Metal armour

Metal Armour
Razer, armoured in unpainted steel and aluminium
Example Materials	Aluminium, Steel, Titanium, HARDOX, ARMOX
Robots
Pioneer	Roadblock, Barry
Notable Robots	Behemoth, Razer, Chaos 2, Hypno-Disc, Storm 2, Apollo, Carbide, Eruption

Metal armour was the most common type of armour used by robots appearing in Robot Wars. It refers to materials comprising of both pure metal and metal alloys, the application similar to their uses for armour, engineering and technology throughout most of human history.

Metal armour was first introduced in the opening heat of Series 1, adopted by the competitors Roadblock and Barry, and was seen in every episode of the show thereafter.

Definition

Metal armour refers to any armour plating made out of pure metal elements, such as aluminium (US: aluminum) or titanium, or alloys comprising of a mixture of metals and other chemical elements, such as copper, brass or various types of steel (e.g. stainless steel).

Metals and alloys can be mixed in with each other, or individually layered with sheets of similar or different materials depending on the design. As such, an alloy of steel and aluminium would be classed differently to a sheet of steel under a sheet of aluminium.

Hardened steels, such as the SSAB-trademarked HARDOX and ARMOX, became especially popular for chassis, armour and weapon construction during the Revival Series (Series 8-10). Materials such as these are characterised as being wear-resistant and significantly more durable than regular steels, making them especially suitable to protecting the wielder from more powerful weapons. Due to their significant presence in these series, along with their different uses compared to the Classic Series, materials including HARDOX and ARMOX are classified separately as wear-resistant steel armour in the list below.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages

Bigger Brother's metal armour allowed the internals to survive repeated hits from Hypno-Disc

Trolley Rage, a robot built from recycled materials and a shopping trolley

• Metal is strong and malleable, meaning it can be worked into almost any shape by robot builders for either strength or aesthetic design reasons.
• Metal is durable and can survive many knocks from opponent's weapons, protecting the internals of the robot.
• Metals can be welded together, producing a very strong joint. This allows multiple panels and internal frames to be mounted strongly to the armour, keeping it all in place.
• Metals do not rot or degrade, meaning they can be scavenged from scrapyards for very little cost, allowing many builders to get access to strong armour.

Disadvantages

• Welding is a difficult task for inexperienced builders, making imperfect welds a significant weak spot for opponents to aim for.
• Metals are often the heaviest of armour types. As such, teams have to sacrifice weight in other parts of the robot to comply with weight limits if they want to run thick armours.
• When heavily damaged, metal armour can be time consuming and potentially costly to repair, as a result some teams often enter the next battle either in disrepair or unable to function at all.

List of robots with Metal Armour

As a cheap, abundant and (in most cases) easy to work with material, metal is by far the most common material used as an armour in Robot Wars. As such, a selection of notable or recognisable users of each common metal variety has been listed separately below.

DESKTOP MODE ONLY: Robots which are not heavyweight entries are listed with a green background. House Robots are listed with a gold background. Robots from the 1996 US competition are listed with a purple background.

List of Robots with Steel Armour

Robot	Series Appearances with Steel Armour	Details	Notes	Image
Bodyhammer	Series 1	Heat-treated stainless steel sheets over a polypropylene-glass composite shell, oxidised to give a gold and copper look.	Series 1 Grand Finalist.
Diotoir	Series 3-5, 10, Extreme 1-2	Steel armour under its signature fur.	Extreme 1 Tag Team Terror co-champion.
Growler	Series 6-7, Extreme 2, Dutch Series 2, German Series	Whole body was built from steel.	House Robot.
La Machine	1996 Championship, Series 1	Sloped steel shell with integrated ramming scoop.	Originally built as a middleweight, itself capable of fighting against heavyweights.
Leighbot	Series 1	Armoured in bulletproof steel.
Razer	Series 2-8, Extreme 1-2, US Season 2	Lightweight armoured steel for armour plating.	Initially used aluminium for the wheel frames but was replaced with titanium. First and Second World Champion; UK Series 5 champion.
Roadblock	Series 1	Steel armour used in tandem with unpainted road signs and a section of a disused oil drum.	Only used for the original First Wars incarnation, before being replaced the succeeding year. Series 1 champion.
Sergeant Bash	Series 1-2	Initially made up of steel plates before being replaced with fibreglass.	House Robot.

