Sloped Armour - Historical Application

Historical Application

The principle itself was well known of old and had been in use on warships (one of the earliest recorded uses of sloped armour was on early Confederate ironclads, such as the CSS Virginia) and partially implemented on the first French tank, the Schneider CA1 in the First World War, but the first tanks to be completely fitted with sloped armour were the French SOMUA S35 and other contemporary French tanks like the Renault R35, which had fully cast hulls and turrets. It was also used to a greater effect on the famous Soviet T-34 battle tank by the Soviet tank design team of the Kharkov Locomotive Factory, led by Mikhail Koshkin. It was a technological response to the more effective anti-tank guns being put into service at this time. The T-34 had profound impact on German WWII tank design. Pre- or early war designs like the Panzer IV and Tiger differ clearly from post 1941 vehicles like for example the Panther, the King Tiger, the Jagdpanzer and the Hetzer, which all had sloped armour. This is especially evident because German tank armour was generally not cast but consisted of welded plates.

Sloped armour became very much the fashion after World War II, its most pure expression being perhaps the British Chieftain. However, the latest main battle tanks use perforated and composite armour, which attempts to deform and abrade a penetrator rather than deflecting it, as deflecting a long rod penetrator is so difficult. These tanks have a more blocky appearance. Examples include the Leopard 2 and M1 Abrams. An exception is the Israeli Merkava.