The document summarizes information presented in a seminar on ammunitions and armors. It discusses various types of threats, ammunition like guns, rifles and bullets. It also describes terminal ballistics and how targets can fail when impacted. The document outlines different types of armors like metallic, fibrous, layered and ceramic armors. It discusses their advantages and disadvantages. Biomimetic armors inspired by nature are also mentioned.

1. September 2021
Faculty – in- charge : Dr. Debasish Sarkar
Head of the Department
Department Of Ceramic Engineering
National Institute of Technology Rourkela
A Brief Discussion on Ammunitions and Armours
Seminar and Technical Writing
Presented By: SUNIRMAL KARMAKAR
Roll No.: 519CR6008

2. • Introduction
• Threats
• Ammunitions
• Guns and Rifles
• Bullet and its Types
• Comparison of Kinetic Energy of projectiles
• Terminal Ballistics
• Failure of target
• Armours
• Subcategories of Armours
• Metallic Armour
• Fibrous Armour
• Layered Armours
• Ceramic Armours
• Biomimetic Armours
• Advantages and Disadvantages of armours
• Reference
CONTENTS

3. • Every being present in the nature, has been condition to attack or defense while a threat or danger is felt
around.
• Due to the global crisis running in today’s world, military and law enforcement department of every nation
has been awakened since world war 1 to till date.
• The strength of the nation is partially determined by the strength of military forces that has been
accompanied for the security and defense.
• Every military has been equipped with :
• Ammunition for attacks (guns, rifles, knives, explosives)
• Armour for defense. ( shields, vest)
• Wars and battle events have been witnessed from histories. Starting from bow and arrow to snipper rifles till
dated.
• But in 1968, standardization of ammunition and armours has been developed by NIJ (National institute of
Justice) Washington, USA .
INTRODUCTION

4. INTRODUCTION Contd.
Evolution of armours during the middle ages
Full body armour of European soldier in 1816
Yadav, Ramdayal, et al. RSC advances 6.116 (2016): 115145-115174.
Internet

5. • Threats in the modern world are defined as the types of attacks that posses the potential of causing lethal damage.
• Over the due course of time, threats have been classified in different types
• Mechanical threat.
• Technological/Cyber threat.
• Bio-medical threat.
• Mechanical threat causes the highest level damage on a physical regimes. It encounters the loss of lives on a
massive account. It involves sharp objects like military service knives, handguns, explosives, assault rifles etc.
• For development of protection against threats, qualitative anticipation of potential threats and its limit of damage
has to be acknowledged and investigated. Spontaneous evolution of armours is necessary due to continuous
evolution of threats.
• Threats are basically of 2 types
• Short range combat, (range of combat is within the arm span)
• Long Range combat
THREATS

6. • Under mechanical threats, ammunitions (attack weapons)
• Spike and stab Attacks
• Long range attacks.
• Ground implants and explosives.
• Spike and stab attacks: Attacks carried out with the help of knives blade
• Stabbing – When travel of knife blade in the target is perpendicular to the target surface
• Slashing- when the cutting edge of weapon travels parallel to the target surface.
• Long range attacks : Origin of attack is distant far from the target.
• Small armed guns, (effective less than 40m)
• Rifles (range up to 350-550m)
• Snipper rifle (range till 2300m)
• Ground implants and explosives: Attacks made due to creation of shock wave causing a ripple effect on the
surrounding. This ripple effect caused due to shock caused pressure and results to destruction
AMMUNITIONS

7. GUNS AND RIFLES
HAND-GUNS
Service Pistol – range-15m
G-Lock 17 – range- 20m
Pistol Auto – 9mm (A)
ASSAULT RIFLES SNIPER RIFLES ASMI RIFLE
FN-SCAR (L) – 5.56 caliber
Heckler & Koch HK416 – 5.56 caliber
AK-103 ; 5.56 caliber
Barrett M82 – 12.7mm caliber
Arctic Welfare Magnum–
7.62mm caliber
M24– 7.62mm caliber
ASMI – 9mm pistol
Recently developed India’s
next generation pistol
developed by DRDO, ARDE,
Indian infantry school using
3D printing technique. Range
is 100-110m.
Internet
Ministry of defense India

