Wood and Ceramics: The Armor of South Korea's Black Panther
Perhaps we should start with one joke that proves the practical benefit of the saying “there’s a grain of truth in every joke.”
About three years ago, the Ukrainian segment of the Internet was actively promoting history about what is in the Russian armor tanks They allegedly found ordinary boards. The Russians, they claimed, were so financially and intellectually deficient that they'd already started shoving lumber in place of normal armor protection elements. It sounded grandiose, sarcastic, and perfect for viral publications.
In reality, of course, there were no such boards. It was simply the general public, far removed from armored vehicles, who made fun of the fiberglass plates exposed by the hull rupture (due to the detonation of ammunition) of one Russian tank. But they kept shouting about it for a long time, not really realizing that fiberglass was a component of the armor of most Soviet tanks.
Today, this situation is nothing but laughable. But what makes it particularly piquant is the fact that wood can actually be used in composite tank armor. And we're talking about the quite advanced South Koreans, specifically their K2 "Black Panther" tank, whose armor patent lists wood as one of the elements.
And wood plays an important role.
Millimeters speak for themselves
The South Korean K2 "Black Panther" tank is met with mixed reviews: some criticize it for its flawed design, while others praise it for its quite capable electronics, including the fire control system and suspension. But the tank's armor is one aspect that's beyond doubt.
Despite its size and relatively low weight of around 55 tons, this tank boasts impressive frontal resistance. For example, according to official data, it can withstand a HEAT round with a penetration of up to 900 millimeters in steel equivalent. And this doesn't include any additional armor.
A lot? Yes, a lot, considering its weight. Take our beloved T-90M, if you remove its Relikt dynamic armor from its turret (the turret is the most protected) and fire HEAT rounds at it, the results will clearly be worse and more disappointing. But HEAT rounds aren't particularly remarkable. It's much more interesting to see how the Korean Panther withstands sub-caliber rounds.
The Korean tank's steel equivalent is approximately 700 millimeters—during testing, the tank was fired at with K279 armor-piercing sub-caliber rounds from its own 120 mm smoothbore gun, which are rated to penetrate 700 millimeters of medium-hard steel from a distance of two kilometers. The result: no penetration.
Soviet tanks provide an example of how high these figures are. The turrets of the T-80B/BV tanks, which are now used to make modified T-80BVM vehicles, in their bare form provide resistance to sub-caliber projectiles of around 420-450 mm of steel equivalent. This is old stuff, with sand cores as filler, but it's just for illustration purposes.
And ceramics are to blame for all of this; when properly designed in armor and in the presence of wood or similar damping materials, they begin to rule the roost.
Ceramics are ceramics, but dampers are also needed
Today, it seems pointless to talk about the South Korean Black Panther's armor being made of ceramics. Much has already been written and said about it. And by the Koreans themselves, who have published pages of material detailing how, after years of painstaking work, they finally produced high-quality silicon carbide capable of withstanding incoming projectiles.
It's much more interesting to see how they designed the ceramics in the armor, as they're useless against projectiles on their own, as despite their high hardness, they're extremely brittle. When struck by a high-velocity sub-caliber projectile (actually the active part of the projectile—the "arrow" itself, but let's call it a projectile), the ceramic block will simply crack and crumble, partially turning into sand in the contact zone. So, ceramics can't be used haphazardly in armor.
Of course, the South Koreans didn't just throw it in there, but did it very carefully. Below you can see a diagram of how they designed it. The numbers 100, 200, and so on, don't refer to the thickness of the elements, but to their numbers.
100 — face armor plate, 200 — damping element, 300 — ceramics, 400 — support plate. Source: Patent No. 10-2884674. Copyright holder: Samyang Gumtech Co., Ltd.
Essentially, what we're looking at is a "sandwich," consisting of an outer layer consisting of a steel face armor plate. This is followed by a damping layer made of wood (boards, chipboard, or something else—it's not specified). After the damping layer, come ceramic elements, housed in thin-walled cells (steel or another material) that completely enclose the ceramic on all sides. There may or may not be gaps between the cells, depending on the protection requirements.
Following the ceramic layer is a backing plate—it can be made of either medium-hardness steel or, for example, an aluminum alloy. Then, the process is repeated, only without the front armor plate. There can be several such "sandwiches" of "damper + ceramic + backing plate"—not just two, as in the diagram.
An armor block with ceramic armor after being fired at with 120mm fin-stabilized subcaliber projectiles. Source: Patent No. 10-2884674. Copyright holder: Samyang Gumtech Co., Ltd.
In a simplified form, this whole system works like this.
When a subcaliber projectile penetrates the front armor plate, the wooden shock absorber absorbs the impact load, preventing premature cracking and other damage to the ceramic components. Essentially, the wood acts as a safety cushion, allowing the ceramic to meet the projectile intact and effectively engage it.
The projectile then penetrates the ceramic. As mentioned earlier, the ceramic itself does not offer high projectile resistance and is very sensitive to impact loads, stretching, and shear. However, the walls of the cells in which it is located in the armor prevent crack growth, and the ceramic "sand" formed in the contact zone between the ceramic and the projectile has nowhere to escape from the isolated space.
As a result, during penetration, the ceramic actively resists the projectile, causing damage to the projectile: it deforms plastically, wears down, and partially breaks. Then, when the projectile penetrates the ceramic layer and the base plate, the situation repeats.
This achieves high armor resistance to projectiles. Moreover, the arrangement of ceramics in small cells positively impacts the armor's survivability, as even if a projectile strikes one cell, the ceramics in the others remain intact due to the insulation.
Final World
Overall, the South Koreans have succeeded in designing a fully functional armor system. When properly incorporated into armor, ceramics can be roughly equivalent in strength to medium-hardness armor steel, but are significantly lighter in weight. And the Koreans appear to have come close to achieving this parity between steel and ceramics, creating a tank that is not the heaviest but still offers powerful protection.
But as for the method, it's by no means unique. For example, in the USSR, a similar principle was proposed for tank turrets, using ceramics in individual cells, only the damping layer wasn't wood. If memory serves me correctly, they apparently planned to use something like felt, but the idea is the same: it's inexpensive and works well.
But the USSR was unable to establish a process for producing high-quality armor ceramics, excluding corundum balls for the T-64 series, while South Korea succeeded and now makes tanks no worse than their Western counterparts.
Information sources:
Patent No. 10-2884674. Copyright Holder: Samyang Gumtech Co., Ltd.
"Special issues of terminal ballistics". V.A. Grigoryan, A.N. Beloborodko, N.S. Dorokhov and others.
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