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> The way shaped-charge weapons work is by the blast creating a directed jet of molten metal traveling at high speed.

WARNING, WARNING! This erroneous explanation of shaped charge phenomenology still persists after 60 years of discrediting. But at least you didn't say it "burns" its way through the target, which is equally erroneous.

The jet is not molten, for typical metals used, but stays solid. It nonetheless stretches like taffy under the huge strain rates.

Also, it is not the "blast" that is the lethal mechanism (I mean, the blast can be a lethal mechanism, but that part has nothing to do with how a shaped charge works). The stretching jet penetrates the target material at high velocity, much in the way that a hose of high velocity water can erode through a pile of solid dirt. In the case of a shaped charge though, it is metal on metal/whatever.

You are correct in stating that the lethal mechanism is "directed." Because the shape of the warhead and associated lined cavity within it causes the explosive force to take an arcuate shaped liner and compress and direct it at high velocity along a lethal axis. It is this metal liner within the warhead which becomes the lethal mechanism, not the explosive blast per se.

The stretching jet penetrates the target material at high velocity, much in the way that a hose of high velocity water can erode through a pile of solid dirt. In the case of a shaped charge though, it is metal on metal/whatever.

Right. Thge key fact is that it's moving at a very respectable clip (in the neighborhood of 2 miles/sec, I think I read at one point. The way you determine whether the copper lining is solid or molten is by looking at its IR emmissions over that tiny fraction of a second, and I've seen conflicting assessment as to whether the observed IR reading (indicating a temp of a few hundred degrees C, which would put it below melting point) is really reliable, or just the measure of the surface, with the core being molten (the energy involved in forming it is pretty high).

In any event, it's the velocity in a concentrated mass, not the temp, that produces the penetration. This means that the way to counter it needs to involve a way of spreading out and dissipating the jet (like reactive armor does) rather than having armor that has every square inch able to resist that amount of energy