armour-plating

The manhole covers had gone, leaving the streets pockmarked with gaping mantraps, while one abandoned tank was vanishing day by day, melting away "as if its armour-plating had been made of ice".

Rereading: Naples '44 by Norman Lewis 2011

Beginning by ridiculing Cunningham's numerous bookish allusions – nothing makes a novel seem more vulnerable, more naked, than an armour-plating of literary references.

Review of The Hours author's latest book wins inaugural hatchet job award 2012

If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour-plating against the Enemy that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter.

"There are no moral or immoral jokes. A joke is either funny or it is not. That is all." Ann Althouse 2008

These iron plates were placed close together, and thus formed a continuous armour-plating to a couple of feet from the keel.

The South Pole; an account of the Norwegian antarctic expedition in the 'Fram', 1910 to 1912 2003

River steamers have been fitted with armour-plating and turned into gunboats while at the same time the rains and flooding have cut roads, making it very difficult or impossible to defend some po! o4dons.

ANC Daily News Briefing 1999

He was assuming that the big, bull-necked, slug-like guys were in some way connected with InfiniDim Enterprises, but it was a reasonable assumption and he felt happy about it because they had logos on their armour-plating which said ` InfiniDim Enterprises 'on them.

Mostly Harmless Adams, Douglas, 1952- 1992

Shells from both battleships were exploding deep in the heart of the BISMARCK, wrecking the engine rooms, destroying the fuel tanks and adding hundreds of tons of fuel to feed the great fires now raging in the entire mid-section of the ship, the roaring flames clearly visible through the great jagged gaps torn in the ship's side and armour-plating.

The Lonely Sea MacLean, Alistair, 1922- 1985

She drew a great deal of attention from the assembled soldiery, not all of it just consisting of admiring glances: if she weren't wearing armour-plating, Smith reflected, she must be permanently black and blue.

Where Eagles Dare MacLean, Alistair, 1922- 1967

Its head was a mixture of shaggy hair and armour-plating, while behind its slender waist lay the great swivel-plated body, yellow and black, sheathing a lethal sting in its tail.

HOTHOUSE Aldiss, Brian 1962

European civilization, like the dinosaurs which loaded themselves up with great armour-plating for defence, in failing to adjust itself to the new environment which modern science has created, may disappear and leave the leadership in the evolution of human society to a rejuvenated and more peace loving Asiatic civilization.

Lord Boyd Orr - Nobel Lecture 1949