Why Are the Leopard 2's Turret Cheeks Hollow? Koala Explains: Spaced Versus Composite Armor

It has come to my attention that something in this video was a little over simplified - the wedges are not made simply of steel, but instead of two steel plates surround an inner rubber layer (very similar to the British "Stillbrew" armor). The aim of this composition however is the same - the plates and the effect of the rubber sandwiched between them will cause the rod's trajectory to skew further, hence having the flat edge impact the underlying turret rather than the sharp point.

The triangle "bracings" I mentioned, (seen in the detached wedge at 3:02), are also made of this same composition, and accomplish the same thing. The main point of the video was to say that the wedges are not "filled" with NERA because to do so would defeat their purpose, and that purpose is to allow the trajectory and strong angle of an incoming rod to be skewed off course, (as well as lessening its velocity, etc.,). Moment of inertia alone would achieve this, but it is compounded by the composite plates of the arrowhead. Effectively what this means is that even a rod that IS long enough to span the gap will still need roughly 1,000mm of penetration to perforate the turret underneath and penetrate into the fighting compartment.

At the upper reaches of the arrowhead piece however, the same weakness still applies - there is no room to skew the rod's trajectory enough to cause a shatter.

TL,DR: Moment of Inertia is the simplified version - in actuality the plates surrounding the hollow space are made up of a type of composite armor which has the same type of effect but to a greater degree. Either way, their remains mostly empty space within the wedges.

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