[SauronOfMordor]

Yes, the ceramic dwell phenomenon does occur with a thick ceramic target being hit with a rod at a velocity below a certain threshold, as in the leftmost pic below from this article:

Past the threshold, you start getting penetration (the other pics) and you need a mechanism for dispersing the energy of the projectile over a wider volume of the target

When you started referring to bullets on ceramic armor, I started thinking of the ceramic plates in Level IV body armor rather than tank armor. Yes, there are different effects on ceramic armor that can be as thick or thicker than the length of the penetrator, versus the thinner ceramics for body armor, that necessarily have to be thin and light enough for human wear

[XEHRpa]

True enough. Given vastly different constraints for body vs. vehicle armor, the approaches are, naturally, different.