So recently Devs removed the armor thickness details from stat cards and I just googled it and saw many players talking about it but they was something that confused me,they said the details were really helpful for tanks with no composite armor and for the post cold war tanks this info could mislead players.
but does composite armor thickness means anything else other than steel armor thickness?
still the angle of impact would alter the effectiveness of the armor whether it is made of steel or composite right?
so why would it mislead people on modern tanks?
I think I do not understand how the armors work now ;D
how does composite armor really work?
Composite can work against chemical munitions, such as HEAT, HEATFS, HE ATGMs and HESH
(not exact numbers below, just random numbers to show a point)
The biggest difference is that 100mm armor listed on one tank and 100mm armor listed on another tank could result in 5mm of protection against a solid shell for the first tank and 125mm of protection for the other tank against the same shot.
So the thickness of the armor tells you VERY little once you get to more advanced armors and modifiers.
Composites specifically are really bad at protecting against darts but work VERY well against explosives and shells that rely on explosive energy to penetrate armor (like HEAT rounds and missiles) so 100mm composite could give 300mm of protection against a HEAT round but only 5mm against a dart.
For example:
The side armor of the Strv 122B+ at this angle is ~440mm thick:
It however only protects ~190mm against a dart:
but it protects over 1000mm against a HEAT round:
So the “440mm” armor listed in the stat card would not help you at all in estimating how protected the tank is.