Armor

Armor in Armored Warfare is the defensive protection that each vehicle has against incoming shells or ATGMs. Many classes are defined by either their lack or abundance of armor, and it tends to define how vehicles have to be played to be successful.

Properties
In Armored Warfare, armor has a thickness value, typically in millimeters (mm). This armor value is the physical thickness of the armor when struck head on, and represents the amount of protection the incoming shell has to penetrate before it can do damage to the vehicle.

Angling
Armored protection can increase or decrease depending on the angle of the armor at the point where the shell impacts with the surface. This means that by angling your vehicle in the right way, its armor can become much more effective, and armor angling is one of the mains strategies used by experienced Main Battle Tank players.

Armor Composition
With modern armor comes the use of many types of metals and other items to create better protection for vehicles than standard steel armor. Past tier 5, most Main Battle Tanks will be using Composite armor, which through using layers of different materials to dispel the force of an incoming shell allows for much greater protection than steel. Composite armor also offered increased protection against HEAT ammunition and ATGMs versus its protection against AP shells.

Explosive Reactive Armor
Explosive Reactive Armor, or ERA, is a form of explosives placed on the outside of the vehicle, which when impacted by an incoming shell, explode outwards, deflecting the penetrating jet of the ammunition with it. Extremely effective against HEAT and ATGMs, ERA has only a marginal effect on AP or HE ammunition. Due to the relatively lightweight nature of ERA, many lighter vehicles use it to offer some protection against ATGMs and HEAT shells.

Cage Armor
Another type of HEAT and ATGM deterrent is cage armor, which consists of installing a metal cage around the outside of the vehicle to detonate HEAT ammunition early, causing it to lose most of its penetrating power long before it hits the actual body of the vehicle.