Testing the Concept of Spaced Armor 

Different steel types. Only way to have an apples to apples comparison is to shoot through the saw blades in both the spaced and non-spaced configurations.

Clamping those saw blades together in contact, then comparing the penetration with the spaced arrangement might have been a better comparison.

Just another quick note on spaced armors; the space needs to be wider than the projectile's length to allow it to tumble within the cavity prior to connecting the main armor belt.

I thought spaced armor was more to defeat HEAT rounds than regular solid bullets.

It'd be comical seeing a guy wearing a Stacked Sawblade Armour Suit attacking me 😂

are the saw blades not Hardened tool steel (O-1 or D2) and the plate mild steel?

556 pen due to speed and smaller round. Smaller point of contact. 7.62 stopped due to lower speeds and heavier bullet. Larger point of contact. Good test on a budget.

Spaced armor is mainly for shaped charges. The space allows molten metal "flame" dart of molten copper to disperse between layers.

DAMN IT ! I thought he was gonna talk about SPACE armor.

the brittle steel in front is like another style of armor called "ablative" armor which is made to be hit first and shatter to absorb the brunt of the hit! nice stuff👍

The reason the panzer 4 had side skirts wasn't for HEAT(to some point ) rounds but for the Russian AT rifle witch was 14.5mm rifle I think.

The purpose of vehicle skirts are to reduce the effectiveness of shape charges causing them to detonate before striking the main armor.

*cleans out shop* *finds bunch of old saw blades that aren't useful anymore* "What should we do with these? Throw them away?" "Let's shoot them" "Nothing else?" "We'll think of something."

What TYPE of steel are your plates? Mild steel? Hardened? Rolled Homogenous Steel? Cold saw blades are good quality chrome vanadium, hot saw blades are mild steel with hardened teeth. Your normal plate stock is soft. This protocol is a good test of concept as long as your materials are the same.

The saw blades are high carbon steel and are heat treated. The test plates must also have the entire area equally supported to get proper & consistent results. Try putting a layer of thin but heavy rubber or 2 to 3 asphalt roofing shingles between the two layers. I think you'll be quite surprised! Good luck!

thats not at all what spaced armor is for. spaced plates or cages are to prevent HEAT rounds from penetrating the main armor of vehicles. HEAT "High Explosive Anti Tank" ammunition is a shape charge, it uses an extremely hot focused line of molten copper to literally melt through armor, and has proven to be extremely effective at penetration. the counter to HEAT is spaced armor, by having a thin piece outside and away from the main armor gives the copper line of death time to expand and disperse its energy so by the time it reaches the main armor it just splatters across dealing minor damage. hope this helps your analysis.

You need to have the plates fully immobilized, otherwise the flexing blades will rob the round of its energy, invalidating your test, Square four point immobilization or triangular three point immobilisation.

"Direct impingement PMAG adapter" Modern problems require modern solutions.

I'm not sure if this has been commented yet but spaced armor is normally used to detanate chemical penetrating rounds (this includes heat and hesh she's also some very sensitive he shells). Spaced armor is not to stop kinetic penetrating projectiles (this includes solid shot, sabot, and any thing that uses kinetic power to push through the steel). So spaced protection provides very little added protection from normal rounds but can completely stop a hear shell. There are old 1950s U.S. training films explaining exactly how it works.

In order to accurately re-create spaced armor like you have on an armored vehicle, it would have to be 2 sections of metal separated by an approximately 1" air gap. What that armor is made of is another issue entirely. Some is hardened armor plate, some is plain steel and some others are aluminum. in your test it would have been a more realistic test to have 2 pieces of 3/8" mild steel bolted together at the corners with 1" spacers to keep them apart. As for protection from shaped charge warheads like are found in HEAT rounds like the RPG, that requires even more space so that the warhead will detonate far enough away from the vehicle to allow the highly focused shaped charge to spread out and greatly diminish the concentration of the blast. That's why armored vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan used "bird cages".

