Vehicle armor

= Overview =

Military vehicles are commonly armored to withstand the impact of shrapnel, bullets, missiles, or shells, protecting the personnel inside from enemy fire. Such vehicles include tanks, aircraft, and ships.

NB: In the game we model the various vehicles armor close to the real values and then add balancing by tweaking how the cannons perform.

= Game Mechanics =

Armor on vehicles serves two purposes when getting shot: completely blocking penetration (dependent on armor thickness) and reducing vehicle damage on penetration (minimum 50% reduction, but varies depending on vehicle). Armor is worn down when blocking shots, resulting in danage reduction ceasing to be applied if the armor is worn down enough. This can result in even a Light Machine Gun being able to destroy a tank given enough time and ammunition.

Unintuitively, the armor wear down mechanic means that thinner armor is more durable since less shots are able to be blocked. As a result, thinly armored vehicles receive less damage over the course of their lifetime compared to vehicles with thicker armor - risk of component damage notwithstanding. On the other hand, vehicles with thicker armor tend to become extremely weak to damage after an encounter with an enemy, as a result of their armor completely wearing down thus leaving them exposed to a quick destruction later on. This is especially notable for vehicles of the same class, which all share the same health pool but do in fact differ in armor thickness.