Armour
From Command and Conquer Wiki
This article talks about the Body Armor you may be looking for Tanks which is also referred to as armor.
Armour refers to the amount of non-inherent protection that a unit has, and is separate from structure.
In general, several things affect a unit's survivability on the battlefield. Maneuverability, speed, and size play a role, but if a unit can be immobilized and fired upon at close range, what prevents the unit's destruction? There are two important factors. One is armour, and the second is structure. A unit that is completely unarmoured might be large enough to sustain several blows, or it might have an internal structure that allows it to absorb certain attacks. Armour is different. It's basically a layer of protection between the target and the projectile, designed to absorb the impact of the projectile.
There are various levels of armour protection:
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[edit] Body armour
Present on Minigunners and various infantry, body armour is basically a layer of Kevlar, ceramics, or other material that dissipates impact before it can reach the target. This armour is generally effective only against small arms fire, and is ineffective against most other types of ordinance. Examples include GDI combat suits and Nod combat armour.
[edit] Powered armour
Powered armour is special infantry armour that relies on internal servomotors, instead of human muscles, for mobility. Such a design allows more powerful weaponry and thicker layers of armour. The first successful development of powered armor was the assault suit. Zone Troopers, Zone Raiders and Black Hand Flame Troopers use powered armor only that the Zone Raiders and Zone Troopers can survive in Tiberium while Black Hand wore cloaks.
The concept of power armor was first popularized in the 1959 science fiction novel Starship Troopers by Robert H. Heinlein. Within the novel, powered armoured infantry dominated the battlefield in a war against the "Bugs" and deployed from orbit in pods. Perhaps in an example of life imitating art, today's Zone Troopers and Raiders can be deployed from orbit using drop pods. What's more, the addition of Scrin infantry, namely Shock Troopers, can very well create a recreation of the "Klendathu" battle.
[edit] Cybernetics
Similar to powered armor, cybernetics supplement muscle tissue with mechanical components. However, cybernetic enhancements bond these components to the subject, changing the user's internal structure as well as its external armor. Cyborgs can be extremely powerful. The Cyborg Commando was an infantry unit roughly on par with GDI's powerful Mammoth Mk. II walker.
[edit] Tiberium Absorbing Armour
The Scrin have (possibly biomechanical) armour that can repair in Tiberium. The level of protection afforded by Scrin armour varied greatly. As with human units, Scrin infantry were less protected than their heavy vehicles.
The products of Tiberium-based mutation such as Tiberian wildlife, the Forgotten, and the various results of Nod Cybernetics research heal themselves when in the presence of Tiberium as well.
[edit] Vehicle armour
Armour applied to a vehicle is generally more effective than body armour, at the cost of speed. It comes in several levels: light, heavy, and extremely heavy. In general, the heavier the armour, the slower the vehicle.
[edit] Adaptive armour
An exclusive Steel Talons upgrade, the Adaptive armour can temporarily increase the vehicle's durability and confers EMP immunity, at the cost of fire rate, which is drastically reduced whenever the armour is activated. Many Steel Talon commanders typically kept Adaptive armour activated as much as possible, mainly because they saw that the benefits vastly outweigh the penalty.
[edit] Other Developments
The Soviet Union was close to researching a possibly indestructible armour alloy that could have been applied to most units, but Allied forces stole the research. The Soviet Army was forced to destroy the Alloy Facility, choosing to eradicate the alloy and the research rather than letting the Allies use it.
