Abstract: To study the protection properties of sandwich panels with aluminum honeycomb core, ballistic impact tests were carried out. Effects of several key parameters, such as impact velocity, skin thickness, core density and projectile shapes, on the energy absorption and the ballistic limit were analyzed. The results showed that the aluminum honeycomb core could improve the ballistic limit of sandwich panels effectively and the protection from higher impact velocity. Moreover, under the same impact velocity, the energy absorption for the flat-nosed projectiles was found lower than that for the hemispherical and conical-nosed projectile.