Titanium-A armor

Titanium-A armor is the most common and typical battle plating used by the UNSC on ships. It is composed of a high-grade Titanium-50Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, page 185 alloy, specially strengthened at the molecular level,Halo Encyclopedia, page 303 that is usually greyish in color. Titanium-A has numerous uses throughout the UNSC due largely to titanium being lightweight and extremely strong with a high tolerance to heat.
Despite its strength and resistance to heat, the Titanium-A plating is usually boiled away within seconds and does not effectively dissipate the heat from plasma fire. This is partially due to the fact that the element Titanium, which is used to construct the armored battle-plate used on UNSC warships, has a melting point of 1668 degrees Centigrade, but plasma is around 3,000 degrees C.Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, page ?? On occasion, Titanium-A Armor is layered with tungsten, which has a melting point of 3,448 degrees C, to provide a radiation absorption level of 5 and presumably provide greater protection against plasma weaponry.Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe, The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole, page 475
Its primary use is as armor for ships. UNSC frigates have sixty centimeters of plating on their hull, and UNSC Destroyers have up to two meters of plating. Supercarriers like the had 10 meters. The has a mere 4.9 meters, but it is composed of the artificially strengthened Ti-A3 and is protected by Forerunner shielding. Marines sometimes have thin Titanium-A armor suits, though these suits are an increasingly rare sight since they are slowly being replaced by ceramic variants, such as those seen on the ODSTs in Halo 3.
The UNSC uses Titanium-A for construction of bases as well, to make them less susceptible to destruction. Places such as HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6, CASTLE Base and Camp Hathcock used Titanium-A armor in their superstructures.
==Sources==
Category:Materials
Category:Human Armor