**5. Conclusion**

The chapter Ballistic Composites, The Present and The future have attempted to present usage of ceramic materials and ceramic-based composites intended for needed for personnel and combat vehicles ballistic protection from penetration and impact of the projectile. Ballistic materials during the history of war follow the armament development to protect the soldier in the first place. Nowadays, metals and steels are increasingly being replaced by lightweight materials such as ceramics and composites, and in the future with the development of technology, metals and steels are likely to be completely phased out for ballistic protection. Ceramic materials such as alumina, SiC, B4C, and TiB2, have acceptable physical and mechanical properties to absorb and minimize breakage and stop the projectile penetration before reaching the vital organs and purchase the trauma reduction of the soldier or essential parts of the vehicle mechanism.

Ceramics and ceramic-based bulletproof materials can be divided into oxide and non-oxide ceramics materials and they are generally light, cost-effective, low density, high compressive strength, high hardness, durability, and capable of retaining or

breaking a projectile penetrator of a certain caliber and fully can change the armor plate of aluminum or hardened steel. The main objective of ballistic material is to develop protection systems that are both effective and lighter in weight. The physical and mechanical properties of ceramic and ceramic-based composites depend on processing. The ballistic composite production methods which can be used are a handlayup method, vacuum bagging, vacuum and oven processing, compression molding, and autoclave processing. Also, ceramic materials require higher temperatures and pressures than ceramic-plastic composite, and these materials can be produced by sintering processes. In this chapter, special attention was paid to processes of spark plasma sintering and hot-pressing methods.

According to the current tendency of weapons development and the requirements of modern battlefields, the tactics are primarily based on greater mobility of units while maintaining protection against the penetration of projectiles. Therefore, research and future production have turned to lightweight materials such as ceramic materials and their composites.