8. • Bullet has following parts
• Case
• Propellant
• Rim
• Primer
• Head / Core
• Bullet are divided in 2 categories.
• Lead core Bullets.
• Hardened steel core bullet
• Wood core bullet
• Depending on the shape of bullet
• Round head bullet
• Flat head bullet
• Cone head bullet
• Depending on caliber
• 5.56mm
• 7.62mm
• 14.5mm
• 15.1mm
BULLETS and IT’s TYPES
Different shapes of bullets
Pictorial view of cored bullets
Parts of bullets
Velocity of different caliber bullets
Crouch, Ian, ed. The science of armour materials. Woodhead Publishing, 2016.
Yadav, Ramdayal, et al. RSC advances 6.116 (2016): 115145-115174.
Jacobs, M. J. N., and J. L. J. Van Dingenen. Journal of materials science 36.13 (2001): 3137-3142.

9. Comparison of KE of projectile.
Energy exerted on muzzle by the bullet
(maximum energy exerted is by 0.45 Cp
caliber handgun bullet and minimum is 7.62
mm caliber bullet)
Kinetic Energy exerted on target
by the bullet (maximum energy
exerted is by 0.50 BMG of 19KJ
and minimum is 0.38mm caliber
hand gun bullet300-400J)

10. Terminal Ballistics
Crouch, Ian, ed. The science of armour materials. Woodhead Publishing, 2016.
Yadav, Ramdayal, et al. RSC advances 6.116 (2016): 115145-115174.
The interaction of journey of bullet from the origin to the
target till penetration consist of 3 interaction
• Internal Ballistic: Deals with the initial energy required
for optimized trajectory of the bullet
• External Ballistics: Deals with parameters affecting the
bullet during projectile.
• Terminal Ballistics: Deals with the interaction of bullet
and the target surface.
Terminal Ballistics:
When bullet impacts the target surface, a sudden movement
of armour creates waves. This wave contains 3 nature
• Elastic waves: these wave travel through the armour
material and reflects back in the form of tensile waves.
• Plastic waves : These wave cause micro cracks and
ruptures in the material.
• Shock waves: This causes the material to suddenly deform
causing it to shatter and fail.

11. • Ductile hole formation : When the target material is
ductile in nature, the bullet penetrated in the target exert
radial tensile stress. This causes cylindrical perforation
(hole formation) in the material causing the material to
fail.
• Plugging : this is a phenomenon of failure when bullet
having a fat head/blunt projectile penetrates and
dislocates the portion of target material. The dislocated
material interacts a shear force with its parent material.
It is differentiated into hard plugging and soft plugging.
• Delamination: this phenomenon usually occurs in
highly orthotropic multilayered laminated structures
materials where the two energy absorbing process is
inter-laminar membrane stretching and intra laminar
fracture due to shear.
Failure of target
Crouch, Ian, ed. The science of armour materials. Woodhead Publishing, 2016.
Yadav, Ramdayal, et al. RSC advances 6.116 (2016): 115145-115174.
Delamination
Ductile hole formation
Plugging

12. • Discing :This involves the spalling out of rear face of
the target material due to high velocity impact from
solid projectile.
• Conoidal fracture and Comunition : When a blunt
projectile hit hard and brittle target, cracks are formed
in conical pattern from striking face to the rear face and
forms accumulation of materials on the immediate
surface of the target.
Failure of target contd.
Crouch, Ian, ed. The science of armour materials. Woodhead Publishing, 2016.
Discing
Conoidal fracture and Comunition

13. • Since the era of World War 1 , the huge loss of lives have
concerned science about developing material which can be hard
enough to sustain high velocity impact. This lead to the use of
steel armours which was efficient to resist impacts was hard
enough to constrain the mobility of the soldier.
• Development of armour is carried out by acknowledging all the
threat possible.
• Armour are the defensive mechanism to the possible potential
threat that might occur to be lethal.
• The main function od armour is to have high energy absorbing
capabilities and diffuse it so the bullet don’t penetrate in the
target.
• Armours are differentiated on the basis of use
• General armour
• Ballistic armour
• Knives and stab resisting armour.
• The two main segments in modern armour are
• Hard armour
• Soft armour
ARMOURS
Cross-section of armour
Crouch, Ian, ed. The science of armour materials. Woodhead Publishing, 2016.

