Chobham armour is the informal name of a composite armour developed in the 1960s at the British tank research centre on Chobham Common, Surrey. The name has since become the common generic term for composite ceramic vehicle armour. Other names informally given to Chobham armour include "Burlington" and "Dorchester." "Special armour" is a broader informal term referring to any armour arrangement comprising "sandwich" reactive plates, including Chobham armour.
Although the construction details of the Chobham armour remain a secret, it has been described as being composed of ceramic tiles encased within a metal framework and bonded to a backing plate and several elastic layers. Owing to the extreme hardness of the ceramics used, they offer superior resistance against shaped charges such as high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) rounds and they shatter kinetic energy penetrators.