Spaced armor is NOT meant to defeat kinetic penetrators such as sabot tank rounds or small arms fire. Spaced armor is meant to defeat HEAT (high explosive anti tank) rounds. Your kinetic round (namely the 7.62 bullet) did NOT penetrate 3/8" of solid steel plate, but it DID penetrate 3/8" worth of saw blades. If spaced armor provided superior protection or even equal protection vs Kinetic rounds, you would expect the 7.62 to only penetrate 2 saw blades and be stopped by the 3rd one at worst. HEAT rounds work by using a shaped charge explosive to create a jet of liquid metal plasma (usually copper), which burns its way through the armor plate and sprays the inside of the vehicle with molten metal, killing crew and potentially touching off ammunition. Notable examples of weapons which utilize a HEAT warhead include the German WWII panzerfaust and American Bazooka, and the much-more-common-in-Afghantistan Soviet/Russian RPG-7. Spaced armor defeats HEAT projectiles by allowing a path of less resistance for the exploding jet of liquid metal produced to take. Instead of detonating in contact with the hull, where the path of least resistance is the shortest route through the armor (and thus, into the crew compartment), the HEAT projectile detonates on the comparatively-thin spaced armor, and the jet enters an air gap before meeting the main armor plate. This allows for a majority of the force of the explosive jet to dissipate into the air gap instead of burrowing into the main armor plate. Spaced armor provides almost no value when faced with kinetic penetrators (any solid shot, from bullet to tank sabots) beyond the slight increase in total thickness of the armor unless there is enough air gap between the plates to allow the round to tumble, but in the case of vehicle armor this would require both an air gap so large and and outer plate so much thicker as to make the system un-viable due to both weight and volume. It was only useful in very limited capacity in wwII on German panzers because of the prevalence of anti-tank rifles like the soviet 14.5mm or the 20mm Ladi, man portable systems with kinetic rounds which COULD penetrate the 30mm side armor of a panzer IV, but they fired small enough rounds that a fairly thin plate could be mounted far enough from the hull to induce enough tumble that the round was unlikely to penetrate. Schurtzen was really only common to the panzer III and IV (and vehicles based on those hulls, such as the highly successful StuG), the Tiger and Panther tanks both had thicker side armor which protected against these weapons. Kinetic man portable AT systems have since fallen out of use, as they simply cannot disable, let alone penetrate, a modern MBT. The closest thing to them still in U.S. use today would be the M82 .50 anti-material rifle, but even that is only rated for engaging thin-skinned vehicles. You would have probably noticed that the M1A1 Abrams tank does not have external spaced armor, except on some vehicles over its most vulnerable areas such as the treads, and that only appears on M1A2's fitted with TUSK gear. This is because the composite armor of the Abrams contains air gaps backed by a ceramic layer (excellent for defeating thermal energy) as an integral component of the armor plate, essentially having spaced armor built in rather than externally mounted. Still, outside of the armor used in MBTs, spaced armor will not protect against tank fired (120 or 125mm) HEAT rounds, they're simply too powerful. It's only real use is to protect the vehicle against man portable systems like the RPG. An alternative method for defeating HEAT projectiles is through the use of explosive reactive armor, or ERA for short. ERA works by covering the outer hull of the vehicle with small blocks of explosives encased in thin steel plate. When stuck by a HEAT round, the block of explosives detonates and counters the explosive force of the HEAT blast. While much EASIER to produce and repair than armor with integral air gaps such as the armor used by the Abrams, Leclerc, Leopard 2, and Challenger 2, the downside to this system is the inherent dangers of both keeping large amounts of explosives lying around (which can have, ahem, *interesting* results when said explosives start to degrade over time), and also the sheer concussive effects of the blast when struck which can damage some of the less-robust outer parts of the tank and severely rattle the crew, degrading combat performance at a critical moment. ERA was commonly found on Warsaw-pact MBTs, but has since fallen out of favor due to these shortcomings. Russia's newest MBT, the T-14 Armata, does not use ERA at all. ERA is also unsuitable for light armor vehicles, as LAVs (such as your MRAPs, or BMPs and Bradley IFVs) can by severely damaged by the ERA blast itself, thus necessitating the use of space armor to protect against man portable anti-tank weapons on LAVs. I hope that I did a decent job of explaining the theory behind spaced armor for you. TLDR: Spaced armor is used to protect you from Hajis with RPGs, not from small arms fire.

This type of armor is most effective against HEAT projectiles and shaped charges such as is found in some tank rounds and RPGs

Interesting test results! I had no idea that spacing could make such a difference, nor that having a thinner face plate could so degrade the bullet's penetrative capability. Subscribed.

the spaced armor is not for countering regular ammo. is to counter the jetstream of rpg's explosive head. and when its a mesh is to trigger it out of efective range.

