The US Pentagon has created a type of defensive material that can be used in new vehicular armour protection. This is news because it’s a form of modified transparent aluminium.
Aluminum Oxynitride (ALON) transparent armor has been demonstrated to provide nearly equivalent ballistic protection as conventional armor at approximately half the weight and thickness. Performance testing of different thickness and laminate armor is being conducted to determine the best design for use in large size multi-hit samples. The selected design will be evaluated for use in a vehicle application to assess the mechanical properties and robustness in this type of application.
from the Technical Support Working Group Combating Terrorism webpage
The only problem at the moment is pricing. Right now production costs around $10-15 per square inch while traditional armour costs $4-5. Economies of scale will bring this high down to more reasonable levels, but right now, you’d have to just bite the bullet to protect yourself.
In a test this summer, the product held up to a .50-caliber sniper’s rifle with amor-piercing bullets. Traditional glass armor did not survive the test. Officials hope the product will prove even more useful when considering more severe threats, such as explosives.
“The higher the threat, the more savings you’re going to get,” La Monica said. “With glass, to get the protection against higher threats, you have to keep building layers upon layers. But with [the new product], the material only needs to be increased a few millimeters.”
“Achieving protection at lighter weights will allow the armor to be more easily integrated into vehicles,” said Ron Hoffman, a researcher at University of Dayton Research Institute.
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