Spaceships hull armor…solid?

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Many small projectiles would not penetrate a whipple shield, but they would destroy it.

Yes, they would. And if those same small projectiles at the same velocity were to impact a solid slab they would destroy and penetrate a thickness of it that had a mass many times greater than that of the Whipple shield.

I do not claim that Whipple shields make a spaceship invulnerable. I merely claim that against hypervelocity impactors they are several times more effective than an equal mass of any solid armour, regardless of the solid armour's strength and hardness.

Yes, one of you mylar balloons or one of Fred's claymore mines will remove several square metres of the outer few layers of a suitably spaced armour, making an area vulnerable to a follow-up attack. But if either of them were to impact solid armour plate they would make a hole in that just as big or bigger, rupture the pressure containment, and spray high-velocity debris in a plume through the interior of the ship.