The spaced armor plating on vehicles is for heat rounds which have shaped charges that burn a line through the steel. The combination of spaces, dissimilar materials and explosives are designed to disrupt the flame cutting line into the armor and dramatically reduce the penetrating effect.

Keep in mind that not all saw blades are equal. Some are hardened steel like the one that shattered.

The saw blades are breaking because they have been hardened. Its the multi purpose blades that are breaking because they are made to cut steel and wood so they have to be harder than the steel they're cutting.

I'm liking this video just because he's encouraging the conservation of ranges

I bet a combo of spaced and sloped armor would make this guys day. I’d love to see it myself

I need to study for the Thermodynamics Exam tomorrow, oh well, spaced armor it is

The concept of spaced armor on tanks mainly was for HEAT (High Explosive Anti Tank) rounds because the round would detonate on the spaced armor then the extremely high temp alloy's would cool down while traveling through the air between the spaced armor and the tank's armor. Such tanks as the Super Pershing used very thick spaced armor which made for a nearly impenetrable front. 5.56 rounds are smaller then 7.62 however they are traveling much faster therefore managing a higher penetration the 7.62 has much more stopping power but due to its size it gives up its speed. If these two rounds were to hit a human a 5.56 will zip straight through the person creating a very small entry wound and a moderate exit wound. A 7.62 will hit a person and create a slightly bigger entry wound and a very large exit wound if it manages to exit the body. There is advantages and disadvantages to both 5.56 will give you an edge in speed and most importantly range hence why our military has a hard on for it. The 7.62 round will kill easier but whats the point if you cant hit them. Just a splash of my opinion.

Great test. I wonder if more spacing between blades and......."new and improved fleece bullet stop" in a few sections between the blades would work?

The outer layer of armour on military vehicles is for RPG's and explosive HEAT tank rounds if i'm not mistaken. Nothing to do with small arms fire. It's basically their to stop a direct impact, instead of blowing a hole in the side of the vehicle it destroys the thin outer layer or chain, saving the passengers. The RPG explodes on the outer layer of armour or chain and absorbs the impact, the inside thicker layer stops all the shrapnel. I remember watching a old documentary on the implementation and future upgrades of these, they had all sorts of ideas some even included infrared sensors that would detect incoming projectiles.

My experience with wolf ammo is they dont equate the velocity or the thickness in the jackets of fmj projos as found in military munitions, which would explain the lack of performance in your test

IIRC the spaced plates were not added in WW2 to increase armour protections against AT rounds, but rather to defend against hand held and portable devices which could, when firing at the right angle, penetrate the side and rear armour.

When you fired that first round I thought a ricochet smoked the camera guy

If I'm correct spaced armor is primarily there to stopping HEAT or shape charge rounds from penetrating the main armor, and it's recommended for that spaced armor to be a good distance away from the main armor so the round can slow down or completely change direction from air in between the two armor. For shape Charge ( HEAT) the space armor detonate the round causing the super heated shrapnel to cool off and lose penitation capability

In that set up wouldn't they be more prone to break as nothing is supporting the edges of the saw blades.

Unless I'm very much mistaken, modern spaced armor is often used to cause shaped charge ammunition and possibly also squash head ammunition to detonate early. The lack of armor causes some of the shaped charge jet to disperse through the air and when it hits higher resistance in the armor proper instead of when it only has solid steel to impact.

Great test and I love both of your rigs. One thing to comment on: Steel is not steel. There are plenty of variations out there with very different characteristics. The blades are usually made of very tough steel, whereas the solid pieces looked rather low key in term of hardness. Nevertheless, composite has proven its benefit big times all over the show - and steel and air is a composite. Like your videos, please keep going. Cheers

Try this ... 3/8 plate, glue, 1/4 inch neoprene, glue, thin plate.

Ive seen a couple of folks commented on the issue of steel types. Your plate is untempered or mild as stated. That will off some advantages as its much more flexible. Those saw blades are going to be equivalent to a 1040 to 1080, couldnt see the manufacturer and blade type so be more specific. Where the last two numbers in 1040 is a reference to carbon content of 0.40% its also a reflection of increased hardness. Where its not exact but 1040 is roughly three to four times harder than mild steel. From an armor perspective your best case would be to use both steel with a light weight dispersion layer between. Something like a 1/16th mild outlayer with a 1/4 gap filled a loose kevlar or loose carbon fiber insulation than a 1/8th tempered steel or even better boron silica armor plate would stop most anything outside of an AMR or other weapon designed for high amor penetration.