14. Sub-categories of Armours
Armour Materials
Metallic Armour
Ceramic
Armour
Fibrous
Armour Integral and
Laminated
Composite
Armour
Biomimetic
Armour
Armour Steel Carbides, Oxides
Kevlar

15. • Development of metallic armour have been since 1915
from steel to UHHS (ultra-high hardness steel), metal
alloys etc.
• Armour having striking plate and backing plate as
metals are called metallic armour.
• High hardness steel posses very high hardness but
likely to shatter after fracture.
• Drawbacks of these metal armours are they are heavy
weighted.
• Different alloys used for armour purpose
• Austenitic steel alloy
• Martensitic steel alloy (one of the hardest form of
steel)
• Titanium alloy
• Failure mode of metallic armour.
• Adiabatic shear failure
• Brittle failure
• Structural engineering failure
• Ductile hole formation
• Plugging
Metallic Armour
A schematic illustration of the general relationship between target hardness and
ballistic performance for the family of armour steels. Performance is very much
related to the failure mode(s) which are operative within a particular hardness range.
Crouch, Ian, ed. The science of armour materials. Woodhead Publishing, 2016.

16. • Fibers has been conspicuous method of shielding against heat, cold and other
environmental conditions.
• Over time, various other materials, including fiber glass, polyester, rayon,
silk, acetate yarn and isotactic polypropylene, have been developed and
explored for ballistic protection applications, but none of them have accorded
satisfactory results.
• In 1965, DuPont came up with Kevlar, Twaron, Spectra etc. setting a bench
mark for fibrous armour system.
• Amarids and polyamarids show unique combination of high tensile strength ,
low elongation to break, low chemical resistance, high toughness, low
thermal shrinkage and excellent dimension stability.
• Factors affecting the failure of fibrous armours systems.
• Weaving pattern
• Weaving index
• Traction between bullet surface and fibers
• Order of cluster of fibers
• Effect of weaving pattern
• 3D non interlaced fabrics
• Multi-stitched 3D woven fabrics
• 3D fully interlaced fabrics
Fibrous Armour
Schematics of bullet penetration in fibrous material
Crouch, Ian, ed. The science of armour materials. Woodhead Publishing, 2016.

17. • Evidences state that hand gun bullets
of(0.45mm caliber) could not penetrate a
hardcover book.
• One of most effective material for armour
purpose is multiple layer material.
• It resists plugging of material. Basic mode of
failure response is de lamination.
• Lamination of different materials having
different magnitude of hardness and
toughness gives rise to higher cumulative
strength and toughness to the armour
specimen.
• Interfacial strength between two layers helps
in diffusing impact energy in the material.
Layered Armour
Failure due to plugging restricted in layered materials
Delamination in layered armour materials
Crouch, Ian, ed. The science of armour materials. Woodhead Publishing, 2016.

18. • Glass and ceramics have being playing an important role in the field of armour/
shielding/ protection.
• Ceramics usually have low toughness of about 3-7 MPa m0.5 where as most armour
materials have a toughness of 20 MPa m0.5 or above.
• Ceramics armours have reported to posses elastic modulus of 300 GPa and flexural
strength of 350 MPa.
• Ceramics like Al2O3 alumina, zirconia, SiC, B4C, AlON have been used for making
armour materials using hot pressing, sintering, spark plasma sintering etc.
• The most recent development of BHABA KAVACH by BARC and DRDO funded by
DAE was most favorable example for low weight ceramic armour. It could resist bullets
of SLR and AK-47. The weight of the BHABA KAVACH is approximately 9kgs which is
almost 65% reduction in weight of metallic armours.
• Use of ceramics makes the armour light weighted and easier to carry while in operation.
Ceramic Armour
Bhaba Kavach (Source- BARC)
Mitra, Sanjay, and Laxman Kumar Behera. "Enhancing the Effectiveness of Defence Indigenization: The Case of Bullet-Resistant Jackets." Strategic Analysis 44.6 (2020): 553-569

