Adapt Armor has just unveiled their latest armor offering that uses a highly uncommon material in the armor plate world. While most companies will choose to use composite, ceramic, or steel for their armor plate, Adept Armor has developed their new Mantis Titanium Armor Plate that they claim is stronger than steel yet tougher than ceramic.

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New Mantis Titanium Armor Plate from Adept Armor

Level III or III+ plates are typically of either ceramic-composite or steel construction, and some would say that the debate over which type is superior has never been decisively settled. Steel armor is sometimes preferred for its superior toughness and multi-hit capability. Yet ceramic armor has a vastly superior performance-to-weight ratio and doesn’t share steel body armor’s vulnerability to high-velocity threats such as the 5.56x45mm M193.

The Mantis Titanium Armor Plates have been tested with a variety of ammunition including everything from .44 Magnums all the way up to 7.62x51mm M80 ball ammunition (full list on the product page) and according to Adept Armor, none of these rounds penetrated the armor and the plate experienced only minimal back face deformation. Other features that the Mantis Titanium Armor Plate offers include a 5-pound weight, multi-curved design to match military SAPI specifications, and an integral trauma pad.

Many of you will notice that the armor plate features no outer coating which would normally be used to catch any resultant spall from an impact. Instead, Adept Armor says their Titanium Armor Plate yields upon ballistic impact which minimizes front-face spall and stops rounds inside of the plate rather than on the surface. As a minor added benefit, the lack of any truck bed liner or nylon covering on the plate also means that the plate is only 0.7″ thick and has a unique aesthetic that Adept Armor says “This is, for the first time in the modern era, body armor that looks like body armor.” A single Mantis Titanium Armor Plate will set you back $489.00 and current lead times are running at about 4 to 6 weeks.