So much salt for what is essentially a proof-of-concept test! First of all despite all the bitching about him doing it wrong, he proved the concept works, and works well at that. Second spaced armour has been developed and dropped several times since the 14th century when breastplates were made of 2 and 3 play steel plate. While not common several examples have been found in historic armouries such as the tower of london's collection. It wasn't until the advent of shaped charges that it needed specific spacing. What has always made it fall by the wayside in the past is a combination of ballistic tech outpacing steel tech, and until recently the difficulty of making it functional and mobile. Even w/o a large space it works by damaging the round in such a way that the second impact will cause the round to break apart and waste it's kinetic energy that way, instead of dumping it all neatly into the primary plate. It also works much better with lightweight or higher velocity rounds. As far H/E & shaped charge munitions the spacing is just there to prevent the gout of blast from fully reaching the armour, or in the case of chain link "armour" you sometimes see to prevent the war head from triggering at all. Calm down and get over yourselves, if you think he's wrong, film yourself doing it "right" and put yourself out there.

The lack of penetration of the heavier round, while the lighter projectile penetrated, is due to the minimal SHATTER VELOCITY of the second projectile type being exceeded, destroying the projectile before it could penetrate much, while the first design remained intact and penetrated cleanly. This is why face-hardened armor was invented in the 19-th Century to protect armored warships. By WWII, improved armor-piercing (AP) hardened-steel projectiles with hardened AP caps ("crash helmets" made of soldered-on steel of various kinds) had partially compromised such thick face-hardened armors, but the armor could still heavily damage the penetrating projectile and reduce many hits to mere solid-shot-type (cannon-ball-type) effects in the hit ship, which was greatly to be preferred to an properly-functioning, fuzed exploding projectile! Modern layered composite armors are designed to do the same thing to impacting modern anti-tank projectile effects, but these high-penetrating-power weapons need more robust defense than any steel layer can provide. Indeed, using layered armor (laminated or, better yet, spaced) where the first layer(s) can damage the impacting projectile and reduce its remaining penetration ability, is the primary reason for multi-layer armors. If they fail to damage the projectile or if they deflect it the wrong way (sloped parallel plates hit at a high angle can be counter-productive, for example), spaced armors are decidedly inferior to solid armors with a high resistance from side to side.

The brittle plates rob the round of kinetic energy by ablating away.

Quick bit of material science... by spacing the outer layers a few things are achieved... it prevents shape charges from creating a copper jet at the required distances for optimal penetration... when bullets hit the outer layer they loose some kinetic energy instantly, but the main purpose is to cause deformation of the projectile so the surface area increases when contacting the inner layer... there are some smaller effect factors involved, but thats the meat of.

Your standoff distance isnt enough. The plates need to be more than 1/4" apart.

Some interesting variations that will continue to reduce penetration include. 1) Incorporating foam, spray rubber (like Flex-Seal), or cork in between the steel layers. The round will "bog down" and often be turned or angled (increasing frontal area of the round) thus deflecting along the steel plate. 2) Incorporating Plywood which will both deflect and slow the round in question. 3) Angling the plates so the rounds cannot impact at a perpendicular angle to the armor. Angling a plate by 30 degrees can increase the distance the round must penetrate by up to 50%. So an angled 1-inch plate will often stop a round that can penetrate a 1.4-inch vertical plate. Add water to the mix and really watch the penetration fall off. Water is heavy though.

Fun fact, spaced armor is also what the space station uses to protect itself from micro debris going about 17500mph

5 minutes in and i have too much to say to be polite so, sorry, check your work before you send it for the entire world to see.. P.S. what a gorgeous shooting location you have and great to hear you actually care about keeping it that way, very much appreciated.

anti-tank weapon uses shaped explosion to get thrue armor. Not body mass. Empty space between layers should break shapping and slide energy of explosion over bottom armor surface

The science of armor penetration is complicated, but as a general rule velocity is more important than raw energy when it comes to penetrating steel. So the 7.62x39 failure to penetrate where the 5.56x45 succeed makes sense. A wonderful video that provides a very effective examination of the basic principles of spaced armor. Very well done.

