I've seen this stuff showing up at protests.

Yes, I know it's "riot gear".

Tanks have something that looks similar, called ablative armor.  It explodes when hit by sufficient impact preventing the "liquid copper cone of death" from advanced RPGS.

That'd be a really interesting turn?  One gets shot, the rest blow in succession?

Anyway, is this stuff ballistic resistant or just foam for impacts?   I've only been seeing it at recent protests.

I get that it's much more flexible than the earlier stab resistant vests that are 2 or 3 big panels.  I guess I'm just curious as to what it is.

 

Reactive armor requires significant base armor behind it, the ERA tile going off would kill its own tank otherwise. So the combo of base armor and ERA is too heavy for anything but a main battle tank. 
 

now back to the regularly scheduled riot gear discussion...

3 minutes ago, Shocker said:

Reactive armor requires significant base armor behind it, the ERA tile going off would kill its own tank otherwise. So the combo of base armor and ERA is too heavy for anything but a main battle tank. 
 

now back to the regularly scheduled riot gear discussion...

I wasn't suggesting they were wearing reactive panels.  heh.  May as well just have some crowd control Claymores strapped to their fronts and back. There's something darkly humorous about a bunch of anti-civil liberty goons in riot gear crushing peaceful protestors all just sort of simultaneously blowing up in succession.

 

It's padding to protect against bottles, sticks, rocks and other Antifa weapons.

That is just padding. The channels are cut in there to make it a little more flexible. It has no ballistic properties. They are still wearing traditional police body armor underneath.