Cougar EFP armor kits slimming down (Updated)

It appears that the earlier report that add-on armor for the Force Protection Cougar was nearly a foot thick was inaccurate (See update below). StrategyPage.com offers a parallel story where the armor thickness is reported as 18 millimeters (almost three quarters of an inch: .709).

The additional side armor for defeating EFPs consists of 18mm plates constructed of several layers of different materials. This material, which costs about $2,000 per square foot, breaks up the EFP molten copper "warhead" that an EFP produces to slice through conventional armor. For the six wheel Cougar, the EFP armor kit weighs 2.5 tons, and costs $152,000.

This account makes more sense. The weight of one square foot of composite armor a foot thick (that is to say, a cube of armor) would have been substantial, to say the least.

Update:

A couple of folks have made comments about this post, making the excellent point that armor 18mm thick would not stop an EFP nor would it match the weight reported for the Force Protection EFP kit. Simply put, my assessment that the 18mm thickness made more sense was not well founded. Despite its bulk, a kit about a foot in thickness makes more sense of the facts presuming the use of low-density materials for diffusal of the EFP projectile. The report of 18mm thickness may well refer only to a high-density layer (like steel).