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Ablative Armour



This is a protective hull plating that was originally a top-secret  technology in development by Starfleet during the Borg defensive weapons project of 2366, along with pulse phaser cannons and quantum torpedoes. Ablative armour was designed to boil away at a controlled rate under energy blasts, providing an additional layer of defence for starships if their shields failed.

This advanced armour  protects a starships hull from damage. Ablative armour is an additional reactive plating imposing a counterforce to incoming weapon fire. It absorbs the energy and redistributes it evenly among the other parts of the ship and away from other key systems. The armour evaporates when hit with an energy weapon like a Phaser, taking some of the energy from the weapon with it in space as it evaporates.



The ablative armour hull plating has been in development for a number of years, though various related to materials availability, instabilities, phaser and torpedo resistance, and long fabrication lead times have prevented it's widespread use on front-line starships.



Admiral Janeway's shuttlecraft cockpit showing Ablative armour.

The armour works in two stages; in the event of a shield envelope disruption, phaser or thermal EM is first dissipated over the hull surface, and above an undisclosed threshold causes the the molecular matrix to boil off at a controlled rate, carrying away a large fraction of the landed beam energy. In most cases, the boil-off creates a medium density particle cloud, which may help disperse the incoming beam.



The first active starship to use ablative was the USS Defiant NX-74205. After this vessel's armour proved itself in combat, and also due to the Dominion War, many starships currently in production incorporate ablative armour.



Here you see Voyager crew members placing ablative armour generators on the ship's surface.

The prototype ships Defiant and Prometheus were equipped with ablative armour.



Ablative armour has been installed into most of the newer classes of starships. The Sovereign Class, Galaxy Dreadnought Class, Prometheus Class, and Defiant Class have all received ablative armour protection. Most older ships still in services, especially ones that served in the Dominion war, have also received ablative armour protection.









Last edited by Adge - December 2004