List of Robots with Aluminium Armour

Robot	Series Appearances with Aluminium Armour	Details	Notes	Image
101	Series 3-4	Entire body made from aluminium; original HE30 alloy replaced with aircraft-grade material for Series 4.	Tracks made from an old milk washing machine. Series 3 Semi-Finalist and Series 4 Tag Team Terror co-champion.
Bulldog Breed	Series 3-7, Extreme 1-2	Aluminium plates on all sides, however, it did have polycarbonate at the back and sides during Series 4 and 5.	Aluminium plates varied between 10mm to 13mm thick; occasionally quoted as being "aluminium Dural". Series 7 Semi-Finalist; Extreme 2 Tag Team Terror co-champion.
Cunning Plan	Series 1	1mm aluminium on the sides, top and back with a steel front.	Featherweight; Series 1 Grand Finalist.
Demolisher	Series 1-2	Welded aluminium shell on top of an RC car chassis.	Featherweight; shell made the robot top heavy and susceptible to tipping over.
Firestorm	Series 3-7, Extreme 1-2	Hardened aluminium; 3mm thickness by the time of Series 4 (Firestorm 2). Later thickened to 5mm for Series 5/Extreme 1 (Firestorm 3) and upgraded to a 5mm T6 grade for Series 6 onwards (Firestorm 4).	By Extreme 2, Firestorm 4 featured a steel strip across the bottom of the wedge. Third place in Series 3 and 5-6.
Hypno-Disc	Series 3-6, Extreme 1-2	Aluminium checker plate of varying thicknesses, used in tandem with an aluminium box-section chassis and baseplate.	Thin armour at the expense of having a larger and heavier weapon. Series 3 runner-up; also reaching the Grand Final of Series 4 and 5.
Roadblock	Series 2	Welded aluminium chassis/armour used in place of the steel equivalent previously used.	Third place in Series 2 following this redesign.
S3	Series 5-6, Extreme 2	Sculpted aluminium monocoque as opposed to being bolted or welded together; thickness between 4 and 6mm.	Series 5-6 Semi-Finalist.
Thermidor 2	Series 3-8, Extreme 1-2	Originally aluminium plating over a box steel chassis; Series 8 incarnation incorporated a 3mm aluminium top cover along with mild steel and polycarbonate.	Series 4 and 7 Semi-Finalist.
Velocirippa	Series 3-5, Extreme 1	Thin aluminium armour and an 8mm thick HARDOX spike.	Armour replaced with fibreglass for Extreme 2 and Series 7. This Velocirippa model would be reused for Meggamouse. First robot with HARDOX in Robot Wars (weapon only).

List of Robots with Titanium Armour

Robot	Series Appearances with Titanium Armour	Details	Notes	Image
Behemoth	Series 3-7, 8-10, Extreme 1-2	7mm titanium scoop (Grade 5 in Series 8-10) and wheelguards.	Also used 3mm stainless steel, along with polycarbonate and interchangeable aluminium scoops for use against horizontal spinners (Series 9-10). Joint-third place in Series 10 with this design element.
Big Nipper	Series 7-10	Consisted of 7-10mm Grade 5 titanium salvaged from scrapyards.	The team were named after the material used.
Dominator 2	Series 4-6, Extreme 1-2	Armoured in 1.8mm plasma nitrate-coated titanium.	The same grade of titanium used on Russian nuclear submarines. Series 4-6 Semi-Finalist.
Napalm 2	Series 5	Improvement from previous incarnations, using titanium as opposes to scrap metal.
Wheely Big Cheese	Series 4-5, Extreme 1	Entire robot built from titanium.	Series 4-5 Semi-Finalist.

List of Robots with Wear-Resistant Steel Armour

Robot	Series Appearances with Wear-Resistant Steel Armour	Details	Notes	Image
Apollo	Series 8-10	3-6mm HARDOX; Series 9 incarnation quoted on the official website as also incorporating HDPE. Series 10 version used a new laser-cut HARDOX chassis of between 3.2 and 6mm in thickness.	Series 8 champion. White and black paint scheme themed after the NASA Apollo space program.
Carbide	Series 8-10	5mm 'military-grade' steel, combined with aircraft-grade aluminium, titanium and various types of plastic top armour over the course of its appearances.	Series 9 champion; also finishing runner-up in Series 8 and 10.
Concussion	Series 9-10	Series 9 version incorporated 3.2mm RAEX abrasion-resistant steel, later upgraded to 6mm at the front with Toolox wedglets for Series 10.	Also used aluminium, titanium and polycarbonate between the two versions. Series 9 Grand Finalist.
Crackers 'n' Smash	Series 9-10	Crackers was armoured in 5mm HARDOX while Smash was armoured similarly.	Baseplate of Crackers was swapped from HARDOX to aluminium to save weight.
Dantomkia	Series 8	HARDOX described as military-grade steel. Previously used HARDOX wedges in Series 7, but not across the whole robot.
Eruption	Series 8-10	3.2-4mm thick HARDOX with 10mm HDPE beneath the armour.	Series 10 champion; also finishing runner-up in Series 9. Additional 9mm HARDOX was applied in battles against spinners, as one of several interchangeable front armour configurations.
Ironside3	Series 8-9	5mm HARDOX throughout.	Third place in Series 9; capable of withstanding repeated blows from Carbide.
Shunt	Series 8-10	Fibreglass shell replaced with HARDOX armour for the reboot.	House Robot.
Terrorhurtz	Series 8-10	6mm ARMOX 500 front wedge.	Used in tandem with 12mm polycarbonate elsewhere. Capable of deflecting horizontal spinners including Carbide and Apex.
Tough as Nails	Dutch Series 2, Series 7-8, 10	Entire body and horizontal crusher were built from HARDOX; thickness quoted in World Series, Episode 2 as varying between 3.2 and 6mm.	Series 7 Semi-Finalist. Pioneer of HARDOX armour usage in Robot Wars, though Velocirippa had previously utilised this for weaponry.

List of Robots with Various other Metal Armour

Cobalt, magnesium, copper and any other material considered to be a metal.

Robot	Series Appearances with other known metal armours	Details	Notes	Image
Bigger Brother	Series 4-7, Extreme 1-2	Armour a mixture of cobalt, steel and titanium; originally made from bulletproof mild steel.	Series 5 runner-up.
Cassius Chrome	Series 7	Used a mixture of fibreglass for the head mould and an unknown metal material for the main body and weapons.	House Robot.
Chaos 2	Series 3-6, Extreme 1-2	10mm Dural alloy plating (aluminium, copper and magnesium) with polycarbonate covers.	Also used 2.5mm titanium from Extreme 1 onwards for front armour along with a newer 7mm flipper plate. Series 3 and 4 champion.
Orac's Revenge	Series 3	4mm Dural shell.