Do a test with the saw blade in front and the 3/8 in back and B-B's packed in between

I believe you could further reduce the amount needed if you give a different angle to each layer ... geometry would then be working for you in addition to the gap.

Lol i though it was space armor. Lol that saw target looks like it just needs an axe handle. Get some zombie brains on it. Good vid. Thanks for your service.

The point of spaces armor vs a single plate of equivalent mass in terms of stoping kinetic rounds is the the first plat disrupts the tragectory of the penetrator, making it tumble and deform a bit so that it is out of allignment when it hits the second plate. Thats why the more space the better, so that there it more room for the bullet to move out of alignment

If the thin and thick plate combination was sloped would the protection be even better?

The strength and integrity of the saw blades significantly drops off the further out from center you get, probably actually making the round penetrate less because it is impacting a target that gives/flexes causing more of a tearing effect rather than punching through effect you would get closer to center, where there is solid support. Pretty cool video man, I wouldn't have thought to do that.

The ISS and many other spacecraft use this as a cheap and lightweight armor for micro-meteorites

Again, thanks for the effort, but you're using kinetic penetrators against armor that was built to stop shaped charges. The air gap is there to deform the copper jet of a shaped charge (HEAT) warhead. It is of little to no use against kinetic penetrators. And as has been mentioned before, saw blades are likely hardened steel, because they need to be able to cut through stuff. Mild steel is very mild. So the comparison is not really apples-to-apples by any means.

Spaced armor : made against shaped charges This guy: shoots rifle rounds

I had some old 1/4” mild steel and used it to back up my rifle berm. I took 2 sheets and set them side by side. My 5.56 would zip right through one plate but after stacking the sheets there was no penetration unless I repeatedly hit the same spot. I think the first sheet deforms and absorbs velocity limiting penetration.

11:15 "...oh, we got a nice little bulge there..." Hehe, that's what my girlfriend says.

An interesting question is layered armor vs. spaced armor, when those are hit by solid penetrators. Layered armor is doing worse than solid plates, according to ship armor analysis I read some time ago, but in case of layered armor, which takes more space, it could be different. The initial layers could remove the ballistic cap, deform the projectile and can also turn it sideways, lowering its penetration potential.

You should have used thin mild steel sheets, spaced and totaling the equal thickness of the mild steel plate. That's how experiments work. But I like the video and have subscribed.

Penetration primarily depends on velocity. The AR is much faster than the 7.62 * 39, therefore more penetration.

You deserve more likes and subscribers. Nice video

The reason why this happens is because the initial loss of kinetic energy is larger then a sustained loss of energy. So by putting multiple plates together you’re making multiple losses of initial energy then a sustained loss like you’d see in a singular plate of body armor. This can also be seen in a cars ABS system when you’re braking hard, your brake pads keep tapping the rotor and making initial losses of energy.

Tempered steel is going to have completely different ballistic performance that’s mild steel

The skirts on German tanks were to premature detonate HEAT projectiles as well as hyper velocity anti-tank rifle projectiles as German tanks had quite thin side armour (Pz.III = 22mm. / Pz.IV = 30mm.). Compared to the T-34 (47mm.) and M4 Sherman (38mm.) the German panzers skimped here on protection. Homogenous steel armour also contains nickel (70%), chromium (2%), vanadium (1%), copper (5%), Molybdenum (1%). Chrome - vanadium steel spanners and wrenches are probably the nearest practical analogue of homogenous armoured steel when it comes to hardness. During WW2 the training tanks, that never saw combat, were made of mild steel and were tagged with a big red warning triangle stating that they were unarmoured, in case involved in live firing mock battle exercises. Prototypes, such as the first M4 prototype, were also made of mild steel.

Its to protect against shaped charges not bullets.

It’s like someone let a kid loose with a gun and a camera and shot some metal in uncontrolled experiments.

its not made to protect from bullets . spaced armor protects from RPG

The energy of a bullet is its kinetic energy which is 1/2 * m * v^2 - the squaring of the velocity means that speed is the critical factor and what gives the faster 5.56 the edge over the 7.62, especially at short range.

Spaced armor is for stopping shaped charges.

Velocity beats armor, hence why the AR wins against steel. However, the extra mass of the 7.62x39mm makes it more effective against concrete, retaining more of its mass as it crushes its way through instead of shattering, which is why more people often associate the AK round with greater penetration.