19. Process Ceramics Backing plate Type of projectile
Pressure less sintering
technique
Alumina Al2O3 & AlN Al-5803 wrought alloy 7.62 Dragunov Rifle (840 m/s)
Spark Plasma Sintering B4C, SiC – 5 wt% B4C, SiC – 2.5
wt% AlN – 3 wt% C
--------- 7.62 X 54 B32 API Mk2
(616–883 m/s)
Hot pressing Ti3SiC2 Aluminum 9 X 19mm Parabellum type
(TC 95)
Sintering 10% zirconia toughening alumina
& 95% alumina ceramic
Medium Steel Tungsten long-rod projectile
Pressure infiltration method B4C/2024 Al, with 55%
volume fraction of B4C
-------- 7.62 X 51mm Armour-
piercing bullet
Plasma spray technique Al 2024-T351, Al 6061-T651, Al
7075-T651; Coated with Co – Mo–
Cr and ZrO2
-------- 9 X19 mm Parabellum
bullet (370 m/sec)
Cold pressed method Al 2 O 3 ceramic powder Polycarbonate & Al6082-T651 22 mm bore 2 m barrel single stage gas
gun (375m/sec) and modified FFV core
bullet (approx. 900 m/sec)
Ceramic Armour
Yadav, Ramdayal, et al. RSC advances 6.116 (2016): 115145-115174.

20. • From last decade, nature inspired materials have synergetic mechanical properties have been fascinating to look onto.
• Hard materials like tooth, skin of alligator , nacre, bark of tree etc. has inspired to develop easy repairing armours.
• It has also increased the life span of armours .
• The drawback of such materials is the expensive processing and fabrication, as the natural arrangement id much complicated.
• One of the most fascinating innovative approach in recent times is the DRAGON SKIN armour developed by US Defense.
Earlier the armour vest comprised of one single strike face, but for dragon skin this strike face is made into small circular
disc arranged in the form of fish scales.
• Advantage of the dragon skin is , fracture occurs locally and can be easily replace while in service and operation.
Biomimetic Armour
Dragon Skin Armour X Ray of Dragon Skin Armour Local fracture of Armour

21. Pro’s and Con’s of Armours
ARMOUR TYPE ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
Metallic Armour • Easy processing;
• Various range of size;
• Protection against wide range of projectile
• High density
• High weight
• Steels not involved in armour materials
Ceramic Armour • Low weight
• Low density
• High Compressive strength.
• Best for lower ranged ballistic test
• Catastrophic failure
• Highly brittle
• Protection against limited threats.
• Defects / Wear ability
Integral and Laminated Armour • Possibility of incorporation of various materials
• High ballistic test
• High ballistic efficacy
• Effective to high energy projectile(s)
• Delamination of integrated materials.
• Matrix cracking and deboning
• Laminar separation
Fibrous Armour • Low weight
• Low density
• Wearability
• Multiple ply systems
• Faster heat dissipation
• Aging and degradation
• Local melting and comunition of fibers
• Reduced ballistic efficacy.
Biomimetic Armour • Higher impact resistant
• Withstand multiple hit
• Faster heat dissipation
• Wide range of crack arresting mechanisms
• Challenge in processing
• Not complete replica of natural materials
• Not applied to local use till date
• Huge challenge in Commercialization and large scale
production
Yadav, Ramdayal, et al. RSC advances 6.116 (2016): 115145-115174.

22. • Brief discussion on the possible threat and its types were carried out.
• Quantifying the threat and failures of target have been illustrated here.
• Development of armours and its types have been briefly explained
• Advantages and disadvantages of different armours have been discussed.
• Recent development in the field of defense in India ( ASMI Pistol; Bhaba Kavach) and USA (
Dragon Skin) have been shown as an explanatory statement.
CONCLUSION

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115145-115174.
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5. Mawkhlieng, Unsanhame, Abhijit Majumdar, and Animesh Laha. "A review of fibrous materials for soft body armour
applications." RSC Advances 10.2 (2020): 1066-1086.
6. Bruet, Benjamin JF, et al. "Materials design principles of ancient fish armour." Nature materials 7.9 (2008): 748-756.
7. Hainsworth, S. V., R. J. Delaney, and G. N. Rutty. "How sharp is sharp? Towards quantification of the sharpness and penetration
ability of kitchen knives used in stabbings." International journal of legal medicine 122.4 (2008): 281-291.
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Stockholm. 1992.
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projectiles." International Journal of Impact Engineering 36.7 (2009): 948-964.
11. Mitra, Sanjay, and Laxman Kumar Behera. "Enhancing the Effectiveness of Defence Indigenization: The Case of Bullet-
Resistant Jackets." Strategic Analysis 44.6 (2020): 553-569.
12. Jacobs, M. J. N., and J. L. J. Van Dingenen. "Ballistic protection mechanisms in personal armour." Journal of materials
science 36.13 (2001): 3137-3142.
Reference

24. THANK YOU