Amphibious armor
Buoyant armor for jacketed rounds includes an outer, laminate reinforced strike face having a hardness greater than 640 Brinell. The strike face is configured to strip the jacket off a projectile as it passes through the strike face and to rotate the projectile. An inner, laminate reinforced strike face is separated from the outer, laminate reinforced strike face by a spacer layer. Foam greater than 40 mm thick is disposed behind the inner strike face and is configured to disperse a round and/or its fragments and to provide buoyancy to the armor.
1. Buoyant armor for jacketed rounds comprising: an outer, laminate reinforced strike face having a hardness greater than 640 Brinell and configured to strip the jacket of a projectile as it passes through the strike face and to rotate the projectile;
an inner, laminate reinforced strike face separated from the outer, laminate reinforced strike face by a spacer layer; and
foam greater than 40 mm thick behind the inner strike face and configured to disperse a round and/or its fragments and to provide buoyancy to the armor; said foam including a thicker lower density layer sandwiched between two thinner structural foam layers; and
the aggregate specific gravity of all said layers combined being less than one g/cm 3 .
2. The armor of claim 1 in which the outer, laminate reinforced strike face is between 2 and 10 mm thick.
3. The armor of claim 1 in which the outer, laminate reinforced strike face is between 3 and 6 mm thick.
4. The armor of claim 1 in which the lower density layer is a closed cell plastic foam.
5. The armor of claim 1 in which the inner, laminate reinforced strike face is thicker than the outer, laminate reinforced strike face.
6. The armor of claim 1 in which the inner, laminate reinforced strike face has a hardness greater than 640 Brinell.
7. The armor of claim 1 in which the inner, laminate of strike face is between 5-8 mm thick.
8. The armor of claim 1 in which the spacer layer includes structural foam.
9. Buoyant armor for jacketed rounds comprising:
an outer, laminate reinforced strike face having a hardness greater than 640 Brinell and a thickness of between 2-10 mm and configured to strip the jacket off a round as it passes through the strike face and to rotate the round;
a foam layer behind the outer laminate reinforced strike face configured to prevent a reflected projectile shock wave from damaging the outer, laminate reinforced strike face;
an inner, laminate reinforced strike face behind said foam layer and configured to fragment the stripped round;
a thicker low density foam layer sandwiched between two thinner structural foam layers behind the inner, laminate reinforced strike face and together having a thickness greater than 40 mm and configured to disperse the round and/or its fragments and provide buoyancy to the armor; and
the aggregate specific gravity of all said layers combined being less than one g/cm 3 .
10. The armor of claim 9 in which the low density foam layer is a closed cell plastic foam.
11. The armor of claim 9 in which the inner, laminate reinforced strike face has a hardness greater than 640 Brinell.
12. The armor of claim 9 in which the inner, laminate of strike face is between 5-8 mm thick.