Composite Armour Systems: A Comparative Review of Advanced Materials, Protection Mechanisms, Intelligent Design and Future Development Perspectives

The development of modern types of ammunition and the increasing requirements for ballistic protection have created a need for armour systems capable of providing a high level of protection while maintaining an acceptable weight. Traditional homogeneous armour systems, primarily based on steel materials, have gradually become insufficient against high-velocity projectiles and shaped-charge munitions, leading to the development of multilayered and hybrid protective systems that combine materials with different mechanical properties. The aim of this review article is to systematically analyse the development of armour systems, from homogeneous metallic armour to modern multilayered and hybrid composite configurations, and to identify the key mechanisms responsible for increasing ballistic resistance while reducing areal density. The article synthesises and critically evaluates findings published in the available scientific literature focused on metallic, ceramic, polymeric, and hybrid armour systems. Particular attention is paid to mechanisms of energy absorption, projectile fragmentation, stress redistribution, and interactions between individual layers under dynamic loading. The analysis of published studies indicates that multilayer composite armour systems achieve higher ballistic efficiency than homogeneous systems due to the synergistic action of several protective mechanisms. Ceramic layers provide projectile destabilisation and fragmentation, while metallic and polymeric backing layers effectively absorb the residual energy and capture the resulting fragments. The findings also highlight the importance of armour architecture, the sequence of individual layers, and the quality of interfaces between materials, all of which significantly affect the resulting ballistic resistance, multi-hit capability, and the ratio between the level of protection and system weight. Current trends in armour technology development are directed towards the optimisation of multilayer configurations, the use of hybrid materials, bio-inspired architectures, graded structures, and advanced manufacturing technologies. The objective is to develop lightweight multifunctional armour systems that provide a high level of protection without a significant increase in areal density.