SKIRMISHER

One obvious feature of Terminators is that they have metallic armor, described as “hyperalloy.” This is very much against the modern trend for body armor, which basically abandoned metal some time ago in favor of ceramic and composite combinations; they give much greater hardness and strength for the weight. The real reason for the Terminators’ metal armor is probably that people equate robots with metal, and director James Cameron says he liked the image of “a chrome-plated Death.”

That chrome look means the Terminators’ metal shell appears to stay shiny and unmarked whatever happens to it. There might be two possible explanations: extreme hardness or self-repair. Hyperalloy might be much harder than any known metal; this potentially makes it brittle, but highly suitable for armor. (Heavy tanks like the Abrams do have some fairly exotic heavy metal armor, but that’s another story.)

Alternatively — and more entertainingly — there’s the idea that Terminator metal might be some sort of shape memory alloy, capable of rapidly returning to its original form. This would explain why Terminators sometimes take a second or two to recover after being shot, while the memory alloy reverts back to shape. This could also lead to the development of the implausibly advanced memory alloys seen in later shapeshifting Terminators like the T-1000 and T-X.

If you’re expecting Terminators in your living room, you want something with no backblast, such as the French Eryx or the new SMAW-D(CS). Unfortunately, the Eryx, like the RPG, has a warhead that does not arm until it is some distance from the launcher for safety reasons. So you’ll have to get your Terminator to stand at least 50 meters away before letting fly.

The 40mm HEDP grenade is a much smaller warhead and more suitable for close quarters. Fired from most standard launchers, it can go through 2 inches of steel, and still do plenty of damage on the other side. But even this one arms 14 meters away — and causes (human) casualties in a 5-meter radius. Not quite the thing for indoor firefights.

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