Lightly armored vehicles and stationary objects are often the target of attacks by hollow-charge projectiles. Numerous variants of armor plating have been developed to counter such attacks, which results in additional loads, and these require expensive production. A light protective layer (1) which is simple to produce contains rods (3) arranged in a matrix, which project out from the object to be protected. If a corresponding hollow-charge projectile hits such a protective layer (1), the front nose (101) thereof is damaged, so that in most cases the initiation of the hollow charge does not occur. Preferably the rods (3) are covered externally by polymer layers (9, 10) and additionally a crumple layer (8) is attached in front of the object to be protected.