GlueckAuf
Well-Known Member
As I understand it, the idea behind slat armor is not so much to detonate the incoming round prematurely, but to actually let the fuse pass through the slat and fracture the wider-shouldered warhead before it detonates. This may prevent its detonation altogether (best case), or at very least disrupt its ability form the critical jet of molten copper (called an Explosively Formed Projectile). It's the base-detonated EFP that focuses the explosion's heat and pressure against a very small point on the armor, burning through it like a soldering iron penetrates a plastic model and showering the inside of the target with molten metal. To ensure the engagement's coup de grâce, Russian tank designers, even with the vaunted T-14 Armata, have thoughtfully equipped their tanks with forty-some rounds of combustible-case ammunition in the turret floor to ensure a rather spectacular secondary explosion.Javelin uses a 2-stage warhead for attacking reactive armor. I think it would take something as little as a firmware update to increase the time delay between the stage 1 warhead (could be used to clear the "visors") and the stage 2 warhead once the visors are clear of the turret.
Against the lightly-constructed warhead of an RPG, slat armor might stop or degrade half of the incoming grenades. But probably only once since even the degraded explosion tends to destroy the relatively flimsy cage. And against medium (like Javelin) and heavy ATGMs, or tank-fired HEAT ammo, YMMV (read, fuggedabowdit).