To sum up my thoughts.
There are 2 Types of Armor
Protective Armor:
Armor that is designed to shield completly/as much as possible against Hits.
Tankarmor, shiparmor, platearmor... etc.
Designed to completly negate Hit's of a certain strenghts
Weak and rapid fire weapons are highly inefficient
Get's weakend by Explosions and can be pierced by small high velocity projectiles
High impact force is likely to destroy the Armoring, only reducing the Hit and damaging the wearer/vehicle
No protective armoring that could be used by a Person could protect against Cannon shots, a hellebard/axe swing, a big ass hammer.
Absorbing Armor
Armor that is designed to absorb part of the hit or distribute force to an bigger Area
Chainmail, kevlar, depending on the game and scifi you are reading shields
Designed to distribute the force a hit produces evenly to the surrounding area while stoping "secondary effects" (penetration, bleeding)
Weak and rapid fire is more effective because the force still get's applied to the protected body, only more evenly spread, this can cause several issues
Doesn't shield against explosions but can't be pierced in most cases (only by projectiles that are too small to get "caught")
High Impact forces will be spread evenly but will most likely still cause severe damage
Can't be destroyed... or is very hard to destroy
We could just leave away specifics and agree on the point that certain Armors only can stop certain Hits.