Gun mantlet

However, in many late Cold War and post-Cold War tank designs, the gun mantlet became one of the weaker parts of a vehicle's turret armour and thus a weakness.

This was because as many mantlet designs were attached directly to the gun, it drastically increased the weight of the whole gun system and the amount of effort needed to elevate and depress it.

Therefore, as seen in tanks such as the M1 Abrams and the Leopard 2, the mantlet had less armour than the rest of the turret to cut down on weight and they became far smaller to minimise the area that a projectile could hit for if it did, it would very likely result in a penetration and disable the gun and damage the fighting compartment.

A gun mantlet is vulnerable from several standpoints, most notably in what is known as a shot trap.

This was notoriously an issue in the Panther and Tiger II tanks used by Germany in WWII The gun mantlet is usually heavily armored, in order to protect the cannon breech and the loaded ammunition.