damage to civilians or allied infantry. 

*'''Spaced Armor:''' Spaced Armor is what it sounds like. Armor with a large gap. This gap helps dissipate the shaped charge. The most obvious examples are goofy-looking thin plates around a WWII German tank's turret and tracks (''Schürzen'' or skirts). Although they were initially designed to deflect light AT guns and rifles, they may have had some effect against HEAT warheads, at least according to some people. Whatever was the case, it has been well-established that trying to force a shaped charge to travel through three feet of air will protect a tank far better than a foot of armour. Usually incorporated as one aspect of modern composite armour.
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