Piston fighters armor set up and vulnerable area

[mig-31bm]

After the A6M thread, I think it maybe a good idea to make a thread summary armor schematic of piston fighter for quick reference when needed. Feel free to contribute if you have any data and let me know if I made any mistake

F4U-5

Notable vulnerable area: Oil cooler

….. to be continues (I will update this post after lunch)

 

[mig-31bm]

F8F Bear cat

• 8.5 mm Steel - Under cowling engine armour plate
• 8.5 mm Steel - Fore cockpit protection plate
• 9.5 mm Steel - Pilots seat and headrest
• 60 mm Bulletproof glass - Windshield

Oil cooler location

 

[mig-31bm]

F6F hellcat

• 3 mm steel - below the engine and above cooling system
• 6.35 mm steel - behind the pilot
• 38 mm bulletproof glass - armored windscreen

 

[mig-31bm]

BF-109

 

[mig-31bm]

Spitfire early model

Spitfire late model (likely same on spiteful as well)

 

[mig-31bm]

P-40 armor

 

[mig-31bm]

P-51 armor

P-39 armor

 

[mig-31bm]

P-63 armor

 

[mig-31bm]

FW-190A8

FW-190F

 

[MikeMeech]

Hi
'Chapter IV - War, the early months: September 1939-June 1940' from 'Knights of the Skies' by Fox has an interesting account of armour for fighters by the RAF, a small extract below:

Mike

 

[andy1967]

Spitfire MkXIV.

 

[DarrenW]

F6F hellcat

• 3 mm steel - below the engine and above cooling system
• 6.35 mm steel - behind the pilot
• 38 mm bulletproof glass - armored windscreen

View attachment 882725
View attachment 882726

Just to add to this information, there were actually TWO homogeneous plates of back armor installed on the F6F Hellcat. See attached illustration from pilot's manual below. Placement of all armor is well shown. Head armor was a separate piece of face-hardened steel plate which was in addition to the back armor that ran the full length of the rear cockpit bulkhead. This combination afforded the pilot outstanding rear protection.

 

[bada]

Hi,
Some reading about armor
AIRCRAFT ARMOR - AN EMPIRICAL APPROACH TO THE EFFICIENT DESIGN ARMOR FOR AIRCRAFT.

Disclaimer: do not know the source of it, it's on my drive since 2020. if issues with copyright or whatever, please remove. Marcel

 

[tomo pauk]

A very informative thread

 

[mig-31bm]

Just to add to this information, there were actually TWO homogeneous plates of back armor installed on the F6F Hellcat. See attached illustration from pilot's manual below.

btw, do you have any source showing how thick these armor plate are?

 

[mig-31bm]

P-47 is rugged but its armor is only protected against .303 caliber unlike F4U