The International Space Station uses spaced armor. Edit: Pun not *originally* intended, but now is.

Spaced armor is designed specially for heat (a simple google search will show this and I’m also USARMY Eod so I get extensive training in this) cage armor or rpg nets on modern vehicles crush the cone preventing the shape charge or jet from fully forming thus reducing the capability of penetration and even half an inch of air prevents a lot of power from them. the cones on heat rounds are made specifically for that round to do maximum damage any shorter the jet won’t fully form and longer it losses it’s power immensely

Test it with more distance between.

Just a heads up the amount of dead space is just as important as the type, and thickness of the armour. The space laminated armour on the old m3 Bradleys is 1/4-3/8 hardened steel then about 1and 1/2 ins of air space then several inches of aluminum armour. If the air gap isn't large enough it has very little effect.

Laminating hard and softer steel is also a good way to neutralize a round

Well the main thing the spaced armour is used for on vehicles like the panzer iv H is to defeat shaped charged muntitions ( things like rpg and panzerfaust) by activating the muntion creating the molten copper jet before it actually hit the hull armour, so it will penetrate the vehicles less or not at all.

Those Wolf rounds are crap. Most decent AK rounds would go through that plate I would guess.

You need a space of at least two and three quarters of an inch to give enough time for the projectile to tumble and or break up. The blades with the tungsten carbide tips have a lower brinell hardness but marginally heavier weight.

Direct impingement, p mag adapter. *like

I would have liked to see the saw blades packed tight, and then do the ballistics test. From past tests I have learned that space between materials wasn't as affective against small arms. I've found that they fair better when packed tight. Having said that, and without reading the document that you had mentioned, we are looking at laminated armor. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looked like you just rested the saw blade against the 3/8 steel. To me, I'd didn't look like there was a gap, as in the saw blades test.

This isn't a very good test, you tested a 3/8" vs a different type of steel in saw blades. Should have used saw blades clamped vs spaced

Place rubber between the spaced steel armour.

"Brittle" steel usually means hardened steel and that's what you want to disperse the impact before capturing it in softer medium. Early "trauma plates" were often just hardened steel to break up the round so the lower mass, reduced velocity fragments could be captured in the soft aramid fiber armor behind.

Spaced Armor was designed to counter hollow charge projectiles like HEAT when shoot by "Hard Ammo" the gaps between the plates are almost irrelevant.

Can you do a top 10 tank armor? Example: Slope armor, depleted uranium armor, spaced armor, explosive armor, titanium armor and so on And what kind of 5.56mm and 7.62mm bullet tips did you have with both? Or what colour tip?

Isn't the whole point of spaced armor (especially on MRAPs, maybe not so much here) to stop against HEAT/Shaped Charge projectiles?

The 7.62 is a heavier round and travels slower compared to the 5.56 that's why it didn't go through the thick steel plate

Cool experiment.! Battleships of old used to use what was called a thin "de-capping" plate of armour designed to distort and reduce the effectiveness of armour piercing shells before they penetrated through to the main armour layer.

The saw blade is just ending up acting like the ceramic of your normal body armor on that last one. It's deforming the projectile as it goes through and it's shattering is just aiding in reducing the power overall before the backing catches it. Fun fact, ceramic can be better at stopping projectiles if sandwiched between two steel plates which is commonly found in actual tank armor.

It's the larger cross sectional profile that's stopping the 7.62 from penetrating as well as the 5.56. With the narrower round, the energy is concentrated in a smaller space, so it's more likely to punch through. In the same way a nail with a sharp point will punch through a surface than a blunt metal rod will

Simple as it was this was one of the most informative penetration demonstrations i've seen. Wish he'd thrown in some 9mm tests on the saw blades too.

The spaced armor on German tanks was designed to make HEAT and shaped charge weapons detonate before hitting the main armor. It had little effect on non explosive rounds such as standard AP. It would stop a bazooka type round for instance. Bullets Being solid non explosive wouldn't be effected as much by spaced armor.

Well, spaced armor, externally at least, was made to protect from shaped charge or HEAT style projectiles. It would detonate the round before co tact against the actual vehicle and lessen or nullify the effects of such shells or munitions.

7:13 What is the flash near the target ? It is noticeably after the round strikes the target , I had to rewind to make sure I saw it .