Ukrainian soldier's M1 MacBook Air takes direct shrapnel hit, saving his life — screen cracked and letter 'K' missing but laptop remains functional

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Don't try this at home.

M1 MacBook Air stopping a fragment of an artillery shell
(Image credit: lanevychs/Twitter)

A Ukrainian soldier showed off his 2020 M1 MacBook Air after it got hit by shrapnel during the war in Ukraine. X user @lanevychs [machine translated] asked on the social media platform about the ballistic protection that the laptop offered, especially after his device was able to take a hit from a shell fragment and seemingly survived. Despite the damage, the laptop still continued to work, with the screen showing images in some sections. And although the projectile punctured the screen, it seems that the base and keyboard of the device stopped it from going clean through. The only keyboard casualty being the "K" key.

Apple uses aluminum alloy for the unibody chassis of its MacBook line-up due to its strength and durability while still being lightweight. Aside from that, it also doubles as a heatsink, which is especially crucial for the fanless MacBook Air models. But even though Cupertino chose this material for its scratch and dent resistance, it seemed that it was also good enough to stop shrapnel. Unfortunately, he also decried the cost of repair in the comments, saying that “the repair will cost as much as a new laptop.”

The battle-damaged laptop shows off Apple’s engineering prowess, where even shrapnel can damage isn’t enough to completely destroy it. Nevertheless, we do not recommend using it as body armor, as it likely won’t be strong enough to stop a direct hit from small arms fire.

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Jowi Morales
Jowi Morales
Contributing Writer
8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Notton
    It looks like the shrapnel went through the central battery pack and missed the ribbon cables connecting the keyboard and trackpad.
    I'm surprised the LiPo battery hasn't caught fire from the damage.

    Very lucky indeed.
    Reply
  • pjmelect
    I remember the story of a Russian soldier who had looted a Mac laptop and had replaced the plate of his body armour with it, of course he was shot and killed through the Mac laptop which offered no protection at all.
    Reply
  • S58_is_the_goat
    pjmelect said:
    I remember the story of a Russian soldier who had looted a Mac laptop and had replaced the plate of his body armour with it, of course he was shot and killed through the Mac laptop which offered no protection at all.
    Lolol, that's definitely something they would do 🤣
    Reply
  • DS426
    An 80-page paper notebook can stop shrapnel, or not... Shrapnel takes all sorts of velocities, masses, and shapes... Let's just say that a M1 Macbook won't stop shrapnel in *every* situation.

    A U.S. Soldier threw a bed mattress on a frag grenade and that stopped it from doing any damage to anyone that was otherwise in the kill and high-damage radius, so... Sorry Apple but virtually any notebook PC has more-or-less the same shrapnel stopping power as any other Dell, Acer, HP, and so on. If anything, I'd take my odds with an old thick gaming PC, or even a bed mattress, lol.
    Reply
  • derekullo
    Soldier: "I'm alive, yay!... OMG THE RAM! Ram is ok too!"
    "Soldier passes out"
    Reply
  • Gino188
    Notton said:
    It looks like the shrapnel went through the central battery pack and missed the ribbon cables connecting the keyboard and trackpad.
    I'm surprised the LiPo battery hasn't caught fire from the damage.

    Very lucky indeed.
    Exactly. "Very lucky" but the article makes it seem like it was the "prowess" of the design team that made a shrapnel proof laptop. Of course the author also says that wasn't the design intent.

    It's ok to be a fanboy but to attribute any of this to much more than luck...
    Reply
  • t3t4
    "Shrapnel"?
    Uhhh, looks an awful lot like the entry of a bullet to me.... Ya know, from a "gun". But even a.22 cal will make it through that laptop no problem, so unless Apple is making pure tungsten keyboards now wrapped in Kevlar, I find it very hard to believe there's no exit wound! But, stranger things have happened I suppose.
    Reply
  • ggeeoorrggee
    t3t4 said:
    "Shrapnel"?
    Uhhh, looks an awful lot like the entry of a bullet to me.... Ya know, from a "gun". But even a.22 cal will make it through that laptop no problem, so unless Apple is making pure tungsten keyboards now wrapped in Kevlar, I find it very hard to believe there's no exit wound! But, stranger things have happened I suppose.
    Close up, the hole is not evenly circular. However at sufficient velocity and randomly small projectile shape — almost certainly in this case — the deformation of the target is way more dependent on the target material and uniformity rather than projectile shape.

    Also modern fragmentation devices are “fragmentation” not because of the exterior but rather the purpose-built payload of antipersonnel balls and flechettes embedded inside which resemble ball bearings and metal darts.
    Reply