What is Ablative Armor?
Ablative armor is meant to sacrificed to block an incoming attack. In contrast to current armors that are of a uniform thickness all around the armored vehicle, an advanced ablative armor would anticipate imminent attacks and concentrate its mass appropriately. Because of this futuristic quality, ablative armor is seen more frequently in science fiction scenarios than in real world militaries. However, as conventional weapons become obsolete at the expense of more advanced energy weapons, ablative armor will become very useful. For example, certain reentry vehicles use ablative armor to protect them from the extreme heat of entering earth’s atmosphere. To serve their purpose optimally, plates of ablative armor would need to be mobilized by some form of advanced robotics in order to be quickly placed in front of an attacker’s blast. Like all forms of armor, ablative armor would need to have strong intermolecular bonds for optimal energy absorption. Fullerene, an allotrope of carbon even
